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Impossible Creatures · Book Three

The Neverfear

Set sail for the Glimouria Archipelago

by Katherine Rundell · #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

27th August 2026 Disney 5-Film Adaptation Waterstones Book of the Year

Masked bandits, kidnapping, daring quests... the race is on. The Midsummer Feast on the Islet of Glimt should be a night of celebration, but reports of masked men setting villages ablaze are sweeping across the Glimouria Archipelago. When Christopher and Anya are ambushed and someone they hold dear is taken from them, the stakes have never been higher. With Anya Argen, former Princess of Dousha, Ratwin the ratatoska and Jacques the Jaculus dragon at his side, Christopher boards the Neverfear on a voyage to reclaim three priceless treasures. Giants, a perilous race, and ruthless enemies stand between them and the people they are desperate to save.

The Complete Impossible Creatures Series

1
Impossible Creatures
2023
2
The Poisoned King
2025
3
The Neverfear
2026
4
Book Four
TBA
5
Book Five
TBA

More from Katherine Rundell

Beyond the Archipelago

Before the Impossible Creatures saga and the Disney deal, Katherine Rundell built a body of work that has been translated into more than forty languages and won the Waterstones Book of the Year, the Costa Children's Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Here are her other novels and books worth knowing.

Novel · 2013
Rooftoppers
Waterstones Children's Book of the Year 2014

A shipwreck, a cello case and a girl named Sophie searching the rooftops of Paris for her lost mother.

Novel · 2015
The Wolf Wilder
Russian wilderness adventure

Feo and her mother train tame wolves to be wild again, until soldiers come for them and Feo runs.

Novel · 2017
The Explorer
Costa Children's Book Award winner

Four children survive a plane crash deep in the Amazon and discover a hidden city.

Novel · 2019
The Good Thieves
Foyles Children's Book of the Year

Prohibition-era New York, a stolen castle, and a heist pulled off by four unlikely children.

Novel · 2011
The Girl Savage
Also published as Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms

Wilhelmina's wild Zimbabwean childhood collides with the cold reality of an English boarding school.

Picture Book · 2022
The Zebra's Great Escape
Illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

A picture-book adventure about Mink, a runaway zebra and a string of stolen animals to set free.

Novella · 2021
Skysteppers
A Rooftoppers companion story

A short return to the Paris rooftops, written for World Book Day with the same cast Rundell readers love.

Picture Book · 2017
One Christmas Wish
Illustrated by Emily Sutton

A lonely boy makes a Christmas Eve wish and four old tree decorations come stumbling to life.

Companion · 2018
Into the Jungle
Origin stories for Kipling's Jungle Book

Estate-approved tales filling in the lives of Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and Shere Khan before the classic.

Non-Fiction · 2019
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Essay

A short, fierce defence of children's literature as serious art, by one of its most acclaimed practitioners.

Non-Fiction · 2022
The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure
Illustrated by Talya Baldwin

A bestiary of endangered creatures from seahorses to lemurs, told as a love letter to the wild.

Non-Fiction · 2022
Super-Infinite
Baillie Gifford Prize winner · on John Donne

Rundell's prize-winning biography of the Renaissance poet who lived a dozen lives in one.

Impossible Creatures

Book One · 2023 · Waterstones Book of the Year

★★★★★

Christopher has always known there's something different about him. When he discovers the Archipelago - a hidden world where mythical creatures are real - he meets Mal, a fierce girl who rides a flying sphinx.

Together they uncover a terrifying threat that could destroy both their worlds. The first book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that launched a phenomenon.

The Poisoned King

Book Two · 2025

★★★★★

Christopher and Mal return to the Archipelago to face an ancient evil. The Poisoned King has risen, and with him comes a darkness that threatens to consume everything they love.

With new creatures, deeper mysteries, and higher stakes, the second instalment proves why this series has captured the hearts of millions worldwide.

The Neverfear

Book Three · 27th August 2026 · Pre-Order Now

The Midsummer Feast on the Islet of Glimt should be an evening of wonder, but something dark is stirring across the Glimouria Archipelago. Masked figures are torching villages, and before the night is through, Christopher and Anya find themselves under attack. Someone they hold dear is snatched away, and suddenly everything changes.

Alongside Anya Argen, the former Princess of Dousha, the ever-loyal Ratwin the ratatoska, and Jacques the Jaculus dragon, Christopher sets sail aboard the Neverfear to hunt down three priceless treasures. Their journey will pit them against towering giants, a high-stakes race across treacherous waters, and enemies who will stop at nothing. The only thing that matters is bringing home the people they love.

Pre-order from Waterstones →

Rooftoppers

Novel · 2013 · Waterstones Children's Book of the Year 2014

Sophie was found floating in a cello case in the English Channel, the only survivor of a shipwreck. Years later, when authorities try to take her away from her unconventional guardian Charles, the pair flee to Paris in search of her mother, who Sophie is convinced is still alive.

