The Poisoned King: Impossible Creatures 2

By Katherine Rundell

Illustrated by Tomislav Tomić

Reviewed by Mia Macrossan

Katherine Rundell, a noted John Donne scholar has another life as a much awarded children’s author. She has written The Good Thieves, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer aimed at middle grade and The Zebra’s Great Escape and One Christmas Wish for younger readers and more. The Poisoned King is the second novel set in the Impossible Creatures universe, the Glimouria Archipelago, the last surviving magical place, which is the home to all sorts of well, impossible creatures such as phoenixes, manticores, hippogryffs, sphynxes, unicorns, merpeople, nereids, and dragons, you get the idea.

While the world was carefully described and set up in the first novel Impossible Creatures it is not necessary to have read this to enjoy this next adventure. Christopher Forrester,  and several other characters return in The Poisoned King but the  focus here is on Anya, the Princess of Dousha, 12, whose life changes dramatically when her grandfather, the king dies. Her father, the heir is accused of his murder, her uncle Claude becomes regent and Anya flees in peril of her life. She meets Christopher and together, along with some fabulous creatures they make plans. Not only does Anya want to rescue her imprisoned father but Christopher wants to find out what is causing the deaths of dragons throughout the island. These two plot strands intertwine to create an exciting, tense adventure that is original and memorable.

On page 4 of Why You Should Read Children’s Books Even Though You Are So Old and Wise Katherine wrote that she tries ‘to put down in as few words as I can the things that I most urgently and desperately want children to know and adults to remember’. Anya is a manifestation of those things – she is fierce, loyal, loving, with a ‘hunger for justice , and a thirst for revenge’ (from the warning before the story begins, itself a magnificent way to lure you into the book). Revenge is not a common theme in children’s fiction. Rescue, justice, righting wrongs, removing tyrants yes, but revenge? Anya has a pendant from her dead mother that can show possible futures and Katherine cleverly uses it to show what can happen to people who become consumed with a desire for vengeance. The story is rich in other themes but I found this quest for revenge original and interesting.

The beating heart of this story is Anya’s journey, a flawed heroine finding her way in a glorious universe filled with marvels.  The pitch perfect writing creates an intense reading experience: Despair had taken hold of her body: the true despair that weighs the stomach with nausea and fills the lungs with dirt. p211. There is a Bestiary at the end of the book which is a useful reference for those who get their manticores and chimaeras confused. Most of these creatures are familiar from classical literature but Katherine has invented some of her own and these are particularly delightful.

Children (and discerning adults) will rapidly become addicted to this series so thank heaven Impossible Creatures Book 3 is coming out in 2026.

For readers aged 9+

Bloomsbury Children’s Books 2025

Katherine Rundell