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Lian Tanner
Kinder- Grade 6
Tasmania

Please note: Lian is fully booked for Book Week 2024. However does have availability in the weeks around it.

Lian Tanner is the best-selling author of the Keepers trilogy, A Clue for Clara, Rita’s Revenge, and picture book Ella and the Ocean (illustrated by Jonathan Bentley). Her books have been translated into eleven languages, and have won two Aurealis Awards for Best Australian Children’s Fantasy, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award, a Tasmanian Literary Award, a Sisters-in-Crime Davitt Award for Best Children’s Crime Novel, and the Russell Prize for Humour Writing for Young People.

Books by Lian Tanner

COMING SOON! When the Lights Went Out

Best Suited 4-7 Years
The night was frosty dark but we were snug and cosy in the kitchen. Then SNAP! The lights went out.

In the dark of night, a neighbourhood becomes a new country to explore, and an ordinary winter evening turns into a family adventure.

A Dragons of Hallow Book 1: Spellhound

Best Suited 7-11 Years
There are Three Great Secrets in Hallow, a country that loves secrets almost as much as it loves green jellybabies. No, I’m not going to tell you anything more about them. I am a loyal citizen of Hallow, and would never betray-
Oh, you have jellybabies?
Green ones?
Well, I suppose I could tell you a little more.
Come closer. Open your ears and your heart, and pass the green jellybabies.
I will tell you a story about an enormous magical pup, a child Queen and a very small minch-wiggin with the unfortunate title of Destroyer-of-Dragons.

A Dragons of Hallow Book 2: Fledgewitch

Best Suited 7-11 Years
Ten-year-old Brim has been sent to the Quillian School for Prevention of Witches, but she’s sure it’s a mistake. It’s true that she has tiny feathers sprouting from her elbows, and that she’s the only person who remembers the odd-looking calf that has been following her. But she is most definitely Not a Witch.

Meanwhile, Queen Rose of Hallow has received reports of a secret weapon in the mountains of Quill, and goes to investigate. Alone. Luckily, she’s not just a twelve-year-old girl with red hair and a wilful nature. She is also a dragon.

Before long, Rose and Brim find themselves trapped in Quill, in the worst possible danger. Just a witch, a dragon and a LOT of secrets.

Rita’s Revenge

Best Suited 8 – 12 years old
The ducks of Little Dismal are angry. A scruffy chicken called Clara has been telling lies about them. They need revenge.
Enter Rita – a duck with the soul of a poet. After an embarrassing talent night, Rita sees revenge on Clara as a chance to restore her reputation.
But Rita finds more than revenge on her mission. She uncovers a dastardly plan to chook-nap the clever chicken that will take them both a long way from home.
Luckily, it’s Rita’s unlikely friendship with a small human and the help of some street-smart birds that just might save the day and inspire an epic poem!

A Clue for Clara

Best Suited for 8 – 12 years
Clara wants to be a famous detective with her own TV show. She can read claw marks, find missing feathers and knows morse code and semaphore.

There’s just one problem. She’s a small scruffy chook, and no one takes her seriously.

But when she teams up with Olive, the daughter of the local policeman, they might just be able to solve the crimes that have been troubling the town of Little Dismal.

Ella and the Ocean

Best Suited for 4+ years
Ella lived in the red-dirt country

where the earth was as dry as old bones
and it hadn’t rained
for years
and years
and years.
One night, Ella dreamt of the ocean…

The Keepers 1: Museum of Thieves

Best suited for 9 – 13 years
Goldie Roth lives in the city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is a crime. But Goldie is both bold and impatient. She runs away to the mysterious Museum of Dunt, where she meets a boy named Toadspit and discovers dangerous secrets. A monstrous brizzlehound stalks the museum’s corridors, and only a thief can find the way through its strange, shifting rooms.

Goldie and Toadspit have a talent for thieving. Which is just as well, because the treacherous Fugleman has his own plans for the museum, plans that threaten the lives of everyone Goldie loves. And it will take a very bold thief to stop him.

The Keepers 2: City of Lies

Best suited for 9 – 13 years
Goldie Roth is a trained thief and a skilful liar. She’s supposed to be one of the keepers of the mysterious Museum of Dunt, along with her friend Toadspit. But although she desperately wants to be a keeper, her parents are ill and she will not leave them. Then Toadspit’s sister Bonnie is stolen, and Goldie is forced into action. She and Toadspit follow the child-stealers to the neighbouring city of Spoke. Along the way, Toadspit is also captured, and Goldie discovers some dangerous secrets – secrets that the child-stealers will kill to protect. She will need all her skills as a thief and a liar if she is to survive and save her friends. But survive she must. Because the Fugleman has returned to Jewel, and the Fifth Keeper will soon be needed more than ever .

The Keepers 3: The Path of Beasts

Best suited for 9 – 13 years
When Goldie, Toadspit and Bonnie steal into Jewel in the middle of the night they find their city under the heel of the Fugleman, and the streets controlled by the Blessed Guardians and an army of ruthless mercenaries. The Museum itself is seething with danger, and only the older Keepers prevent it from spilling out into the city. Goldie, Toadspit and Bonnie must use all their clever tricks and hard-won bravery to undermine the Fugleman’s brutal regime before he rounds up the children of Jewel and sells them into slavery.

