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From the very first page, Katherine Rundell pulls you into a world so vivid you can smell the salt air of the Archipelago. When Christopher discovers he's not quite as ordinary as he thought, and meets Mal (fierce, loyal, sphinx-riding Mal) something magical clicks into place.

This isn't just a children's book. It's a love letter to imagination, to the monsters we fear and the ones we befriend, to the wild corners of our hearts that never quite grew up. Rundell's prose is breathtaking. Lyrical without being precious, funny without undermining the stakes.

The world-building is extraordinary. Every island in the Archipelago feels real, every creature (from the terrifying to the absurd) is rendered with such care you'll find yourself googling whether phoenixes might actually exist. The friendship between Christopher and Mal is the beating heart of it all.

Waterstones Book of the Year was well-deserved. This is the start of something special.

Sequels are hard. Following up a Waterstones Book of the Year? Nearly impossible. And yet Rundell has done it. The Poisoned King is somehow even better than the first.

The stakes are higher, the creatures more wondrous, and Mal and Christopher's bond has deepened into something unshakeable. There's a darkness here that wasn't present before, an ancient evil stirring that genuinely made me nervous for characters I've grown to love.

Rundell expands the Archipelago in ways I didn't expect. New islands, new creatures, new corners of this impossible world, each more enchanting than the last. Her writing remains stunning: sentences you want to underline, metaphors that stop you mid-page.

But it's the emotional depth that elevates this. Themes of belonging, of fighting for what matters, of found family. All handled with such grace. I laughed, I teared up, I genuinely gasped at that ending.

If Disney gets this adaptation right, they have something truly special on their hands.