Celeste wakes up in a costume basket she was asleep
in to find she has been transported back in time.
Confused and mistaken for someone else, Celeste
discovers she is back in the 1870s and in the Royal Opera House. She has vague
memories of a game called the reckoning and a mysterious old man dressed in an emerald green suit.
Celeste finds herself caught up in opera singer
Madame Sabina Petrova and her equally diva like daughter Hildegard’s antics.
Even worse, is the misconception everyone seems to have is that Celeste or
Maria as she has been called, is a great dancer and will be part of the night’s
performance.
Watching from the shadows, herself hardly a solid form is the real
Maria.
On stage, Celeste is captivated by the giant
chandelier that holds 750 candles shaped like a crystal galleon. It represents
the lives of the passengers from the ship Empress that simply vanished. The
chandelier is regarded as a creation of magnificence until it falls leaving
Celeste lying on the stage badly injured and barely alive.
Celeste
survives and becomes a celebrated performer who has the ability to project the
light captured from the chandelier and make herself invisible. But she is now
more aware than ever of the emerald green suited man who casts spells of
forgetfulness on his competitors in an effort to win the game.
It
is revealed that the game stems back to the legend about a drowning sailor who
in exchange for his soul and sight he would live to do the bidding of the great
white albatross. If there was a child aboard a ship that he took passengers
from he was obliged to play the reckoning game. It was his only chance to once
again walk on land – no one has ever beaten him.
With
the lives of the Empress passengers at risk, will Celeste beat him at his own
game? Can she discover his true identity and be able to return to the life she
once had?
Author
Sally Gardner weaves this magical story about parallel lives amidst a
mysterious challenge and a love of the theatre. This story will slowly pull the
reader in and they will not be able to put it down until the last page.
Title: Invisible In A Bright Light
Author: Sally Gardner
Publisher: Head of Zeus, $16.99
Publication
Date: 18
November 2019
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781789544848
For
ages: 10 - 14
Type: Middle Grade Fiction
