Winner of the 2024 Wales Book of the Year: Bute Energy Children’s and Young People Award

Who you are if you’ve never seen another face like yours? Where do you belong if you don’t know where your home is? What do you call yourself when others call you ‘freak’? How can you be brave when you are full of fear? Why would you choose purpose over love?

Skrimsli is the second fantasy adventure from author Nicola Davies set in a world where animals and humans can sometimes share their thoughts. It traces the early life of Skrimsli, the tiger sea captain who stole readers’ hearts in The Song that Sings Us. He and his friends, Owl and Kal, must escape the clutches of the tyrannical circus owner Kobret Majak, and his twin assassin-acrobats, then stop a war and save the ancient forest, where the Tiger, and the Owl are sacred guardians. Skrimsli and his friends are helped by the Palatine, desert princess and her eagle, a chihuahua who thinks she’s a wolf, a horse with heart of gold and the crew of a very unusual ship.

Nicola Davies returns with a story full of excitement and danger, that explores friendship, loyalty, identity and love, in the context of some of humanity’s toughest problems.