The Blood Stone

Proof copy. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 404. Cream printed wraps, in a promotional pictorial dustwrapper.

Young Venetian Filippo Veroneo travels to Afghanistan in the early 17th century to rescue his imprisoned father, Geronimo. On the way, he stops in India to raise the ransom by selling his father's diamond to Shah Jahan, who later uses the stone as the model for the Taj Mahal.

By the 2000 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award-winner for Coram Boy. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 2015, Gavin was thrice shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Gr. 7–10. "Like an expertly plotted tale out of Kipling... richly detailed." –The New York Times Book Review