AustLit

'After being abandoned by their thespian parents one afternoon while playing their weekly family game of hide-and-seek, Whimsy and Woe Mordaunt are left in the care of their austere Aunt Apoline.

'Forced to work in her boarding house, looking after the guests, sharpening the thorns of every plant in the poisonous plant garden and listening to off-key renditions of 'Fish Are Friends Too' - an aria made famous by the legendary Magnus Montgomery - Whimsy and Woe lose all hope that their parents will someday return. Until one day, quite by accident, the siblings stumble upon a half-charred letter that sets them on a course to freedom and finding their parents.

'Dark, funny, darkly funny and funnily dark, Whimsy & Woe takes readers on an adventure with two intrepid siblings in a tale of mischief, monocles, mice and mist. ' (Publication summary)
 

'As a blazing inferno rages through Whitby City, Whimsy and Woe Mordaunt see their last clue go up in flames and their journey to find their parents has seemingly come to a fiery end. That is until the siblings spot a very familiar man in the crowd . . .

'In the final act to this dramatic tale, Whimsy and Woe must escape villainous thieves, travel beneath a desert, climb the Mountainous Mountains and perform a death-defying trapeze act in the Benton Brothers Circus . . . all before going undercover at the annual Thespian Society Masquerade Ball.

'Can they stop The Purple Puppeteer's evil plans in time and rescue their parents? Or will The Purple Puppeteer pull their family's strings forever?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.