All of Katherine Rundell’s books for young readers are excellent, but she is doing something truly special with Impossible Creatures. The Poisoned King is the second book in what is set to be a five-part series.

In Book 2, Christopher returns to the Archipelago, a hidden place of islands filled with creatures drawn from mythology. The dragons are dying for unknown reasons, and a princess needs help after the suspicious poisoning of her grandfather and threats to her life. 

The Poisoned King addresses the hoarding of wealth as a malignant pursuit and extinction is the big theme of the series. Rundell understands that the natural world is at risk, and so too is our great history of ideas and knowledge. The action is immediate, and intrigue stabs each page. Rundell pays great attention to the senses and writes fantasy that feels close enough to taste. With magnificent sophistication she has again packed so much into a slim, graspable book.

I recently read Super-Infinite, Rundell’s Baille-Gifford Prize-winning biography of John Donne. I found in her enthusiasm for the poet a perfect description of something I understood while reading Impossible Creatures and The Poisoned King: ‘He remained steadfast in his belief that we humans are at once a catastrophe and a miracle’. For ages 9+.