The Polperran Mysteries · ages 9-12

The Bell Below

Name: The Bell Below
Author: Rosa Pendarves

A novel by Rosa Pendarves OUT NOW

A storm nobody forecast — and every boat comes home safe, warned hours before the sky turned. The village calls it luck. Demelza Kellow wants the truth: who heard the Bell, and why won't they say?

Atmospheric Cornish mystery
Age-appropriate suspense and reassurance
Encourages careful, curious reading

Demelza Kellow was trying to write the sort of song people would stop talking for.

Not because Martha Kellow would clap loudest at the harbour festival—Martha clapped loudest at everything, including properly risen dough and clean tea towels—but because Demelza wanted, just once, for Polperran to hear more than a kid with a ukulele. She wanted them to hear the shape of the harbour at dusk, the clink of halyards, the slap of water under steps, the old gull with one foot that screamed like it owned the place.

A peek inside

Demelza Kellow was trying to write the sort of song people would stop talking for.
Not because Martha Kellow would clap loudest at the harbour festival—Martha clapped loudest at everything, including properly risen dough and clean tea towels—but because Demelza wanted, just once, for Polperran to hear more than a kid with a ukulele. She wanted them to hear the shape of the harbour at dusk, the clink of halyards, the slap of water under steps, the old gull with one foot that screamed like it owned the place.
— the opening lines of The Bell Below