Drowned Wednesday. Garth Nix (Keys to the Kingdom) [Paperback]

Garth Nix (Author)

Book Description

Series: Keys to the Kingdom | Publication Date: November 2005

On the third day, there were PIRATES! Arthur Penhaligon finds himself on an adventure that will pit him against pirates, storms, explosions and a vast beast that eats everything it encounters. Will our unwitting hero be able to find the third part of the Will and claim the Third Key? No rest for poor Arthur Penhaligon. As Grim Tuesday ends, he discovers a square of stiff cardboard under his pillow, gilt-edged and inscribed with the following words: LADY WEDNESDAY Trustee of the Architect and Duchess of the Border Sea has great pleasure in inviting ARTHUR PENHALIGON to a Particular Luncheon of Seventeen Removes Transport has been arranged RSVP not required! It's an invitation he cannot refuse. From hospital room to the high seas, Arthur finds himself on an adventure that will pit him against pirates, storms, explosions of Nothing-laced gunpowder, and a vast beast that eats everything it encounters. Through it all, he is drawn deeper into the central mystery of the House. Arthur must find the third part of the Will and claim the Third Key -- not just for himself, but for the millions (if not trillions) who will suffer if he doesn't. The first step? Surviving life aboard ship on the Border Sea!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8 -This third volume in the series also marks its hardcover debut (with simultaneous reissues of the first two books in hardcover). Arthur is in the hospital, recovering from the events of Grim Tuesday (Scholastic, 2004) and trying to explain things to his friend Leaf while apprehensively awaiting the "transport" promised in Lady Wednesday's invitation. His fears are more than realized; the ship from the House takes Leaf but leaves Arthur adrift on the Border Sea. He finds temporary refuge on a buoy-but it's a treasure marker for the dreaded once-human pirate Feverfew, and Arthur is marked as a thief and is in mortal danger. He is rescued by a comic bunch of salvagers from Wednesday's domain, and from them Arthur begins to understand that Wednesday is very different from the other Days he has met. Moreover, she has become a monstrous but tragic leviathan. Seafaring adventure follows; Arthur must elude Feverfew even while breaking into his stronghold, a bubble of the Secondary Realms concealed in Wednesday's stomach where Leaf and hundreds of denizens enslaved by Feverfew are held captive. Feverfew is the real villain here, and Arthur is finally accepting (albeit reluctantly) that he must be a hero. This is another great entry with a cliff-hanger ending. It doesn't stand alone, but it's a must-have for anyone who has the first two entries in this well-crafted, exciting series.-Karyn N. Silverman, Elizabeth Irwin High School, New York City
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. One senses a formidable imagination in freefall in Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, and experiencing it can be at once exhilarating and overwhelming. In this third of seven planned installments, each set on a successive day of a single week, Arthur Penhaligon is summoned from his hospital bed by Lady Wednesday, who has metamorphosed into a 126-mile-long whale. Burdened with asthma, a broken leg, and still-fresh shock at how inextricably his fate is tied to the House (the "epicenter of the Universe"), Arthur plies the Border Sea in search of the Third Part of the Will. The conclusion melds Pinocchio and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, bringing into play a fearsome pirate, mercenary rats, a ship incompetently crewed by accountants, and allies old and new, human and otherworldly. New readers may find the backstory about Arthur's quest to vanquish the Morrow Days and to reassemble the Architect's Will frustratingly esoteric, but those who appreciated the freewheeling invention of Mister Monday (2003) and Grim Tuesday (2004) will emerge from the third book with enthusiasm unabated. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books (November 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007175051
• ISBN-13: 978-0007175055
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garth Nix has worked as a bookseller, book sales representative, publicist, editor, marketing consultant and literary agent. He also spent five years as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. A full-time writer since 2001, more than five million copies of his books have been sold around the world and his work has been translated into 38 languages. Garth's books have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly (US), The Bookseller(UK), The Australian and The Sunday Times (UK). He lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Float your boat, April 13, 2005

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drowned Wednesday (Keys to the Kingdom, Book 3) (Hardcover)

It's hard to be Arthur Penhaligon. As if moving and being asthmatic wasn't bad enough, now he has had two nightmarish adventures, and dealt with the malevolent Morrow Days. In the third book of Garth Nix's dark fantasy series, "Drowned Wednesday," Nix spins his best story yet in this series.

