Charlotte and the Secret of the Cockatrice’s Cave is a middle grade adventure novel with some elements of mythology in it. It started as what I thought would be a short story about a girl who fell of a ship and managed to survive on a plank of wood. I ended up adding much more than that as that part of the story is comprised only of the first 6 chapters.

Summary:

Charlotte is on a cruise with her family. One day while she is bored, she ends up daydreaming. While she is lost in her own imaginings, a storm comes up that she doesn’t notice until it is too late. She is thrown overboard into the churning sea. She has to survive in the ocean for a few days before she finds an island. She is found by Miles who takes her to his village. They end up on a quest to find and kill a cockatrice that has been terrorizing the village along with a few of Miles’ friends and meet a few mythical monsters along the way.