Tuesday 28 December 2010

Book Reviews

MORTLOCK GIVEAWAY

She heaved open the door. Darkness filled the landing, but a darker shadow filled the doorway. A huge black crow perched on the banister rail. It was massive, as big as Josie - bigger. Vicious black, beaded eyes, a long sabre beak, ragged black feathers. It cocked its head and peered at her claws click, click, clicking as it shifted along the rail towards her.

Josie is a kinfe thrower in a magician's stage act living an unusual but unremarkable life. When three terrible Aunts imprison her guardian, the Great Cardamom, Josie's life leaps into the realms of mystery and murder.

Her guardian's dying act is to pass Josie a note with clues to the secret he carries to the grave. His death also means the discovery of Josie's twin brother Alfie who works as an undertaker's assistant and appears to have a strange power over the dead.

Together they discover that the Great Cardamom was one of three explorers searching for a mystical plant with the power over life and death. Now, pursued by flesh-eating crow-like ghuls, brother and sister must decode the message and save themselves from its sinister legacy.

Mortlock is a debut novel that grips from the very first page. Sweeping across a Victorian London that could easily inhabit Sherlock Holmes and M.R. James, Jon Mayhew takes the reader on a rip-roaring ride involving stagecoach chases, a strange swamp-bound circus, and a showdown in a graveyard. Mixing gothic horror and black humour, Mortlock weaves a wicked path that will leave readers engrossed...and the next time you hear the brush of wings of the clack of a beak you may shudder!

Thanks to our friends at Bloomsbury, we've got five copies of Jon Mayhew's Mortlock to give away! For your chance of winning, send your name and full postal address to emotionally14@hotmail.co.uk, with the subject line "Mortlock". The first five entries out of the electronic hat after midday on Tuesday 4th January will win a free copy each!

Don't forget to put "Mortlock" in the subject heading! Entries with empty or incorrect subjects will be discarded!

No comments:

Post a Comment