Tom Ward, the Chipenden Spook, is back from the dead and ready to fight against the monstrous wolflike Kobalos horde, with his apprentice, Jenny Calder, and the witch assassin Grimalkin by his side.
The two white humans and the shape-shifting lamia do their best to prepare to fight evil, but old friends and foes enter the picture and complicate things. By the story’s end not much has changed for our heroes, but the author does a good job driving in circles and making readers feel like they’re seeing new scenery. Delaney’s usual blunt expository dialogue and clumsy narrative drive are on full display here, but so are his worldbuilding and mood-setting. Tom’s world, a boilerplate alternative medieval Europe, is filled with fog and moonlight and creepy creatures lurking behind every tree. Tom and Jenny don’t get much to do other than cope with bloody terror, but Delaney knows how to build a horrifying set piece. The adventure is no better built than the last, continually ambling toward a massive showdown with the enemy but never getting there, however a late reveal of an old foe provides just enough spark to make the book worth fans’ time. Here’s hoping the next installment will finally give readers a payoff to all this buildup.
Skippable for newbies, but fans will salvage enough to make it worthwhile even as they hope for payoff next time. (Grimalkin’s notes, glossary) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-233456-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2014
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The victory of Jacob and his fellow peculiars over the previous episode’s wights and hollowgasts turns out to be only one move in a larger game as Riggs (Tales of the Peculiar, 2016, etc.) shifts the scene to America.
Reading largely as a setup for a new (if not exactly original) story arc, the tale commences just after Jacob’s timely rescue from his decidedly hostile parents. Following aimless visits back to newly liberated Devil’s Acre and perfunctory normalling lessons for his magically talented friends, Jacob eventually sets out on a road trip to find and recruit Noor, a powerful but imperiled young peculiar of Asian Indian ancestry. Along the way he encounters a semilawless patchwork of peculiar gangs, syndicates, and isolated small communities—many at loggerheads, some in the midst of negotiating a tentative alliance with the Ymbryne Council, but all threatened by the shadowy Organization. The by-now-tangled skein of rivalries, romantic troubles, and family issues continues to ravel amid bursts of savage violence and low comedy (“I had never seen an invisible person throw up before,” Jacob writes, “and it was something I won’t soon forget”). A fresh set of found snapshots serves, as before, to add an eldritch atmosphere to each set of incidents. The cast defaults to white but includes several people of color with active roles.
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles. (Horror/Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3214-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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