Song of the Saltings  Rachael King

                                                                                                   

                                                                               

Song of the Saltings
Rachael King
Allen & Unwin
Novel
336 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 99100 665 3

 

 The main character in this marvellously-imagined novel is the isolated island of Brack. ‘Even the name lingers on your tongue like the musty taste of stagnant water.’

 Rachael King has drawn together the power of myth, the bleak truths of ancient folklore and the grim history of small, closed communities to create an utterly convincing story of a world where life seems a daily struggle for survival. Completely cut off from the rest of the world by a hostile ocean, most of the island folk live in the stone houses of the village built by their ancestors and survive by subsistence farming.   

 

The landscape bounded by cliffs and salt marshes dominates their lives, as the Prologue makes brutally clear:

‘Out, beyond the village, the moors are wide open spaces where the wind howls at you all year long and the ground wants to suck at your boots with every step. Where makeshift stone huts shelter lonely shepherds, where barrows house the bones of the ancient dead, and the lights from the bog lure weary night-time travellers to their death.’

 And you haven’t even started Chapter One yet!

 Sixteen-year-old Lotta, first encountered riding a horse across those moors, has a dramatic past. The Council, which rules the island, has a long tradition of an annual sacrifice of a child to the Glimm, a creature of the salt marshes. This ensures good harvests. Eight years earlier, however, Lotta had been chosen to be the victim but her pony sprang to protect her and the Grimm consumed it instead. Since then, the Council has ordained that a horse will be sacrificed instead of a child.

 

As a result, Lotta is regarded with a mixture of awe and suspicion, especially as recent storms have led to poor harvests. Some think she may be to blame.

 

Ironically, Lotta now works as a groom caring for the horses belonging to the Judge. The Judge heads the Council which oversees both the legal and spiritual lives of the islanders, operating in a cult-like manner. At weekly services the villagers are urged in sermons by the Judge to tithe their food and goods to the Council.  Sinister masked riders enforce the Council’s rule and punish miscreants.  

 

 Out on the moors, Lotta comes to the rescue of a horse which is sinking into a bog. Her rapport with horses enables her to get the horse free but at the same time Lotta becomes aware of a supernatural bond between herself and the land.

‘She can feel it through her feet; she can hear its song in her dreams.’

 

 The horse, named Hannah, belongs to Moss, a member of the reviled outcast group known as the Hidelings. Shunned because, in the past, they hid their children to avoid them being sacrificed to the Glimm. Now, Hidelings live out on the moors, gathering peat to sell for a living.

 

The relationship between Moss and Lotta gets off to a bumpy start partly because of her mixed feelings about Hidelings and partly because of Moss’s strong sense of the injustices laid upon his people.  They have to depend on each other when it seems there is a vindictive plan to make Hannah this year’s sacrifice. 

Together, Lotta and Moss have to venture into the forbidden northern reaches of the island where they make a series of deeply disturbing discoveries. But will they be able to use their knowledge to change the island’s way of life? Or will the forces ranged against them prove too powerful? Especially now that the Council is planning to re-introduce child sacrifice.

 

Rachael King has written a richly atmospheric supernatural thriller with special appeal for young adults. The characters are believable and the setting is fully realised. The supernatural theme is well handled and the action keeps the pages turning.

 

Reviewers are comparing this novel to works by Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising) and Alan Garner (The Owl Service). My preference would be for Margaret Mahy, except that Rachael King is rapidly putting herself in a class of her own..

 

Trevor Agnew

4 Aug 2026  [Review 3859.]

Violet and the Velvets: the Case of the Missing Stuff

 

 Violet and the Velvets:
the Case of the Missing Stuff                    

Rachael King
Ill. Phobe Morris
Allen & Unwin (2025)
Novel, 204 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 991006 98 1

 

‘We’ll wipe the floor with you.’

Violet Grumble, the narrator, is always ready to meet a challenge head-on. Take the BandChamps, for example. When she and her mother see how few girls take part in the local primary band competitions, Violet is determined things will be different this year. She wants more girls to be playing instruments.

