Meet the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. Edgar is alarmed when he sees a nasty looking black tail slinking under the castle walls. But his warnings to the inhabitants of the castle go unheeded: Lord Valevine Otherhand is too busy trying to invent the unthinkable and discover the unknowable; his wife, Minty, is too absorbed in her latest obsession – baking; and ten-year-old Cudweed is running riot with his infernal pet monkey. Only Solstice, the black-haired, poetry-writing Otherhand daughter, seems to pay any attention. As the lower storeys of the castle begin mysteriously to flood, and kitchen maids continue to go missing, the family come ever closer to the owner of the black tail…
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5.0 out of 5 stars Read2Review
Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2012
Flood And Fang (The Raven Mysteries – Book 1) is the first book in the Raven Mysteries series. The series is about a very unusual family, a very annoying pet monkey and a Castle that thinks it’s alive. Oh and the house raven!
The story was written from the raven’s point of view which made for very interesting reading. Edgar, the raven, notices some very unusual things happening around the Castle. Maids going missing, unusual tracks in the dirty and a huge tail. Then there is the flood that starts in the basement. Edgar thinks it’s all very odd and goes to investigate.
I really liked the fact that Sedgwick has written this in such a way that the reader gets to fly with Edgar. The reader also gets to feel the annoyance at Fellah, the monkey, and I felt myself getting annoyed at him too.
I loved the illustrations that accompanied the story. I felt they added feeling to the story and also made the characters seem even more realistic.
I will definitely be looking out for the rest of the series from Marcus Sedgwick, I am sure they will be as good as the first book in this series if not better.
Flood And Fang (The Raven Mysteries – Book 1) gets 5/5
eppingstrider
5.0 out of 5 stars a delightful story of gothic daftness, mystery and adventureReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 22, 2014
Raven (the castle’s resident raven) spots a number of potentially nasty things going on in Otherhand Castle, and tries to draw them to the attention of the weird and wonderful characters who inhabit it.
The ink-washed design of the cover is reflected in the illustrations and motifs by Pete Williamson that punctuate the text. It is visually appealing – a chapter book broken up into small chunks, encouraging readers to go on, as if the narrative wasn’t encouraging enough! It takes the reader rollicking through a delightful story of gothic daftness, mystery and adventure. The little boxed paragraphs at the start of each chapter seemed to be a quirky extract from a history of the castle, but by halfway I’d realised these were useful clues for the reader, if not an integral part of the plot.
Sedgwick reminds me to use the sort of names that kids love. I wondered how many might look up Spatchcock to find out that it isn’t just a made-up funny word, but an old-fashioned way of cooking game birds – but then I looked it up myself and found it was also “to insert (a phrase, sentence, story, etc) esp. incongruously” both of which suit the owner of the name admirably! I love Valevine’s fear of the use of the Glottal Stop, which, being a mystery to the raven, becomes his catch-all phrase for anything scary!
It’s a story that would be suitable to read aloud to eight years and up, but would engage older children reading to themselves, and probably become one of those well-thumbed books, even on an eReader. In fact, I expect I’ll read it again, it’s such fun.
Marcus Sedgwick Author Of Flood and Fang pdf Book was born in Kent, England. Marcus is a British author and illustrator as well as a musician. He is the author of several books, including Witch Hill and The Book of Dead Days, both of which were nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award. The most recent of these nominations rekindled a fascination with Poe that has borne fruit here in (in The Restless Dead, 2007) the form of “The Heart of Another” – inspired by Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Of his story, Sedgwick says, “This was one of those stories that I thought might be a novel originally but actually was much better suited to the tight form of the short story. I had the initial idea some years ago but was just waiting for the right ingredient to come along. Poe’s story, as well as his own fascination with technique, provided that final piece of the puzzle.”
He used to play for two bands namely playing the drums for Garrett and as the guitarist in an ABBA tribute group. He has published novels such as Floodland (winner of the Branford Boase Award in 2001) and The Dark Horse (shortlisted for The Guardian Children’s Book Award 2002).
You can Get A Copy of Flood and Fang pdf Or Paperback By Marcus Sedgwick from these online stores below.
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