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Extract

‘Hold my hand, Sophie. We have to leave!’
It was her father’s voice. She couldn’t see him, but she knew, somehow, that his hair was dishevelled and that he was wearing his tatty overcoat, the one with the hem that hung down like a ragged wing. He slipped his hand into hers, clasping it tight, and together they ran through the frozen silver forest. She knew where they were going.

About the book

Over 100,000 copies sold worldwide! A beautiful reissue edition of Cathryn Constable's bestseller, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Prize and the Specsavers National Book Awards.

Lost diamonds, white wolves, and a princess's secret ...

Sophie and her friends, Marianne and Delphine, are surprised to win places on a school trip to Russia. But the trip does not go as expected. Abandoned on an express train heading out of St Petersburg, the girls are thrown out at a disused station, where they are rescued and taken to the beautiful but faded Volkonsky Winter Palace as guests of the exotic Princess Anna Feodorovna Volkonskaya.

Guarded by white wolves, the princess is an enigmatic figure, desperately searching for a rope of lost diamonds that could overturn the Volkonsky bad fortune. At first the girls are mesmerised by her stories, but when she takes a special interest in Sophie, they begin to be afraid.

Exciting, atmospheric, romantic and stylish, The Wolf Princess is a timeless fairy tale and mystery-adventure about a girl who discovers she is so much more than she thinks she is.

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Press reviews

“Constable’s passion for Russia comes across vividly; she knows you have only to give reality a slight push to make it marvellous. A classic winter’s tale.”

FINANCIAL TIMES

“It reminded me a little of classic Eva Ibbotson, it’s a real classic children’s adventure story that’ll make you want to go to Russia immediately.”

MELISSA COX, CHILDREN'S NEW TITLES BUYER, WATERSTONES

“... [a] richness of setting and old-fashioned sense of adventure.”

NICOLETTE JONES, SUNDAY TIMES

“The Wolf Princess, set in Russia, is a highlight of this year’s fiction.”

AMANDA CRAIG, THE TIMES

“… an engrossing, deeply atmospheric story.”

TELEGRAPH

Author notes

'When I was about nine or ten, I was given a book for Christmas called Little Katia, by E.M. Almedingen. I remember the cover having a drawing of a girl on it – Katia – and something in the combination of the girl’s hat, her fur mittens, the snow and the narrow-trunked trees behind her made the book irresistible to me. I think it was the first book I felt I was actually "inside". That is a delicious feeling. When I started The Wolf Princess, I wasn’t sure what the story was going to be but I knew I wanted to put all the Russianness into the book that I remember being so entranced by when I read Little Katia as a child.'

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