Books beginning with P

A series of short stories under the amusing umbrella of a rather mysterious young man who gets a job in an antiques shop and tells each customer a story about the item he's thinking of buying.

Lightweight and amusing series of short stories. One story is about a young Jesuit priest at the time of the Reformation who is sheltered by a lady with whom he falls in love and is forced to marry her to prove his uncelibate state.

Genres: Short

8-year-old Dot lives with her mother Gloria in a East End boarding house just after the end of the war.

Genres: War

In the 1930s, Arthur Drake and his friends become involved with Professor Bessemer's sinister waxworks when he takes over the warehouse they use as a base.

Genres: Time-Travel, Adventure, Fantasy

The Plague is brought to the Derbyshire town of Eyam in 1665 by a parcel of dress patterns sent up from London.

Genres: Historical

Darryl must do the best he can for his racing pigeons while keeping at bay his mother, pregnant with twins, his father, who doesn't want the pigeons, Warren, the school bully, and Susan Duckins and Suzie McAllister, who both have designs on him for entirely different reasons.

Genres: Animal, Friendship, Growing-Up, School

A gang of pirates steals a set of pearls from an otter family, killing all but one of the otters in the process.

Genres: Animal, Fantasy

The four Penderwick sisters befriend Jeffrey when staying in a cottage in the grounds of his mother's house.

Endearing holiday story of four sisters and a boy. Jeffrey's mother, alone since his father left, is about to remarry. Mr Penderwick treats his daughters gently, admonishing them sometimes in Latin.

Genres: Growing-Up, Friendship, Romantic, Girls

Bobby & Press have followed Saint Dane to Cloral, a world covered completely by water, to prevent him from pushing as many worlds as he can to the point of chaos.

Genres: Fantasy

Bobby Pendragon has just kissed his girlfriend for the first time when his Uncle Press turns up and demands that he accompany him on a mission of vital importance which turns out to be through a portal which takes them to another world.

Poorly written; unobjectionable

Genres: Fantasy

Bobby finds Saint Dane manipulating things in 1937 New York, and must work out what link there is between a New York gangster, the Nazi Party, the Hindenburg Airship disaster and Saint Dane's plan for total chaos.

Genres: Fantasy

Percy Jackson finds himself on a quest to rescue his satyr friend Grover, at the same time finding the Golden Fleece which alone can save the poisoned tree that protects Camp Half-Blood.

Based on the idea that the Greek gods are real and take root wherever civilisation is strongest, at present in the USA. Single-parent families as a commonplace. Rites-of-passage style story involving finding inner strengths and powers, overcoming magical and monstrous adversaries, and knowing when to trust people.

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mythical, Friendship

Percy Jackson once again finds himself on a quest when his friend Annabeth is captured and used as bait to lure the goddess Artemis in a bid by the Titans to take back the world they lost to the Olympian Gods.

Good-hearted and entertaining adventure story with modern takes on classical legends. The ongoing battle between the selfish Titans and the amoral Greek Gods. Instances of bravery, selflessness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Complicated family arrangements where an absent parent is an Olympian.

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mythical, Friendship

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is the remarkable story of the saint's life as told by the fictional Sieur Louis de Conté (whose initials match the author's), Joan's page and secretary, in the form of a memoir written in the twilight of life.

Genres: Historical, Biographical

The year is 1800 as Peter Raven sails as midshipman aboard the Torrone, only to be hurt in a sea battle off France; when he sails again to the Caribbean the ship is attacked by Pirates and he is set adrift to save himself.

An exciting story, well-populated. A few slightly gruesome scenes.

Genres: Historical, Adventure, Boys, War, Seafaring

Harry Potter is an eleven-year-old orphan living with his uncle and aunt Mr & Mrs Dursley and his cousin Dudley.

A school tale with magical embellishments; the friendship between the main characters.

Genres: Adventure, Friendship, Magic, School

In 1900 Australia, a part of tennage girls from a College for Young Ladies goes on a trip to Hanging Rock.

Genres: Historical, Classic, Spooky

14-year-old Alex Rider is asked once again by MI6 to go on a mission: this time, to infiltrate an exclusive Academy set high in the French Alps.

Genres: Adventure, Boys

Jacob Todd has come to Holland to celebrate the Battle of Arnhem where his grandfather fought and died.

Genres: War, Growing-Up

Chased by the Green Storm, a breakaway group from the Anti-Traction League, Tom and Hester with their passenger Pennyroyal are forced to land on Anchorage, currrently travelling across the High Ice towards its origins in the Dead Continent of America.

Genres: Adventure, SciFi

The five Bennett sisters: Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Kitty and Mary are at or near marrying age; their mother is keen to marry them off and rejoices when Mr Bingley, a personable young man, comes into the neighbourhood with his friend Mr Darcy and seems interested in her eldest daughter.

Genres: Romantic, Classic, Girls

The Pevensies return to Narnia to discover that 1,000 years have passed and that they are the stuff of legends, as are the talking animals of Narnia and Aslan himself.

Conventional adventure story with young heroes and natural forces overcoming adult humans who are clearly in the wrong.

Genres: Animal, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Classic, Magic

Princesses Meryl and Addie live in the land of Barmarre, which is constantly attacked by Gryphons, Ogres, Spectres and Dragons, and where the plague of the Grey Death kills indiscriminately; Meryl is brave and Addie timid, until Meryl contracts the Grey Death, and Addie sets out to look for a cure.

Genres: Fantasy

The whole wizard world is on the alert after Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban, the wizard prison.

Genres: Adventure, Friendship, Magic, School

Erstwhile King Rudolf of Ruritania is drugged and then kidnapped the day before his coronation; his guards Sapt and Fritz happen upon Rudolf Rassendyll, an Englishman abroad, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the king, due to the king's ancestor's having fathered a child somewhere in the Rassendyll ancestry.

Swashbuckling adventure with a dashing hero, a bearded villain and a lovely heroine.

Genres: Historical, Adventure, Boys, Romantic, Classic

Like many other English soldiers in WWI, 'Tommo' Peaceful is too young to fight, however he lies about his age.

Genres: Historical, Thought-provoking, War

Jonathan Meredith, son of a rich horse-dealing family, is kidnapped and held to ransom.

A worthwhile read.

Genres: Adventure, Thought-provoking

Baci has invited her fellow classmates from the Institute of Advanced Witchcraft to stay, unaware that one of them is a demon from the Hadean Executive, after the legendary Chronostone.

Genres: Humorous, Family, Magic

Luciano Strega-Borgia has gone missing after storming out of the castle, and his wife has to go on a training course for witches, so she engages a Nanny who sidesteps the younger Strega-Borgia's attempts to repel her and takes on the running of the house, which soon becomes a complicated business.

Genres: Humorous, Family, Magic

The general plot lines involve various or all of the family members finding themselves in self-imposed scrapes and trying to get out: Titus creates too many mini clones, Damp sends the family's pet rats off by email, the house roof falls in, Luciano is kidnapped by the mafia when he walks out after a row, Ffup finds herself giving birth to the Loch Ness Monster's baby, etc.

Fun; Close family; Some earthy humour

Genres: Humorous, Family, Magic

The roof of Stregaschloss has collapsed, and the Strega-Borgias are forced to live in the local hotel while their house is being repaired.

Genres: Humorous, Family, Magic