“A brisk, entertaining tale that unfolds in a wonderfully bizarre world.” Kirkus.

There is a universe beyond our own, known as the Merge.

A young locksmith called Archibald Lox is about to cross worlds and explore it.

As he learns about these lands of wonders, he will have to face cold-blooded killers, rivers of blood, hell jackals and more…

Book one of the Archibald Lox series, by Darren Shan, the New York Times bestselling YA author of Cirque Du Freak and Lord Loss.

Liberated from her cage by a DragonStolen from her jungle home and sold to a zookeeper, Pip knows only a world behind bars, a world in which a Pygmy warrior and her giant ape friends are a zoo attraction. She dreams of being Human. She dreams of escaping to the world outside her cage.

Then, the Dragon Zardon kidnaps her into a new life. Pip rides Dragonback across the Island-World to her new school – a school inside a volcano. A school where Humans learn to be Dragon Riders. But this is only a foretaste of her magical destiny, for the Dragon Assassins are coming. They have floated an Island across the Rift and their aim is nothing less than the massacre of all Dragons.

Her courage will be tested to its limits, for Pip is the Pygmy Dragon, and this is her tale.

Series NoteThe Pygmy Dragon is the first book in a companion series to Aranya and Shadow Dragon, the bestselling Shapeshifter Dragon series. Featuring stunning aerial battles and romance, Aranya is a fresh, gripping coming of age tale set in the same world 150 years on, when the Sylakian Empire rules the Island-World from the Rift to the frozen Islands of the north, and Dragons are fast becoming a fireside legend. But one Dragon lives – let evil beware.