Book of Lost Things

A fresh take on the corrupted fairy tale genre, this book works in enough layers that it's never certain what is and isn't really happening; that's entirely for the reader to take as they will. Make no mistake, though: This is horror with fantasy trappings, a deepening nightmare with every page, and little pleasant can be found within.

David, a young boy in 1930's London distraught by his mother's cancer, starts to develop OCD mannerisms to fend off her death, and fails. After his father finds a new love, a seizure causes him to hear books and other things whispering. It's not the last. When the family leaves London to escape the Blitz, things get darker: As David's seething resentment over his mother's replacement deepens, he begins to hear his mother's voice, calling him, and shadows begin to haunt his vision.

Then he finds the door, and is thrown against his will into a conflict that isn't his.

The writing is excellent from start to finish; beautiful, evocative, yet simple and flowing quickly, even the side stories told by characters. The mood is consistently brooding, and the many characters are real enough to leap off the page. Hints are dropped left and right, some obvious, some subtle, some red herrings. Even once I could guess what's happening, I stayed glued to the pages, and by the end, I wished I could experience a taste of that ugly, corrupted world, too.

I loved the concept that the nightmares were real inhabitants twisted by exposure to the actual nightmares of the corrupt outsiders. It might have been a fascinating sidebar to have lore of how the twisted aspects were very different long ago.

The ending is a bit on the weak side, first a chapter shoe-horned in just to expand on the history of the world's torture, then overall wrapping up a bit too neat and tidy, but it was well-executed right up until the end. Worth every minute of your time.