'Charming, alarming, violent and strange, a cross between Treasure Island, The Railway Children and Deliverance'!
Patience and the Pyrate is the fifth and final volume of 'The Greatest Cape' series, and follows on from The Black Joke, The Bernadette, Rio Sagrado and Turnstone, continuing the saga of the Potts and Prettyfoot families.
The very decided Patience Potts and her friend Silmonella pursue pirates and fairies and get themselves into a nasty situation, while Patience's mother has problems of her own. At the school, one tiny teacher is touched by her pupils' attentions and another has a crisis of conscience. And on the railway, sinister events are in train (pun intended).
... there's a mysterious ship in the harbour. Oh no, not another one?
... what does Slingsby Sourdew get up to in the lavs at playtime?
... a schoolboy plans the Great Train Robbery for his classroom project ...
... two little girls find themselves in very deep water. With some sheep.
... and a couple of miles out of town, something very strange waits and watches ...
What readers have said about Patience and the Pyrate ...
"... the two little girls who are the main protagonists have raised childish prattle to a fine art, lunatic and slightly threatening", "... delightful and three-dimensional characters", "... both the story and the way it is told are endearingly daft. I loved it!".
A hefty, rollicking read that will delight and absorb adults who haven't lost their childish sense of adventure, and children who aren't afraid of a few long words. The four preceding novels in the series, The Black Joke, The Bernadette, Rio Sagrado and Turnstone are all available from Amazon.
About the Author: David Bramhall is a former musician and teacher, and something of an authority on the training of children's choirs. He founded and directed the award-winning Harmony Girls' Choir, and his book Training Your Young Choir sells slowly but steadily all over the world, as do two classroom text books on music. In 2012 he turned his attention to story-writing. He started The Black Joke in French Guyana, wrote most of it in Brazil, and finished it on a container ship across the Atlantic to Rotterdam. He says yes, thank you, he had a lovely time and that's all he wants to say except that Fenestra was quite annoying even while he was writing her. And in case anyone wonders, Urethra Grubb is definitely based on a real person ... but it's a secret. The Bernadette and Rio Sagrado were written on the Isle of Whithorn in south-west Scotland. It's not actually an island at all, although it feels like it. Very few people, lots of sheep, and constantly changing weather ... one day windy, the next day raining, the next rainy and windy ... you get the idea. Excellent for writing; the temptation to get up and go for a walk is so easy to resist! Turnstone was written in a cottage in North Devon, just for a change. Very few people, lots of sheep, and constantly changing weather ... one day windy, the next day ... need we go on? Patience and the Pyrate was written in deepest Cardiganshire (which is pretty deep, trust us) and the weather was actually rather nice. He lives in the East of England with his wife, also a musician, and plays with historic steam locomotives in his spare time.