 When too many volunteers turn up, it is Violet who solves the problem by suggesting they form two bands.  The unexpected result is that Violet finds herself bringing together a nervous band of unskilled players and inspiring them to perform and sing at competition level. The result is very stressful for Violet and very funny for her readers.

 The characters are all interesting. The teacher theoretically in charge is Mr Saunders, memorably described by Violet as ‘like a six-foot-four stick of bamboo bending in the wind.’ Experienced player and all-round gloater, Brayden soon has all the best players in his band, while Violet has the left-overs for Violet and the Velvets.  Lexie is shy and reads Nancy Drew all the time, Jack thinks music should be fun, Mo hopes a melodica is a cool instrument, Ruby-May is only interested in ponies, and Aggie thinks they should be called Aggie and the Velvets. Membership of the band becomes fluid as tempers flare and plots develop. Then, as the title puts it, their stuff starts to go missing.

‘Hey! Where are my drumsticks?’

‘You see?’ I say.‘First the bass strings, then the bass and now your drumsticks! Somebody is trying to sabotage us!’

What follows is a very funny account of Violet finding how to bring together a band of unskilled players and inspiring them to make music.

‘After all, you only need three chords to play a song … how hard can it be?’

 As the crucial final performance draws near, Violet and the Velvets, feel they have lost the contest but a cliffhanger ending sets them up for the second novel in the series, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost.

 The author, Rachael King, played bass in The Cakekitchen and five other bands, so she has used her own band experience to create a lively and convincing musical atmosphere. Her declared aim is to show girls that ‘they don’t have to be singers or proficient musicians to be in a band.’

 Phoebe Morris has provided lively illustrations, brilliantly bringing each of the characters to life. The design is by Kate Barraclough.

 

The lyrics of the hit song ‘Too Shy’ are provided at the end of the book. Or you can listen to a performance of it on Rachael King’s website: Violet and the Velvets - Rachael King

 

Awards:
Winner, Storylines Notable Book Award 2025
Shortlist: NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2025
 

Note: In July 2026, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost was shortlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling

Trevor Agnew [Review 3834]

  

Violet and the Velvets:
The Case of the Angry Ghost 
Rachael King    Phoebe Morris

 

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost
Rachael King Ill. Phoebe Morris
Allen and Unwin (2025)
Novel, paperback, 208 pages
ISBN 978 1 99100 699 8

 

‘You only need to know three chords to play a song.’

Violet Grumble, the self-confident, guitar-playing 12-year-old from Oakleaf Primary School has plenty of ambition for her euphoniously-named band, Violet and the Velvets. In the first book of the series, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff (2025), Violet and her friends solved the mystery of who was sabotaging their band’s efforts to get to the BandChamps, an inter-school contest.

Now, the Velvets are one of fifteen bands competing at the BandChamps national finals in the Royal Theatre (a craftily-disguised version of Christchurch’s historic Theatre Royal), which is packed with excited young musicians and their teachers.  When the excitement is interrupted by sinister whispers of ‘get out get get out’, rumours of the ghost of a ballerina spread among the bands.  Lexie (bass) is reading a Nancy Drew story about a haunting, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, so she urges the band to emulate Nancy Drew by ‘searching for clues and interviewing witnesses.’ The band members are happy to copy Nancy’s detection work but Lexie does have reservations about Nancy’s misadventures.

‘She almost drowned in quicksand though.’

Violet once again proves a confident clue-seeker and suspect-interviewer, as well as a cheerful narrator. With the tension of the sound-check and impending performance, everyone is on edge.

‘Excitement wobbled around us like jelly.’

When further ghostly happenings trigger panic, Violet keeps her head and even manages to safely extinguish a backstage fire. Who is to blame for the worrying events? Is there perhaps a real ghost? Or is it another attempt to sabotage the Velvets? Meanwhile, the band contest must go on and Violet has stage nerves as she prepares to sing the band’s Hallowe’en song, Angry Ghost. The conclusion is satisfyingly theatrical and enjoyable.

This witty, fast-moving adventure is a pleasure to read with neatly-sketched characters and lively dialogue. The music teacher, Mr Saunders, returns and even has a hint of romance with another teacher. Less welcome is the return of irritating braggart Brayden Jones, who is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone but who unintentionally makes everyone else seem kinder and more caring by contrast.

