The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe by Karen Foxlee

Title: The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe

Author: Karen Foxlee

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 18^th November 2025

Format: Hardback

Pages: 400

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: An inventive and playful fantasy-adventure about an abandoned girl, a friendly ogress and a terrible curse from the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of Dragon Skin and Lenny’s Book of Everything.

‘A fabulous magical quest, strange and wonderful.’ Judith Rossell, bestselling author of The Midwatch

Lavender Wolfe is a clapperdudgeon and pickpurse, with a magical secret. She is all alone on a wharf when she is snatched by Big Agatha and thrown into the galley of a pirate ship, The Good Marchioness.

Disguised as a boy (for only boys may live in the galley) and renamed Hans Whitby, Lavender has to make her home among the kitchen rats. However, The Good Marchioness is no ordinary ship. Captained by Odyessia Pleasant, a fierce pirate with long blonde hair, violet eyes and a bird’s wing in place of an arm, the crew are on a desperate voyage – to find and return stolen treasure before all those who sail within the cursed pirate ship are turned to sand. Lavender included.

Lavender is quick-witted and sharp as a tack, and as her magic starts to be revealed she finds herself coming under the arresting gaze of Captain Pleasant. Will Lavender help break the curse? Or will she be just another victim of this story within a story, her true identity lost to the sands of time?

An adventure as big as the ocean and as warm as your heart. All aboard!

Perfect for:
– Independent readers aged 9+ who love magic and adventure
– Parents, teachers and librarians looking for imaginative middle-grade fiction
– Fans of bestselling series such as Nevermoor and the Jane Doe Chronicles

~*~

Adventures on the ocean seem to be popular themes at the moment, and Karen Foxlee’s latest book is no exception. The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe is a fantastic journey with magic and pirates that begins with an abduction. Every kitchen rat is a boy or told they’re a boy and given a boy’s name. And they only have until the end of the seventh year to find and return stolen treasure. Or, be turned into sand. It’s 1719, but the world is magical. All the places are the same, and there are stories about them, and stories about stories all tinged with magic. Lavendar is waiting on the steps of Whitby when she’s taken onto The Good Marchioness by Big Agatha, who says that all children have magic within them. Lavender’s new life as Hans on the pirate ship begins in the galley, where there are only boys allowed. Girls are pirates.

Lavender lives for months under her new name, Hans Whitby as they search for storms and lost princesses to break the spell the ship is under. If they don’t, the ship and all her crew will turn to sand at the end of seven years…and there’s only a few months left.

They’re all being led by Captain Odysseia Pleasant on the cursed ship, sailing to new lands and trying to capture winds to return the stolen treasures.  But it raises questions about what has really been stolen, and who has been stolen. And every time a rat goes above decks, something happens and Lavender starts losing her friends, like she’s lost her mother. The world is imbued with magic and history as they journey across the seas. They all have secrets as well; all have a link to the stories-within-stories-within stories that are a huge part of the story.

Curses are a big part of stories with magic, and they’re often key in middle grade stories. This one brings them together with pirates and history, ensuring a rollicking adventure that rolls across the waves with a lyrical nature. It’s imbued with the nature and gentility of Karen Foxlee’s previous books and brings history and magic together effectively. The world Lavender lives in comes to life as it moves along, and the pace ensures that nothing is solved too quickly. Readers are constantly wondering if things will work out and how they will work out. Everything in this book is used cleverly to create a magical world within the real world of 1719, a time of piracy and ships, a time when transportation to colonies for crimes was present.

This delightful book is about friendship, journeys, and finding your family and where you belong in the world. Feeling like you don’t fit in is common, and this book has taken a group of people who don’t seem to fit in anywhere and makes them family. Makes them matter. It’s what drives the book along with the quest and magic, because it shows that found family is important. That it is the family we make for ourselves who can become the people we rely on. It is filled with heart and adventure, and the beauty of making something of the circumstances you might find yourself in. Knowing what you can do, what you are capable of is important in this book. I felt like everything came together well too, and made sense, as it was part of a magical world where anything was possible. Another beautiful book from Karen Foxlee.