Lyra is no longer a child. The Secret Commonwealth: The Book of Dust Volume Two is set 20 years after the events of La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One unfolded, and seven years after readers left Lyra and Will Parry on a park bench in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens in The Amber Spyglass, the final book in His Dark Materials.

Global in scale, The Secret Commonwealth sees Lyra forced to navigate a complex and dangerous new world which takes her far beyond the edges of Oxford, across Europe and into Asia, in search of an elusive town said to be haunted by dæmons. As well as taking readers on an exhilarating journey into places at once familiar and extraordinary, the book is a timely exploration of what it is to be human, to grow up and make sense of the world around us, from one of the UK’s greatest writers.