Arthur and his pal Leaf are recuperating from the strange events of Monday and Tuesday... until suddenly the hospital is flooded. Leaf is abducted by a strange boat, and Arthur finds himself adrift on the Border Sea, on a hospital bed. After he's picked up by a shipful of friendly Salvagers, he finds that he's inadvertantly become the target for the malevolent pirate Feverfew, a mortal-turned-Denizen on a ship of bone.

He also encounters Drowned Wednesday, who has invited him to lunch. But unlike Grim Tuesday and Mister Monday, Wednesday needs his help, because she is cursed: she takes the form of a whale, and has a monstrous appetite. She's willing to give him the Key, but he has to deal with the malevolent Feverfew first, and rescue Leaf. Unfortunately to do that, he will have to take a rescue submarine to a seaport... which happens to be inside Wednesday's stomach.

For some reason, after the publication of "Grim Tuesday," the publishers decided to halt production and rerelease the two previous books in hardcover. As a result, "Drowned Wednesday" took forever to come out. Fortunately, it was worth the wait: as writing and characters go, "Drowned Wednesday" beats the second book and equals the first.

"Drowned Wednesday" more or less fits the mold of the previous novels: Arthur deals with the strange residents (rats and Denizens) of the various worlds, while trying to avoid being killed. It sounds grim, but Nix spices it up with plenty of humor, such as the stamp-collecting Salvager captain. One of the funniest moments has Arthur looking at a book about his adventures, which shows him as a buff action hero.

Fortunately, Nix keeps the story from getting formulaic by giving new twists to the story. Not only is it a seafaring tale, but he portrays the Morrow Day Wednesday as a victim, not a villain. Though Arthur is initially suspicious, it turns out that she's actually rather pitiful. And the final chapter of the book ends on an eerie cliffhanger involving the Skinless Boy.

The biggest change is in Arthur himself. In the previous two books, he was a reluctant hero. But now he is beginning to use the power of the Keys without worrying about it, and he is determined to deal with the other Morrow Days. Okay, he still worries a lot, but he's overcoming that; by the finale, he is much more comfortable as the Heir.

"Drowned Wednesday" equals "Mister Monday" for humorous dark-fantasy goodness. Here's hoping that "Sir Thursday" doesn't take long to get here.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Transition Delivers..., March 1, 2005

By 

Andrea H. (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drowned Wednesday (Keys to the Kingdom, Book 3) (Hardcover)

The third book in Garth Nix's The Keys to the Kingdom series, while not as strong an entry as the first two, deepens the scope of hero Arthur's adventures while setting the stage for what promises to be a wild ride through the Upper House.

Drowned Wednesday is typical Nix, chock-full of more intriguing concepts, excellent writing, and real dilemmas than most writers produce in three books. Nevertheless, DW is not as tight a book as its predecessors Mister Monday and Grim Tuesday; Nix never builds up the level of suspense as high as he did in those two. Partly this is due to the nature of Arthur's involvement with Wednesday herself, but I won't say more for fear of spoiling the book. Suffice it to say that DW is much like Lirael in that, while a fine story, it does not have quite the narrative drive of its companions. This is probably to be expected, as Nix has said he had to throw out his first draft after he realized it was bad and started over again (hence the delay in its publishing).

Perhaps the most important feature of DW is the developments that take place within Arthur's psyche as he begins to take proactive rather than reactive action and begins to accept that he must do something, rather than waiting for his enemies to do things to him. By the end of Drowned Wednesday Arthur is determined to settle things with the masters of the Upper House once and for all, and he no longer flinches from using the tools (the Keys) available to him. Suffice it to say that I can't wait to find out what happens next. There are new developments with the Skinless Boy too, and Nix offers up enough information about the Morrow Days to leave us wondering what their game is, whether they are in league together and if so what their purpose is, and most of all what was Drowned Wednesday's exact relationship to them. Is Arthur being double- or triple-crossed? Only time will tell. I can't wait for Sir Thursday.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Ship Voyage, July 28, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Drowned Wednesday. Garth Nix (Keys to the Kingdom) (Paperback)

This book takes place in ships and on the Border Sea. Even if you don't like boating books, this also has a lot of magic and mystery. If you've read and liked Mister Monday and Grim Tuesday, don't stop now. This is the best book I've read all summer!