On a school trip to the museum, Matthew has an eerie meeting with Peter Glimmer, who was imprisoned in his own portrait by his uncle, the villainous alchemist, Nicolaas van der Leyden. Peter Glimmer entrusts Matthew with recovering from the past the one thing that can save the world. Encountering magic, mayhem and murder, Matthew ends up in a desperate race back through time in order to save the future.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Simon Rose was born in Derbyshire, England and has lived in Calgary, Canada since 1990. His first novel for young readers, The Alchemist's Portrait, was published in 2003 followed by The Sorcerer's Letterbox in 2004, The Clone Conspiracy in 2005, The Emerald Curse in 2006, The Heretic's Tomb in 2007 and The Doomsday Mask in 2009. He is also a contributing author to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One.
A seventh novel for middle grades, The Time Camera, will be published in 2011, along with The Insistence of Memory, a novel for young adults. He is also a contributing author to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One, has written several non-fiction books for younger readers with Weigl Educational Publishers, has a regular column 'Simon Says' with the National Writing for Children Center and works as a writer for Dark Roasted Blend online magazine.
He offers a wide variety of presentations, workshops and author in residence programs for schools and libraries, covering such topics as the writing process, editing and revision, where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, character development, historical fiction and historical research, story structure, the publishing world and more. He also offers virtual author visits by video using Skype. He works as a creative writing instructor for home school students throughout the year and at summer camps each July and August, is an instructor for adults with Chinook Learning Services, University of Calgary and at the National Writing for Children Center, and offers a variety of online workshops for both children and adults.
Simon is a regular presenter at conferences and festivals, and served as a juror for the Governor General's Literary Awards for Children's Literature, the Saskatchewan Book Awards, the Parsec Awards and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. He is the founder of Children's Authors and Illustrators on Facebook, the Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI Western Canada and organizes the Calgary Children's Book Fair and Conference, held in conjunction with the Children's Fiction Writing Award, each November.
Simon offers a number of services for writers, including manuscript evaluation, editing, writing workshops and coaching, plus copywriting services for the business community, full details of which can be found at his website www.simon-rose.com. You can also visit his blog at http://simon-rose.blogspot.com/, his channel on YouTube, follow him on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
