If you’re looking for a new series of books for a 9+ interest level, then I whole-heartedly recommend Katherine Woodfine’s ‘Taylor & Rose Secret Agents’ series.

I’ve read the ‘The Clockwork Sparrow’ with a few of my students, and they’ve also really enjoyed the subsequent books in the ‘The Sinclair Mysteries’ series.

One of my students has moved onto this follow-up series, so I read the first in order to catch up. This is the second in the series. I’ve been reading them before going to sleep … but as this book reached its climax, I’ve had to get it finished off this afternoon, so as not to keep myself up too late! I’m looking forward to starting #3 later on.

In the extract I analysed, there were a number words of 8+ letters, but they were generally words used frequently throughout the novel e.g. ‘Carruthers’, ‘department’, or words that aren’t too obscure, like ‘suddenly’ and ‘something’. I counted a sentence that was 33 words long, but it was one which was broken up with hyphens, which makes it more accessible.

The author provides lots of resources and videos on her website, including an intro video and a blog post about her research trip to St Petersburg.