Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help


Book Description

No one except Milrose Munce knows that ghosts of former students live in his school. Not only is Milrose aware of these ghouls – he’s on a first-name basis with all of them. Of course, some are more likeable than others: the third floor is the home to nearly all of his good friends. Most of them – like Imploded Ig, Deeply Damaged Dave, and Toasted Theresa – were the victims of science experiments gone wrong though they do manage to maintain a sense of humour about their demise. Then there are the ghost athletes who lurk in the basement – a pretty disagreeable group, the majority of them having died after a particularly clumsy manoeuvre on the school’s sports field. After Milrose is given yet another detention for offering his teacher an answer that was just a bit too clever, his life takes an unexpected turn. He is sent to a hidden den in the school’s basement to receive Professional Help. Here, he and the quick-witted Arabella, a fellow captive, are put under round-the-clock supervision of the maniacal Massimo Natica. Fortunately for Milrose and Arabella, once they join forces with their ghostly friends, Massimo Natica doesn’t stand a chance. In the tradition of Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl, the dark comedy and imaginative brilliance of Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help will appeal to adults as much as it will to younger readers.




Quill & Quire


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The Literary Review


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Food & Wine


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Amnesia


Book Description

A stranger enters the city archives, corners a librarian, and begins to tell him a story. The librarian is supposed to be married in four hours' time, but the stranger compels him to listen. Many hours later he is still listening, and still unmarried. The stranger's name is Izzy Darlow, and the story revolves around his fractured family and their obsessions. The family home is a labyrinth. His older brother, Aaron, conducts secret and increasingly perilous experiments in his attic bedroom. His younger brother, Josh, who speaks with a lisp but sings like an angel, wanders the streets at night consumed by visions of destruction. Izzy's own place in this curious family is complicated by disturbing influences: the terrifying books he reads compulsively in the school library, his charismatic but dangerous friend Campbell, the vicious force of his emerging sexuality. Woven into Izzy's tale is the story of a young woman called Katie, who has been confined to a mental hospital as a result of a cruel violation suffered in her youth. Where do these two stories meet? What is Izzy leaving out, what has he forgotten? And why can the anxious librarian not extricate himself from the web that Izzy weaves around him? As the story swirls deeper, taking reference from architecture, literature, history and myth, the reader is drawn into Izzy's frighteningly dislocated world, where the only response to suffering and guilt is amnesia.




Newes from the Dead


Book Description

"Intriguing and captivating."—Celia Rees, author of Witch Child WRONGED. HANGED. ALIVE? (AND TRUE!) Anne can't move a muscle, can't open her eyes, can't scream. She lies immobile in the darkness, unsure if she'd dead, terrified she's buried alive, haunted by her final memory—of being hanged. A maidservant falsely accused of infanticide in 1650 England and sent to the scaffold, Anne Green is trapped with her racing thoughts, her burning need to revisit the events—and the man—that led her to the gallows. Meanwhile, a shy 18-year-old medical student attends his first dissection and notices something strange as the doctors prepare their tools . . . Did her eyelids just flutter? Could this corpse be alive? Beautifully written, impossible to put down, and meticulously researched, Newes from the Dead is based on the true story of the real Anne Green, a servant who survived a hanging to awaken on the dissection table. Newes from the Dead concludes with scans of the original 1651 document that recounts this chilling medical phenomenon. Newes from the Dead is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.




Delirium


Book Description

These lives converge in a surreal, labyrinthine narrative, building up to the novel's climax: the dance of death between the man who has destroyed the public space - the modern architect - and the man who has destroyed the private - the invasive biographer.




The Last Immortal


Book Description

Percy Jackson meets The League of Extraordinary Gentleman meets Sherlock In Victorian London, 13-year-old Luke Frankenstein dreams of joining The Immortals - a supernatural crime-fighting squad, founded by his father Victor. But when Luke secretly follows the Immortals on a mission against the Dark Pharaoh Sanakhte, he is killed. Luke's body is preserved for 160 years before he is reanimated in the modern day, his body bestowed with superhuman powers and fitted with modern upgrades. Sanakhte has returned and Luke must reunite the scattered Immortals. But to destroy Sanakhte, Luke must uncover a terrible secret hidden in his past.... Inside cover printing features a comic strip detailing more of the Last Immortals' adventures! Now shortlisted for the Bolton Children's Fiction Award 2017




Hazel's Phantasmagoria


Book Description

Hazel, the heroine, travels to her Aunt's country house for a holiday. Her Aunt is bitter, angry and rude, so Hazel expects her stay to be a nightmare - little does she expect, though, that there are actual nightmares living in the garden. These creatures - scary amalgams of different animals such as gorillas and leopards - haunt her Aunt every night in her dreams with horrific scenarios. Much to her surprise Hazel is drawn into their world of creating and rehearsing these nightmares. With her new social circle consisting of gorillas crossed with leopards, pythons crossed with porcupines, ducks who smoke cigarettes, wooden-headed dogs and murderers and lunatics Hazel finds herself exploring the scariest depths of the unknown and learns a useful lesson along the way about the nature of friendship. The lively, exciting and fast-paced narrative and quick humour makes this book an addictive read.




Triskellion


Book Description

Realizing that a mysterious force has taken over the village where they are staying with their grandmother, twins Rachel and Adam begin to look into the mystery of the bees--unearthing a secret about the village and their own family.