Brayden: ‘Hey, why are you in a wheelchair?’

Dee: ‘I find that it really helps me … to mind my own business!’

Co-operation and recognising other people’s merits are the keys to success in Violet’s world, and if seeing girls succeed puts Brayden’s noise out of joint, all the better. The atmosphere of a band contest is well created, clues are examined, witnesses are interviewed and red herrings are rejected in a thoroughly enjoyable story. There are also some great band names, from Go Dog Go to Shimmy Shimmy.

The illustrations and decorations throughout the book are by the talented Phoebe Morris. Her black-and-white illustrations give visual identities to all the characters. Particularly cute is the picture of the two teachers at the precise moment when their eavesdropping students discover that their first names are Duncan and Jojo.  

I was fortunate enough to hear the author’s world premiere vocal-and-guitar rendition of Angry Ghost. Readers who wish to listen to Violet and the Velvets’ version of Too Shy and Angry Ghost will find them on the author’s website:

rachael-king.com/fun-stuff

 

Trevor Agnew 
14 Sep 2025    [Review 3793]

 

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Viral Video
Rachael King  Phoebe Morris        

                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            

                                                                                            

Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Viral Video
Rachael King (2026)
Ill. Phoebe Morris
Allen & Unwin
Novel, 213 pages
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 991142 75 7

 

‘When did playing music become so hard?  We used to just jam and have fun!  Now it’s all about being “perfect” and it’s sucking the joy out of everything.’

 

This is the third volume of the deservedly-popular Violet and the Velvets series. The Case of the Viral Video answers the unavoidable question. Are the unlikely rock musicians who make up the garage-band, Violet and the Velvets, going to win the BandChamps National?

 

Writing in her usual, slightly breathless, present tense, Violet assesses the obstacles in their path, ‘Tension hangs in the air thick as the smell of old socks.’

Violet, Lexie, Mo and Jack are all jumpy, nervous and tired as they prepare to compete with groups from all over the country. Along with the other finalists, they will also be taping a song in a recording studio, so that their music videos can be screened on TV’s Fire Show.  So, lots of pressure.  Violet’s determination to achieve perfection rattles the other band members. Resentment soon erupts into rebellion and Jack even walks out.

With her usual flair for metaphoric language, Violet records feeling ‘squirming otters in my belly.’

 A whole new layer of expectations is loaded onto the bands’ shoulders when they confronted by the stylists who want to change their clothing and make-up. ‘We need movement,’ shout the stylists, ‘Drama! Flair! Colour! Sparkle!’ They also want Mo to wear a dress.

  A very funny battle of wills to preserve their band’s unique identity follows. Backstage pressures, viral videos and even AI add to the irritating mix. Even more annoyingly, the band’s sneaky foe, Brayden Jones has not been idle (although his efforts produce an unexpected result). It is understandable that by the time that the Velvets get into the TV studio, Velvet sees ‘Two big cameras crouch like velociraptors about to attack.’

 

This book is an amusing and highly readable account of a nervous band meeting the challenge of sinking from being favourites to becoming the underdogs. Fortunately, Mum, aware of her daughter’s tendency to perfectionism and stress, has given Violet good advice.

 The artist, Phoebe Morris, continues to provide her amusing line illustrations of the various young musicians as they navigate the highs and lows of the contest and its assorted entrants. My favourite pictures show the various costume ‘improvements’ offered by the staff of The Fire Show, as well as the band’s less than enthusiastic response to them.

The designer, Kate Barraclough, has also distributed Violet’s doodles (of everything from bombs and rats to bees and stars) into the margins of the appropriate pages, helping make this junior novel a pleasure to look at as well as to read.

 

Volume 4, The Tall Stranger, is on the slipways, ready to confirm the band’s new motto: ‘Playing music is supposed to be fun!’  

 

Note: In July 2026, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Angry Ghost was shortlisted for the annual DANZ Awards. The Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Awards honours books for young people which recognise that not all young people are the same. Read more at The Sapling website: The DANZ Children’s Book Awards - The Sapling

 

Trevor Agnew

14 July 2026  [Review 3850.]