If you were to judge a book by its cover then this is one I’d pick up time and time again. But it’s all too rare for a book with a great cover to be quite as good inside as well, but this one certainly is. The author is brilliant at portraying some highly unusual and interesting characters and the rather grim but real fantastical settings really grab your attention. The most enduring element however, is undoubtedly the cleverness of including the writing of a book within the book, which records the sometimes deadly secrets and confessions of the villagers’ the ‘author’ meets. We do urge you to read this excellent debut. Be sure to check out the lastest title from this author, The Bone Magician.
- Shortlisted for the CBI Bisto Book of the Year Award 2007/2008
"Wonderful. Anyone looking for the next big thing has come to the right place. Higgins has created a uniquely grim fantasy world that more than holds its own with Dickens or Peake. Her characters are brilliantly realised and the story grabs at the reader with hooked talons" - Eoin Colfer. When Ludlow Fitch's parents cruelly betray him, he steals away on the back of a carriage and leaves behind the stinking City. He arrives in the dead of night at a remote village, where he crosses paths with the tall and limping figure of Joe Zabbidou - a pawnbroker with a difference. For Joe trades secrets, not goods, for cash. Employed as Joe's assistant, Ludlow records the villagers' fiendish confessions in an ancient leather-bound volume: "The Black Book of Secrets". There's the gravedigger who has been resurrecting bodies; the butcher who made a mouse-meat pie for his bullying father, with fatal consequences; the wizened bookseller who went to murderous lengths to get her hands on a priceless tome. Ludlow longs to trust his mysterious master, but he senses Joe has much to hide. But then Ludlow Fitch has his own, very dark, secrets ...
F E (Fiona) Higgins is a first time author, who has been described as “a rising star†of children’s literature, and mum of a four-year-old daughter Before becoming a full-time writer, she trained as a teacher and taught in Primary Schools in London until the year 2000; other jobs including starting a home Internet business followed. Fiona had a number of shorter stories published and produced several full-length books which didn’t get published. Her first book, “The Black Book of Secrets†has been published to great acclaim and has been nominated for the prestigious Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize.
