The Crystal City

Sea Girls #1

by G.G. Elliot

Polly Jenkins is good at school, but really excels at one thing - swimming! She is always top in any swimming competition, and living near the coast in Cornwall is able to swim every day in the sea as she never feels the cold. One day she notices a birthmark on her back shaped like a small fish, and although initially worried about it, feels reassured by her mother's lack of concern. However, shortly after this, at a swimming tournament, she meets a girl called Lisa Roberts and notices the same small fish on Lisa's back. The girls discover that both of them were adopted after having been found on a beach. They also find out they possess an ability to swim underwater for long periods of time...This discovery leads them to a city underwater, a completely different way of life and some startling revelations...

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely loved this book as a kid. read it over and over and over again, every time i was forced to go to a triathlon it was my first pick.

[Lia Windsor · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a throwback! I was so obsessed with this and it was equally fun to read now.

[Julie Böttrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was about six or seven years old I was very used to my mother reading me bedtime stories in my bed in Umeå, Sweden. I had recently become a member of a book club which delivered it’s books to it’s members mailboxes. Therefor, I had a lot of books collected in a pile next to my bed, waiting to be read to me by my mother before bedtime. However, one night, my mom told me she was too tired to read me my bedtime story and proposed I’d read it myself. I got very angry but she did not cave. Eventually I reached down to my pile of books and grabbed the first one. It was “The Crystal City (Sea Girls)”, or as you read it in Swedish: “Kristallstaden (Sea Girls)”. I started reading and I was immediately hooked. After that, my mother never needed to read me another bedtime story again since I actually preferred reading them myself.

This book was the very one that made me fall in love with reading. Since then I’ve read more books than I could even care to count and I aspire to write one myself one day. This book started it all and I still have a tiny necklace that the book club sent out as well together with this book. A necklace with the Sea Girl symbol on it.

[Maya :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 ✨

loved this book as a young girl, still remember it :))

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a kid all I could think about was how much I wanted to be like them! I've always held my breath under water and swam to the bottom of the lake and saw everything in detail, but the way these girls lived, all I wanted to do was drown in the ocean and live there forever, under this huge cupola thingy and have a cool birthmark. But noooo, I was born with lungs incapable of containing water. Darn, being human sucks!

[˚₊‧✩ FELICIA ✩‧₊˚]

Jag läste den här boken när jag var 10 år. Då så tyckte jag att den var väldigt bra och spännande. Dock så skulle jag nog inte säga samma sak nu, men den är fortfarande ganska så bra. Skulle rekommendera den till barn som är ungefär i tioårsåldern. Boken har även en andra del som heter "Tillbaka till Fortuna".

[Pisces Chic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book!! one of my FAVOURITE!
it pretty much had everything i want from a book, it had mystery, romance, underwater stuff, swimming, girls that could hold their breathe really long!
LOVED IT !!!

[Freefallen ~ YA Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely AMAZING book!

[Lyndal Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because it was a page-turner but I hate that it kind of ended on a cliff hanger. I have so many questions, I hope there is a second book.

[Maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for school when I was in year 7 and I just remember it being insanely boring.