“Dark and wildly original urban fantasy.”
—Pseudonymous Bosch, New York Times
A New York Times Book of the Year
“Delightful, eccentric, surprising, philosophical, everything that a novel for children should be.”
—Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries
“An astonishing book! A novel for children so good, so peculiar, so magical that it bears comparisons to classic like The Hobbit or The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, the Golden Compass or the Green Knowe books.”
—Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners
“So desk-thumpingly good I resented having to spend time away from reading it”
—Amal El-Mohtar, National Public Radio
An NPR Book of the Year
Clod is an Iremonger. He lives in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items collected from all over London. At the centre is Heap House, a puzzle of houses, castles, homes and mysteries reclaimed from the city and built into a living maze of staircases and scurrying rats. The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, but Clod has an illness. He can hear the objects whispering. His birth object, a universal bath plug, says ‘James Henry Hayward’, Cousin Tummis’ tap is muttering ‘Hilary Evelyn Ward-Jackson’ and something in the attic is shouting ‘Robert Burrington’ and it sounds angry. A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy Pennant, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod’s world.
Lucy Pennant, as a clay button, has been tossed out into the heaving Heaps to be lost forever. Trapped in a half-sovereign coin, Clod Iremonger is being pressed from pocket to cash till, hand to filthy Foulsham street corner. Both must discover who they are on the inside – an object? An Iremonger? A friend? A hero? (To learn more and to visit Foulsham please scroll down.)
The Iremongers are at large in London, the ruins of Foulsham left burning behind them. They need a new home and they intend to find one. Londoners are beginning to notice bizarre happenings in their city – loved ones disappearing, strange objects appearing and a creeping darkness that seems to swallow up the daylight. The Police have summoned help, but is their cure more deadly than the feared Iremongers? What role will Clod play: returning son or rebel? Heartbroken child or hero? And where are all the rats coming from? (To learn more and to visit Lungdon please scroll down.)
Here Lies Heap House, home of the Iremonger family, surrounded by the great rubbish heaps of London. Click the house to get closer.
Here lies Foulsham, borough of all London’s filth and waste. Click on the factory to explore.
Here lie the Houses of Parliament, unhappy palace of government in a diseased city. Click on Parliament to explore all Lungdon in its great misery.
