Shortlisted for the 2015 UKLA Book Awards 12-16 years A gripping mystery-adventure set in the 1930s interwar period about a character desperately searching for his identity.
Raised by a strange nanny in Sicily, Vango grows up with one friend, a priest Zefiro, who lives in a monastery hidden from sight. On reaching adulthood, Vango decides to follow in Zefiro's steps, but at the moment he is taking his holy orders at Notre Dame in Paris, he is falsely accused of a crime and has to go on the run. This is a breathless and highly cinematic story that follows Vango travelling by Zeppelin across Europe from Stromboli to Nazi Germany, from Scotland to the Soviet Union, climbing the rooftops of Paris, crossing the paths of arms traffickers, crooked policemen, Russian spies and even Stalin.
Timothée de Fombelle is a much-admired French playwright, as well as the author of award-winning fiction. His first series, Toby Alone and Toby Alone and the Secrets of the Tree has been printed in 27 languages and has won numerous awards including France’s prestigious Prix Sorcières and the Marsh Award. Timothée's adventure series, Vango, Book One: Between Sky and Earth and Vango, Book Two: A Prince Without a Kingdomreceived huge critical acclaim, and book one was granted an English Pen Award for translation. Timothee also contributed to the acclaimed collection The Great War: an Anthology of Stories Inspired by Objects from the First World War.
