Agent Angel #9 Keeping It Real [Paperback]

Praise for MEL BEEBY: "Bright, sassy and adventurous" Daily Express Praise for LOSING THE PLOT: "The book is a glossy package, the writing hip and current, but the story has integrity, substance and depth." Guardian Praise for WINGING IT from amazon.co.uk readers: "I can't wait until the next ANGELS UNLIMITED book comes out!" "The cover is really cool and so is the story!" "This is such a lovely book. It is warm, funny, a great adventure story -- and also full of insights about the problems around death and dying. It's a really original book -- give it to all your friends!" "The coolest book on earth!!!"

Meet the coolest angel in town! Keeping It Real launches a cool, funky new look and series name for the agent angel.

Mel Beeby is thrilled to be sent on an urgent angelic mission back to her old school. She always jokes about her old comprehensive being a hellhole, but when she arrives she's shocked to see this is literally the case!

Graffiti, disobedience, disillusionment, bad behaviour and bad grades aside, this school has problems. Invisible beasts of hell are roaming the corridors, and the students have completely lost sight of their dreams.

Mel loves being back home, and can't wait to be near her family and friends again. But when she finally finds her three best friends, she's horrified to see how much they've changed. One has almost totally gone over to the Dark Powers.

Worse still, this whole nightmare might be all her fault.

Ages 9-12

 

 

Annie Dalton was born in Dorset and grew up in the country during the fifties. She claims she didn't intend to be a writer when she was young, but the discovery of a local library nourished her love of books from an early age.

Annie studied at Warwick University and soon began to write. She quickly established herself as a successful children's writer when her second story The Real Tilly Beany was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, as was Night Maze. The After Dark Princess won the Nottinghamshire Book Award and Naming the Dark and Swan Sister were both shortlisted for the Sheffield Children's Book Award. As a result of being asked to contribute a story for A Century of Stories, an anthology compiled by Wendy Cooling and published by Collins Children's Books, she created the angel Mel Beeby. From this one-off story a whole new Mel Beeby, Agent Angel series about the character has been created. The first title, Winging It, has already sold 61, 000 copies since its publication in January 2001 and Disney Films have taken an option on the series. Losing the Plot, published in July 2001, sold 22,000 copies in just three months, and was followed by Flying High in November 2001. April 2002 saw the publication of the brand new title, Calling the Shots and the fifth title in the series, Fogging Over, was out in August.

Annie Dalton has worked as a waitress, a cleaner, a factory worker and as a Writer in Residence in a prison, an experience she claims changed her life: "I was there for three years, on and off, and it changed me completely". She now lives in Suffolk and her reputation as a successful children's author continues to grow. Annie's writing is lively, contemporary and witty; she tackles very real subjects with both humour and sensitivity.