"Annabel Pickering" on this Week's "Best Middle Grade Fantasy Books" list!

At Reedsy Discovery

My fantasy novel, “Annabel Pickering and the Sky Pirates: The Fantastical Contraption” is featured on this week’s “Best Middle Grade Fantasy Books” list, over at Reedsy Discovery!

When I wrote “Annabel”, I was writing it with older children in mind: The “Harry Potter” age group. And of course, I look at all of those age groupings with an enormous grain of salt. There are more six year olds than you realize who are both ready for and interested in this kind of story, and likewise, a great many adults enjoy reading “middle-grade” fantasy stories. “Annabel” has gotten some great feedback both from children and young teens, as well as from adults, so if you’re the kind of adult who likes to read adventure fantasy, don’t let the “middle-grade” qualifier keep you away.

There are also – of course – strong political and philosophical themes in “Annabel”. But my hope is that those are more part of the background, and that the story and characters carry the show.

From the review on Reedsy:

If you had a chance to board an air ship that sailed the skies with pirates, would you jump at the idea or be fearful? Aren’t pirates supposed to follow a different code than most ‘normal’ law abiding citizens? It is this very reason that Miss Annabel Pickering finds herself among their company, and Shaffer certainly does make her journey fantastical!

As a thirteen-year-old girl, Annabel Pickering is far from perfect. She goes to school, she gets picked on, and she always avoids passing the spinster’s house on her way home for fear of even more torment from the mean girls. On one horrid day in particular, Annabel is on her way home when she sees men abducting her parents! Not knowing what she should do, her first instinct is to hide, but someone takes her from behind and drags her into a neighboring house before the men in black spot her. And to what house does she find herself holed up in…of course it’s the crazy old spinster’s house and her weird niece to boot! After some things are explained—but not much—Annabel must travel with pirates, escape the Queen’s Guard in a hotel, and forge friendships with those she would have never imagined in order to save her parents.

And yes, Book 2 is on the way! I’ll be posting more about that soon.