The Secret Country
core novel 1985 The Secret Country
Record
| First published | 1985 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.60 (1,692 ratings, collected 2026-11-01) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441757398 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Five cousins have played an elaborate make-believe game for years, acting out the story of a kingdom called the Secret Country, with themselves cast as its royal children. Laura, aged eleven, her brother Ted, and their cousins Ruth, Ellen and Patrick are suddenly carried into that kingdom and find it real. They know the plot they invented, in which a king is murdered and betrayed and the land drifts toward war, but events no longer follow their script. The adults around them, from nurses and teachers to wizards and parents, expect the royal children to know things the cousins do not. They bluff their way through court life, afraid to admit who they are, while they try to work out how to prevent the tragedy and whether they can ever get home.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Secret Country
- Series: The Secret Country core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Pamela Dean
Notes
- From the series record (The Secret Country): Five cousins are drawn into the kingdom of their childhood game and must play its royal children.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Secret Country: position 1 of 3: next The Hidden Land (1986)
- Internal chronology, within The Secret Country: position 1 of 4: next The Dubious Hills (1994)
Sources
- Black Gate - Secret Country trilogy
- AbeBooks listings (Ace mass-market paperback, 1985)
- Reactor article
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