Book excerpt: Beautiful and full of adventure, Escape to the River Sea is Emma Carroll's compelling novel inspired by Eva Ibbotson's bestselling, classic masterpiece, Journey to the River Sea. 'A joyously animal-packed adventure.' – Hilary McKay, Costa Award-winning author of The Skylark's War In 1946, Rosa Sweetman, a young Kindertransport girl, is longing for her family to claim her. The war in Europe is over and she is the only child left at Westwood, a rambling country estate in the north of England, where she'd taken refuge seven years earlier. The arrival of a friend of the family, Yara Fielding, starts an adventure that will take Rosa deep into the lush beauty of the Amazon rainforest in search of jaguars, ancient giant sloths and somewhere to belong. What she finds is Yara’s lively, welcoming family on the banks of the river and, together, they face a danger greater than she could ever have imagined. Featuring places and characters known and loved by fans of Journey to the River Sea (including, among others, Maia, Finn, Miss Minton and Clovis) this spectacular story tells of the next generation and the growing threats to the Amazon rainforest that continue to this day.