Ordinary Monsters IWF12955613

“Ordinary Monstersis a towering achievement: a dazzling mountain of wild invention, Dickensian eccentrics, supernatural horrors, and gripping suspense. Be warned… once you step into this penny dreadful to end all penny dreadfuls, you’ll never want to leave.” Joe Hill, #1New York Timesbestselling author ofThe FiremanandHeart-Shaped Box

Charlie Ovid, despite surviving a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn’t have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When Alice Quicke, a jaded detective with her own troubled past, is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous.

What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with giftslike Komako, a witch-child and twister of dust, and Ribs, a girl who cloaks herself in invisibilityare forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. With this new found family, Komako, Marlowe, Charlie, Ribs, and the rest of the Talents discover the truth about their abilities. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, a new question arises:What truly defines a monster?

Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written,Ordinary Monsterspresents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian worldand of the gifted, broken children who must save it.

Paperback, July 11th 2023