Have you ever wondered what it might be like to travel back in time? Joe Hopkins isn't expecting to go anywhere. It's the first day of the summer holidays and he's fed up. His dad has moved out, and he doesn't know what he's going to do with himself for the next six weeks. But while visiting Fishbourne Roman Palace, he slips through time by mistake and finds himself in a world where nothing is quite as he expects. He meets Lucy, the duaghter of the most important man in Britannia, who soon becomes his friend and protector. But as he quickly discovers, there is someone else who wants to get rid of him at any cost. Can Joe survive in Lucy's world for long enough to outwit his enemy and save his new friend from a terrible fate? "The Leopard in the Golden Cage" is the first book in The Scar Gatherer Series, seven adventures for 8 to 12 year olds which will bring Joe face to face with Vikings, smugglers, and the bombers of the Second World War Blitz.

What can you do when your closest friend lives hundreds of years away? Joe Hopkins is staying in York for October half-term. He hasn’t seen Lucy since the beginning of September and he’s really missing her. But when at last he slips through time again, he’s alarmed to find himself in a different world altogether. This isn’t Roman Britain. It’s Jorvik, in the age of the Vikings. “Saving the Unicorn’s Horn” is the second book in The Scar Gatherer Series, seven time-travel adventures for 8 to 12 year olds. The first book is “The Leopard in the Golden Cage”. For more information about the series, or to sign up for updates, please go to www.scargatherer.co.uk.

If you know how the Great Fire of London starts, you can stop it from happening ... can't you? Joe Hopkins has been visiting the Tower of London when he slips through time. He finds himself in a city which is dirty, dark and chaotic. Relieved to be welcomed once more into Lucy's home, he is horrified to find the Great Plague has killed half her family. Worse still, another great danger looms, a danger only Joe can see. With his knowledge of the Great Fire of London, he knows he must try and stop it from happening. But before he can, he stumbles across another plot more deadly to England than the fire itself.

What if freedom wasn't something you could take for granted? What if you had to fight for it? If there's one thing Joe Hopkins knows better than anyone, it's that the past can be very uncomfortable. But life in wealthy Georgian Bristol seems surprisingly civilized. Lucy's house is light and airy, and there are sandwiches and tea with sugar. He soon discovers, however, that this civility is only skin Lucy's family is shockingly involved in slavery. When he meets the African slaves her father has brought back from Jamaica, Joe swiftly finds there are other people in the house who are determined to see them gone, and to profit from their disappearance. Can Joe and Lucy save the slaves from the horrifying fate that threatens them? And can Joe make Lucy see that freedom is what matters most? "Slaves for the Isabella" is the fifth book in The Scar Gatherer Series, seven adventures for 8 to 12 year olds which span British history from Roman times to the Second World War.

Can the latest Victorian invention give Joe what he really wants? When Joe Hopkins boards a ferry to go on holiday, he doesn't expect to find himself shipwrecked. But by the time he washes up on a Cornish beach, he knows he has slipped into the past again. Victorian England is quite different to how he imagined: few of the great inventions of the age have reached the fishing village where Lucy lives. But when Joe has the chance to try out the latest technology – photography – he jumps at it. Can it give him the thing he has desired for so long, a picture of his dearest friend that he can keep? And will the camera prove once and for all that he was there beside her? "The Shimmer on the Glass" is the sixth book in The Scar Gatherer Series, seven adventures for 8 to 12 year olds which have seen Joe riding with Vikings, trying to save London from the Great Fire, and facing one of the great evils of British history. Now, he finally has the chance to prove that he has been to the past. But will it work?