War in Hagwood

The war in Hagwood has begun. The ruthless Faerie Queen of Hallow Hill fights not only for her own immortality and her iron rule over Hagwood, but to serve her more far-reaching ambition: to conquer every corner of the known world. While the enchanted casket that holds the Queen’s mortal heart has been found, the golden key that can unlock it has been lost. If the Queen gains possession of the golden key, none will be able to oppose her.

The Queen’s dark armies rise up in battle against her long-exiled sister, joined together with the diminutive werlings against the forces of evil. Vastly outnumbered, they fight in hope of a miracle. Gamaliel, always the reluctant hero, is chosen for a special destiny, but at a cost. As lives are lost and a bloody battle rages, the question remains: Who will survive the war in Hagwood?

Robin Jarvis (b. 1963) spent most of his school years in art rooms. After a degree course in graphic design, he worked in television, making models and puppets. One evening, while doodling, he began inventing names and stories for his drawings, and thus began his writing career. His first book, The Dark Portal, book one of The Deptford Mice (1989), established Jarvis as a bestselling children’s author. Jarvis came up with the story for Thorn Ogres of Hagwood while on a forest hike, when he heard a racket up in the trees and saw two squirrels chasing each other. He suddenly thought that perhaps only one of them was a real squirrel and the other an imposter, and so the werling creatures were born. Jarvis has been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Smarties for The Dark Portal, and won the Lancashire Libraries Children’s Book of the Year Award. One of his trilogies, Tales from the Wyrd Museum, was on a list of books recommended by then–British Prime Minister Tony Blair for dads to read with their sons. He lives in Greenwich, London, and still makes model monsters, mostly on the computer.