THIS GENTLE CONCORD
This Gentle Concord
Melissa Fairchild
UK & Commonwealth rights: Working Partners Ltd
US rights: Working Partners Ltd
German rights: Droemer
All other rights available
The second title in the Secrets of the Bridge Oracle Trilogy
Avi is living as a lodger with Hannah and her mother in the Mortal World, though odd happenings suggest that he’s perhaps not as free from the Faerie Realm as he thought. There has been a spate of unusual news stories about strange creatures popping up across London.
Durin and Roosevelt make an unexpected reappearance and tell Avi that Kellen is planning to open a permanent portal between worlds in Battersea by harnessing the power from Pixie wings on an industrial scale. If he succeeds, his dark magic could cause chaos. Avi doesn’t want to get involved, but the Oracle offers him a deal – if he helps them to tackle Kellen, they will help him to rescue his father from the Deopnes – the lost place between worlds.
With an escaped Pennapor – a creature from the Faerie Realm – at their side, Avi and Hannah meet McNemosyne the memory Muse again, and the Oracle. Avi’s captured by rogue Pixies, angered at Kellen’s treatment. Arethusa breaks him out and he is thrown back together with a mother he doesn’t trust. He also comes across his father’s sister, the shapeshifter Iritha. She gives her life to help Avi get to Fugit’s space-shrinking brother Blink, who is the key to escaping from the Deopnes. He won’t help though – he hates Arethusa. Avi goes to the Deopnes nonetheless; the world is shrinking as Kellen’s power grows. With Hannah’s telepathic powers, and the help of the Pennapor, they rescue his father Oren, and get out in the nick of time.
In a final showdown at Battersea, Avi and Hannah come across a monstrous engine for harnessing pixie power. They destroy it, just as the portal opens. In the Mortal world, shielded by the walls of the disused Battersea Power Station, the released pixies swarm over Kellen and kill him.
This series was created by Working Partners Ltd. Since 1995, Working Partners has created some of the most recognised series in children's fiction including Animal Ark, Heartland and, more recently, Rainbow Magic and Warriors. Rainbow Magic now has sales of five million copies in the UK and Commonwealth and translation rights have been licensed in seventeen territories. Animal Ark, now with its own Classics list in the UK, has sold over fifteen million copies worldwide.
In 2006 Working Partners Two was formed to develop book ideas and to establish a network of writers to emulate the children’s success in the arenas of adult and young adult fiction. Melissa Fairchild is a pen name.
