It begins in the most boring place in the world: Chickentown, Minnesota, U.S.A. There lives Candy Quackenbush (a 16-year-old girl) her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future might hold. When the answer comes, it's not one she expects. Welcome to Abarat. Out of nowhere comes a wave, and Candy, led by a man called John Mischief (whose brothers live on the horns on his head), leaps into the surging waters and is carried away. Where? To the "ABARAT: a vast archipelago where every island is a different hour of the day, from the Great Head that sits in the mysterious twilight waters of Eight in the Evening, to the sunlit wonders of Three in the Afternoon, where dragons roam, to the dark terrors of Gorgossium, the island of Midnight, ruled over by the Prince of Midnight himself, Christopher Carrion. As Candy journeys from one amazing place to another, making fast friends and encountering treacherous foes. Thejourney will change her boring life forever. Fate thrusts her over the magical threshold of a forgotten world, and she begins her adventure by diving from a barren field in Minnesota into the enormous Sea of Izabella. From there she is swept to the twenty-five islands of the ABARAT, a world like nothing she has ever seen... or has she? Candy encounters sorcery, mystery, and fantastical characters (both friends and foe) as she tries to piece together why she has come to this place, and why the evil Lord Carrion desperately wants to track her down.