Malamander

 

Gorgeous cover on this one.

Nobody visits Eerie-on-Sea in the winter. Especially not when darkness falls and the wind howls around Maw Rocks and the wreck of the battleship Leviathan, where even now some swear they have seen the unctuous Malamander creep…

Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, knows that returning lost things to their rightful owners is not easy – especially when the lost thing is not a thing at all, but a girl. No one knows what happened to Violet Parma’s parents twelve years ago, and when she engages Herbie to help her find them, the pair discover that their disappearance might have something to do with the legendary sea-monster, the Malamander. Eerie-on-Sea has always been a mysteriously chilling place, where strange stories seem to wash up. And it just got stranger...

A fun read and a cracking cover. Reminded me in parts of Neil Gaiman as there's a lot of humour and some inventive use of language. 

The man’s mouth, which is nothing more than a wide upside-down “V” in his dripping bone-yellow beard, opens with a hiss. I notice there is seaweed in that beard, and more tangled around his tarnished brass buttons. He smells like something bad is about to happen. 

*

A conical beam of cold light, swirling with dust motes, descends from the ceiling to a circular table in the middle of the room. Sitting beside the table, in a gleaming bronze and wicker wheelchair, is an old lady wearing a turban. The way her wrinkly head emerges from her sumptuous silky gown reminds me of a turtle. She beckons me in with a motion of her clawlike hand, and the doors swing shut behind me.

“Ah, Mr Lemon,” Lady Kraken says, as I hesitate by the door. “Don’t just stand there like a question mark, boy. Come closer!”

*

Above us the last of the sea mist melts from the sky, and we stop and gaze in wonder at the inky blackness of space, sparkling with stars. 

"What's that?" asks Violet.

"The inky blackness of space," I say. "Sparkling with stars." 

The whole of Eerie-on-Sea is painted as an underwater scene. It's hard to tell where the land ends and the waves begin. Each character, and much of the descriptive, weaves in elements of the ocean. It's as though the prose are painted in blue and green. As though you're reading through tinted spectacles. 

Only minor qualm with the audiobook was the compression. I listen at night as I'm dozing off, and it went from soft to shouty a little too often, which meant fiddling with the volume. But the story and the narrator were great.