Absolute Midnight: Book 3 (Books of Abarat) - Softcover

Barker, Clive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007100485 ISBN 13: 9780007100484

Publisher: HarperVoyager, 2012

Synopsis

A dazzling fantasy adventure for all ages, the third part of a quintet, richly illustrated by the author.

The Abarat:a magical otherworld composed on an archipelago of twenty-five islands – one for each hour of the day, plus an island out of time.

Candy Quackenbush, escaping her dull, dull life from the most boring place in our world, Chickentown, USA, finds that in the Abarat she has another existence entirely, one which links her to marvels and mysteries; and even to murder...

In this, the third volume in Clive Barker's extraordinary fantasy for both adults and children, Candy's adventures in the amazing world of the Abarat are getting more strange by the Hour. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has sent his henchmen to capture her. Why? she wonders. What would Carrion want with a girl from Minnesota? And why is Candy beginning to feel that the world of the Abarat is familiar to her? Why can she speak words of magic she doesn't even remember learning?

There is a mystery here. And Carrion, along with his fiendish grandmother, Mater Motley, suspects that whatever Candy is, she could spoil his plans to take control of the Abarat.

Now Candy's companions must race against time to save her from the clutches of Carrion, and she must solve the mystery of her past before the forces of Night and Day clash and Absolute Midnight descends upon the islands.

A final war is about to begin. And Candy is going to need to make some choices that will change her life forever...

About this title

Review:

Praise for ABARAT III: Absolute Midnight illustrated hardback edition:

“True moments of terror vie for attention with the flora and fauna of Abarat ... All in all, fans will revel” – Kirkus Book Reviews

“Readers will agree with Candy: ‘So much still to do: to explore, to solve, to feel.’” – Booklist

Praise for ABARAT I illustrated hardback edition:

“ABARAT is more than just a new and major contender. It is (like his earlier book, THE THIEF OF ALWAYS) full of a level of beautiful terror that children are still just able to bear”
Independent

“Always creating and always pushing into the furthest reaches of the human mind, he is an artist in every sense of the word. He is the great imaginer of our time”
Quentin Tarantino

From the Back Cover:

“I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour,” Mater Motley said, using that voice that, though it was barely conversational in volume, was somehow heard everywhere. “The waiting is over. Tomorrow there will be no dawn. Only midnight, absolute and eternal.”

And so begins a new chapter in the epic story of sixteen-year-old Candy Quackenbush and her journeys through the world of the Abarat, where every hour is an island in one eternal day, and nothing is as it seems.

Candy travels through the Abarat from island to island and across the sea with an unlikely band of friends: the escaped prisoner Malingo the Geshrat, the quarrelsome John Brothers, who all share the same body but never the same opinion, and the many other colorful characters they meet along the way.

The problem is that trouble finds Candy wherever she goes. And soon she discovers a secret plot, masterminded by the diabolical Mater Motley, who is obsessed with becoming Empress of the Islands. Her method is simple. She will darken the skies, putting out the suns, moons, and stars. She will bring absolute midnight.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperVoyager
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0007100485
• ISBN 13: 9780007100484
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624