Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

The Diamond of Drury Lane

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 157 - March 2006

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration is from John Burningham’s Edwardo. Edwardo is this issue's Editor’s Choice. Thanks to Random House Children’s Books for their help with this March cover.

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

Diamond of Drury Lane, The

Julia Golding
(Egmont Books Ltd)
432pp, 978-1405221498, RRP £8.99, Hardcover
10-14 Middle/Secondary
Buy "The Diamond of Drury Lane (Cat Royal)" on Amazon

London, 1790; Mr Sheridan’s Drury Lane theatre. Ten-year-old Cat Royal, adopted by Sheridan after being left on the theatre steps as a newborn, overhears discussion of a ‘diamond’ hidden somewhere in the theatre. And so she sets off on a wonderful romp through 18th-century London in search of treasure, by way of a subversive cartoonist called Captain Sparkler, a black ex-slave who is a musical prodigy, the children of a duke who want to taste the low-life, and the rival gangs of Covent Garden who provide that taste – and more.

Despite the sheer unlikeliness of the – crucial – involvement of benevolent aristocrats with madcap Cat, this pacy story, full of riveting detail about London and the theatre, and with a cast of characters whose loyalty cannot always be assumed, is a most engaging read, beautifully pulled off down to the ‘blurbs’ from contemporary critics. A sequel follows – worth waiting for!

Reviewer: 
Annabel Gibb
4
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account