East to Adonia

Mercator has always had a mysterious, almost magical ability to draw maps. Whether he’s been there or not, Mercator can draw a map of anything from the vast stretches of Siberia to the corners of his sister’s closet. So, when his crazy uncle gives Mercator an old mapping kit for his twelfth birthday, nothing seems amiss. Until that night, when Mercator draws an island he doesn’t recognize in a land he’s never heard of before. Within moments, Mercator finds himself falling headfirst into the map, landing right in the middle of the field he was just drawing, being approached by a headstrong princess and her talking horse. Things couldn’t get much stranger—or so he thinks. Before long, Mercator is accidentally kidnapped along with Princess Joni, and the two find themselves in a desperate race for freedom. Without his mapping ability, the two wouldn’t be able to find the secret passages that lead them out of the castle they’re being held in. But nothing can prepare Mercator for the rest of his adventure—from stealing horses to bartering with pirates and dodging cannonfire. The journey’s just begun, and the island of Adonia promises to be a place of more magic and mystery than even Mercator with all his wondrous abilities could begin to fathom. The question is, will Mercator survive long enough to discover how he got there—and how he can get back home? In her debut novel, Jenny Bellington introduces young readers to the world of Threa, where the people of Adonia have long lived in protected isolation from the world around them. Until now.