In order to stop the bombardment of the museum, save the children and defeat the Fugleman once and for all, Goldie must walk the Beast Road, an ancient pathway deep inside the museum, a pathway so secret and perilous that no one has ever returned from it. And according to the old stories, she can take only two companions, and they must be mortal enemies .

The Hidden 1: Ice Breaker

Best suited for 9 – 13 years
Twelve-year-old Petrel is an outcast, the lowest of the low on an ancient icebreaker that has been following the same course for three hundred years. In that time, the ship’s crew has forgotten its original purpose and broken into three warring tribes, the Cooks, the Officers and the Engineers. Everyone has a tribe except Petrel, whose parents committed such a terrible crime that they were thrown overboard, and their daughter ostracised. But Petrel is a survivor. She lives in the dark corners of the ship, trusting no one, speaking to no one except two large grey rats, Mister Smoke and Missus Slink. That is, until a boy is discovered, frozen on an iceberg, and brought onto the ship. No one knows where he has come from, and when he recovers consciousness he claims to have forgotten even his name. The tribes don’t trust strangers; they haven’t seen one for three hundred years. But Petrel saves him and hides him away in the forgotten corners of the ship, hoping he will be her friend. What she doesn’t know is that for the last three hundred years, the ship has been guarding a secret. A secret that could change the world. A secret that the boy has been sent to destroy, along with the ship and everyone on it.

The Hidden 2: Sunker’s Deep

Best suited for 9 – 13 years
Sharkey was born on a fortunate tide, and everyone on the giant submersible Rampart knows it. He’s a hero, a future admiral, beloved by the ancestors. The trouble is, it’s all based on a lie, and now Sharkey is thirteen, the whole thing has begun to fall apart. He’s been a fake hero for years, but when tragedy strikes, he must become a real one. And he has no idea how to go about it.

Meanwhile above water, Petrel, Fin and the crew of the Oyster are on a mission to defeat the Devouts and bring knowledge back to the world, a mission they have no idea how to carry out. When the Captain of the Oyster comes up with a plan, Fin and Petrel have no choice but to accompany him – no matter how ridiculous or how dangerous the plan seems.

Can the Sunkers and the Ice Breakers put aside their differences and work together? Or will the Devouts finally catch up with them all?

The Hidden 3: Fetcher’s Song

Best Suited 9-13 Years
The verses dried up in Gwin’s mouth. Papa put down his fiddle. Nat looked defiant, though he was trembling, too.

One by one, three wild mountain men stepped off the rope ladder and into the cave.

Gwin is a Fetcher. With her papa and twin brother, Nat, she travels West Norn, bringing joy to its downtrodden people through song and story. But ever since Mama died, it’s been hard to keep the joy alive.

Proud and defiant, Fetchers have always been hunted by the Devouts for preserving the old ways. So when devious Brother Poosk captures Papa, Gwin must rescue him – whatever the cost.

Meanwhile, the Oyster’s crew and the Sunkers lay siege to the Citadel. But without their Sleeping Captain, can they ever win against the ruthless Devouts? Can Petrel, Fin, Sharkey and Rain ever bring light back to such a dark world?

 

The Rogues 1: Accidental Heroes

Best suited 9+ Years
In the city, strange things happen. People disappear, trees sprout overnight. But no one believes in magic. No, to believe in magic would be disloyal…

The devious Lord Rump and his granddaughter, Duckling, need a disposable boy, and Pummel, a farm boy looking for work in the city, fits the bill perfectly. Duckling is happy to tangle him in her grandpa’s web, as long as Grandpa keeps his promise – that this is his very last Scheme.

Lord Rump’s machinations take both children into the Strong-hold of Berren – where time has stopped and no one can leave – and before long they are entwined in a plot to kill the heir to the Faithful Throne.

If they want to protect the Young Margrave, and save themselves from an awful death, Duckling and Pummel must learn to use the magic that no one else believes in.

The Rogues 2: Secret Guardians

Best Suited for 9+ years
Duckling and Pummel are trying to take the Young Margrave to a place of safety, far away from the dreadful Harshman. But they have enemies they don’t know about, and all too soon they find themselves captured and taken to the salt mines, where slaves work night and day until they die. Their witchery should save them – but their witchery has gone, vanished. How will they get it back? Is the girl Sooli their friend or their enemy? And why is Otte’s chicken behaving so strangely? Meanwhile, the Harshman has broken out of the Strong-hold, and is on their trail…

The Rogues 3: Haunted Warriors

Best Suited for 9+ years
Having escaped the salt mines, Duckling, Pummel, Sooli and Otte return to the Strong-hold to find out who is responsible for raising the murderous Harshman. But with Grafine von Eisen ruling as Regent, all that awaits them is the dungeon and the executioner’s axe.

The children must hide in the Strong-hold’s stone walls, while Sooli walks the path of death, searching desperately for clues. And when the Harshman arrives, turning friends and allies against each other, time is running out.
With no one on their side but a cat, a ghost, and a chicken who has forgotten her true identity, the children must use all their wits – and all their magic – to defeat the Harshman before he becomes unstoppable.

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