Tarquin the Honest: The Hand of Glodd

Description

Tarquin the Honest, Wizard of the Silver Weasel, is a liar, a coward, a charlatan and a cheat. And, according to his diminutive roguish sidekick Lunar Nix, those are his most endearing qualities. On a perilous quest to recover The Golden Gauntlet for a mysterious patron, Tarquin and his band of unlikely warriors must navigate the terrors of the Sorrow Wood, battle zombies, giants, zombie-giants and an entire evil order of necromancers. Despite never living up to the expectations of his hero father, somehow Tarquin - through his multitude of dubious skills and a deluded perception of his own greatness must defy death to overcome a series of complex challenges. Will Tarquin betray his friends to save his own skin, or will he roll the dice and risk everything? Only the goddess Fortuna knows and she's not telling. In this, his first novel for adults, award-winning YA author Gareth Ward, aka The Great Wardini, has delivered a quick-witted, fantastical tale packed with magic, action, and a cast of memorable characters.

Gareth Ward, a.k.a. The Great Wardini is a magician, hypnotist, storyteller, bookseller and author. Born in the town of Banbury in the UK, he attended the University of York where he gained a joint honours degree in Biology and Computer Science. His first novel, The Traitor and the Thief, a young adult Steampunk adventure, won the 2016 Storylines Tessa Duder Award, the 2018 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Youth Novel, a 2018 Storylines Notable Book Award and was a finalist in two categories at The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. He currently lives in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand where he runs two independent bookshops, Wardini Books and Wardini Books Napier with his wife Louise and son Max.