SuitabookPower and responsibility
Gloria, previously a maid, impersonates the ruler while officials, business owners and civilians press competing demands upon her during the flood.
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Book details
Geraldine McCaughrean - Author
A tense political-disaster adventure about a servant suddenly given public power, with shifting accounts of events and difficult choices about trust, responsibility and survival.
Book Brief
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Sign in for personalised guidanceA tense political-disaster adventure about a servant suddenly given public power, with shifting accounts of events and difficult choices about trust, responsibility and survival.
Gloria, previously a maid, impersonates the ruler while officials, business owners and civilians press competing demands upon her during the flood.
Newspaper cuttings present earlier events in a different way, influence public opinion and use tabloid language; anagrams provide clues.
Flooding devastates Afalia, while people outside the capital struggle for safety; the story follows both political decisions and separated animals seeking their families.
Consider whether the flood’s urgency, public desperation and separated people and animals might feel intense. The story also includes manipulation, corruption and competing pressures on a young character in authority.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: some draft conclusions still depend on unresolved evidence.
Anything not established here remains open; it is not being treated as absent or safe.
These links show the original reading lists. Inclusion is not a guarantee of suitability for your child.