The Book Dragon was given a copy of this directly from the author by the Voracious Readers Only website, in exchange for a free and honest review.
Where imagination knows no bounds, you will find this author.
After reading this book I truly believe that childhood never ends but moves on. Some of us never let the love of magic and the fantastic die, which is why the mammoth of a book (713 pages) is a whole network of mythologies on its own. Books within books within libraries. Although there’s magic, this is not for children. Why we, as a society, have come to categorise such fiction for the younger reader is beyond comprehension.
‘The demon put his finger up to his mask’s lips. “Shush little lamb, save your voice for the screaming
to come.”’
Of course, there is blood and a lot of it. Vampires and werewolves don’t hide in the shadows like the creatures we’ve watched on television or read about in books for decades. These are different…
I was taken aback by the author’s mindscape as the story is a veritable cornucopia. The use of metaphor is great, (‘He cut the fruit with a hurricane of knives,’ is just an example) and the characters are colourful, deep and vibrant. I could almost touch the clothing and smell the iciness in the shadows.
What really got me was how the author can open a whole vista of crawling biomechanical monstrosities, Spidercars that transport beings deftly along sky-scraping buildings, in such a nonchalant way that we even question if this is really strange at all. Maybe we’re the strange ones? Very Tim Burton, I thought.
I really enjoyed it, and so I award 4 stars.
