Act of Faith (21 page)

Kelly Gardiner is the author of the Swashbuckler trilogy of pirate adventure books for young readers, also published by HarperCollins, and the picture book
Billabong Bill’s Bushfire Christmas
.

She is a journalist, blogger and editor who has worked on websites, newspapers and magazines, and her travel writing, articles and poetry have been published in leading journals and magazines.

She is currently undertaking her PhD in Creative Writing at La Trobe University and works at the State Library of Victoria.

She lives on the banks of a river in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner, a small but boisterous menagerie, and lots of books.

www.kellygardiner.com

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Angus&Robertson

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
, Australia

First published in Australia in 2011

This edition published in Australia in 2011
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Kelly Gardiner 2011

The right of Kelly Gardiner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers

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10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Gardiner, Kelly, 1961–

Act of faith / Kelly Gardiner.

ISBN: 978-0-7322-9280-5 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-0-7304-9301-3 (epub)

For secondary school age.

Persecution — Juvenile fiction.

Inquisition — Spain — Juvenile fiction.

Adventure and adventurers — Juvenile fiction.

NZ823.3

Cover design by Jane Waterhouse, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images: Woman by Tom Grill/Photolibrary.com; Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal in Venice by Garron Nicholls/Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com

Internal illustrations from the Sticht Collection in the Rare Books Collection of the
State Library of Victoria