Enter Skandar Smith, our unremarkable hero who has only ever wanted to be a unicorn rider. These children are transported to a secret island where they train as riders, hatching their unicorn and bonding with it. Each year, 13-year-olds are invited to take the Hatchery Exam, which uncovers a lucky few destined to bond with their own unicorn. In this magical world, unicorns may be naturally murderous but the good news is that they can be tamed by bonding with a young rider.
Steadman put the idea on hold for several years but happily for middle-grade readers Skandar is now the first in a planned five-book fantasy series to be launched by Simon & Schuster Children’s Books this April. She began writing down unicorn names in a little black notebook-"New-Age Frost", "Scoundrel’s Luck", "Red Night’s Delight"-“and then I saw an image of a boy riding a unicorn.” I picked up a book, read the prologue and thought, ‘Why aren’t I doing this?’ It was a really pivotal moment “I remember really vividly having the image of bloodthirsty unicorns in my head,” author Annabel Steadman (who will write under the name A F Steadman) tells me over video call from her home in north London. Here are unicorns as you have never seen them before, a deliciously dark antidote to the gentle, rainbow-hued creatures which dominate so many children’s books. The prologue to Skandar and the Unicorn Thief (Simon & Schuster Children’s) opens to a scene of chaos: eight marauding beasts gnash bloody teeth, unfurl skeletal wings and take aim with razor-sharp horns.
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