Crystal Mask (Echorium Sequence, #2)

BOOK 2 OF THE AWARD-WINNING ECHORIUM SEQUENCE. The Echorium's enemies have been quiet for a generation, licking their wounds after the events of Song Quest. But now a new threat is emerging deep within the Mountains of Midnight. Once again, the Singers must use their Songs of Power to restore harmony to their world. As one of the few novices who can hear half creatures, Renn reluctantly teams up with the wild girl Shaiala who can kick like a centaur. Forced to leave the safety of the Isle of Echoes on a dangerous mission to find the missing centaur foals, they must learn to work together against their common enemy. For in a land where the slightest whisper can bring down an avalanche, the Echorium's Songs alone will not be enough to defeat an evil that makes children and half creatures into slaves. Crystal Mask is the second adventure in the Echorium Sequence and continues the epic saga that began with the author's Branford Boase award winning novel Song Quest. "A novel marked by rapidly paced adventure, fierce and costly fights, startling revelations and cataclysmic set pieces." Times Educational Supplement. "The kind of book where the more you read, the more you feel involved." Financial Times. "Reminiscent of Tamora Pierce's Immortals... this book should appeal to the same audience." Voice of Youth Advocates. There are currently three titles in the Echorium Sequence: SONG QUEST, CRYSTAL MASK and DARK QUETZAL. First published by Chicken House in the UK and Scholastic in the US, these full-length fantasy novels can be enjoyed by teens and adult genre fans.

Katherine Roberts grew up in the southwest of England, where her first fantasy stories were told to her little brother at bedtime. She graduated in mathematics from the University of Bath, after which she worked for the General Electric Company, and later for an American company developing business models for petrol stations. When redundancy struck in 1989, she fulfilled her childhood dream of working with horses in a National Hunt racing yard, writing in her spare time.
After several years of writing short fantasy and horror stories for genre magazines, her first book Song Quest won the 2000 Branford Boase Award for best debut novel for young readers, kick-starting her career as an author. Her books have been published by HarperCollins, Chicken House and Scholastic US, and translated into 12 languages worldwide - one of them even hit the bestseller list in Taiwan. Her latest series for young readers, The Pendragon Legacy about King Arthur's daughter, is published in the UK by Templar Books.
Away from her computer, Katherine enjoys folk music, cycling, skiing, and horse riding holidays. She has flown a glider solo and scared herself silly doing aerobatics in a small plane. All of these experiences eventually find their way into her books - though sometimes the horse becomes a unicorn, and the plane becomes a dragon!