Shimmer

Forget everything you thought you knew about fairy tales . . .

Grieve is a troll with a seriously big problem. The Shimmer, a fragment of the Creation Stone - that's jumbo-sized magic with a side order of scary - has been stolen, and all the evidence points to him being the thief. Grieve knows there's only one set of creatures evil enough to use it - the fairies. He also knows he's going to need specialist help in getting it back.

Colin is just an average boy, leading a pretty normal life. Until a troll appears in his bedroom with a very odd request.

The luckless adventurers set out on a desperate mission to rescue the Shimmer and save the worlds - all four of them - from a fate worse than . . . Well, there is no fate worse than what lies in store for them if they don't succeed!

Fairies: a psychotic, vicious race with great dress sense and an ambition to rule the world (difficult to achieve when only a few centimetres tall). Gnomes: good trackers with big noses and even bigger attitudes. Don't favour garden ponds or fishing rods. Trolls: well-meaning creatures who, contrary to popular belief, don't have any issues with billygoats (gruff or otherwise). Humans: credulous creatures who are marginally smarter than a hamster. Perhaps. [from McBeagle's Dictionary of the Eight Races]