Up on the rooftops of Paris, Sophie meets a community of children who have made the city's chimneys and slate tiles their home. Often cited as the book that put Katherine Rundell on the map, Rooftoppers is part adventure, part fairy tale, and a rallying cry for hope.

The Wolf Wilder

Novel · 2015

In the snowy forests of pre-revolutionary Russia, Feo and her mother do an unusual job. They take in tame wolves that bored aristocrats can no longer keep, and teach them to be wild again. When Feo's mother is arrested by a cruel general, Feo sets off across the frozen wilderness with three wolves at her side to bring her home.

A book about loyalty, courage, and the quiet rebellion of refusing to be tamed.

The Explorer

Novel · 2017 · Costa Children's Book Award winner

Fred, Con, Lila and Max are flying home from Manaus when their tiny plane crashes deep in the Amazon. The pilot does not survive. Alone in the rainforest, the four children have to find food, shelter and a way out. Fred discovers a hand-drawn map that leads them deeper still, to a ruined city, and to a stranger who has been hiding there for years.

Lush, gripping and full of practical jungle lore, this won the Costa Children's Book Award and remains one of Rundell's most beloved survival stories.

The Good Thieves

Novel · 2019 · Foyles Children's Book of the Year

Vita arrives in Prohibition-era New York to find that her grandfather has been swindled out of his ancestral home, a castle perched above the Hudson, by a ruthless conman. Vita decides to steal it back. To do it, she will need a circus pickpocket, a boy who can scale skyscrapers, and a young animal trainer with a raccoon in his pocket.

A heist novel for younger readers, written with the verve of an old caper film.

The Girl Savage

Novel · 2011 · Also published as Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms

Wilhelmina Silver lives a half-wild life on a Zimbabwean farm with her father, her horse and her best friend. When her world collapses, she is sent to a strict English boarding school where the rules and the girls are equally cruel. Will runs away, and the streets of London turn out to be every bit as wild as the African plains.

Rundell's debut, drawn from her own childhood in Africa, and the book that introduced readers to the voice that would later write Rooftoppers and Impossible Creatures.

The Zebra's Great Escape

Picture Book · 2022 · Illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

Mink does not believe in rules. So when a small zebra called Gabriel comes thundering down her London street, the pair quickly become friends, and Mink learns that a whole menagerie of stolen animals is being held by the wicked Mr Spit. With the help of a magical wind, Mink sets out to set them all free.

Rundell's first picture book, illustrated in vivid colour by Sara Ogilvie, made for reading aloud with younger children.

Skysteppers

Novella · 2021 · A Rooftoppers companion

A short return to the Paris rooftops written for World Book Day. Rundell revisits the world and characters of Rooftoppers in a quick, lyrical adventure, perfect for readers who want a taste of her style or a way back into Sophie's world.

One Christmas Wish

Picture Book · 2017 · Illustrated by Emily Sutton

It is Christmas Eve and Theo is alone. He makes a wish on a shooting star, and four old decorations on the family Christmas tree, a tin soldier, a rocking horse, an angel and a robin, come tumbling to life and into the snow. Theo and his unlikely companions set out across a wintry landscape on a quest of their own.

A gentle, wintery picture book with all of Rundell's characteristic warmth.

Into the Jungle

Companion · 2018 · Kipling estate-approved

A set of connected stories filling in the lives of the characters from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. How Mowgli's wolves first found him. How Bagheera came to know cages. How Shere Khan grew bitter. Each story can stand alone, and together they form a warm, witty companion volume to the original.

Approved by the Kipling estate and illustrated throughout, often slipped into the picture-book end of Rundell's catalogue.

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise

Non-Fiction · 2019 · Essay

A short and combative essay from Rundell making the case that children's literature is some of the most serious, most ambitious writing being produced today, and that adults who have left it behind have lost something important. Reads in an evening, lingers for a lot longer.

The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure

Non-Fiction · 2022 · Illustrated by Talya Baldwin

A bestiary of endangered creatures, from the iridescent golden mole that no scientist has photographed alive, to seahorses, pangolins, lemurs and wood frogs. Each chapter is a short, lyrical portrait of a species on the edge of vanishing, and a quiet argument for paying attention before they go.

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2022 and one of Rundell's most personal works.

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

Non-Fiction · 2022 · Baillie Gifford Prize winner

Rundell's prize-winning biography of the Renaissance poet John Donne. Sea adventurer, lawyer, Member of Parliament, prisoner, priest, and arguably the greatest love poet in the English language: Donne was incapable of being just one thing. Rundell brings all of him to the page with the same vivid prose her younger readers know her for.

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2022, and the book that established Rundell as one of the foremost biographers of her generation.