Nearly twenty years after the city of Anchorage settled down on the shores of the Dead Continent of America, Tom and Hester are leading quiet, peaceful lives. Their wild adventures happened so long ago that they seem like little more than stories told to children -- children such as their own daughter, Wren, who is so exquisitely bored that she'd welcome any sort of excitement. . . .
So when a trio of Lost Boys asks her to steal the mysterious and deadly Tin Book of Anchorage, Wren is only too happy to help. But the theft goes wrong, and the Lost Boys steal Wren, too, leaving Tom and Hester no choice: They must abandon their peaceful life and rescue their daughter. Their search will reunite them with enemies they thought they'd left behind forever, will ask of them sacrifices that no parent can make, and will cost one of them everything that matters most.
Philip Reevewas born in Brighton, England. Inspired by the Asterix and Tintin books he loved as a boy, he became a cartoonist and, many years later, the illustrator of several highly successful children's book series in the United Kingdom. He has been writing since he was five, but mortal engines, the first book in the Hungry City Chronicles, was his first published novel. He has since followed that with Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, and the Victorian space opera Larklight. Mr. Reeve lives on Dartmoor with his wife, Sarah, and their son, Samuel.