'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children', by author Ransom Riggs, is a dark fantasy novel that was released earlier this month through Quirk Books. It is marketed as a young adult book, but it is very well-written and the descriptions wonderfully detailed enough that perhaps older readers may also enjoy it too. The book is also peppered with some quaint and slightly odd vintage photographs, which make the reading experience more vivid, without intruding upon the reader's own imagining of the characters, story and setting.
The plot centres around Jacob, a 16-year-old boy, and his quest to find the truth about his grandfather's time at a very unusual orphanage during his childhood. Near the end of his life, Jacob's grandfather becomes increasingly paranoid that the "monsters" he fled from as a boy have returned to kill him and that Jacob will also soon be in danger. Not believing these wild claims, Jacob dismisses it at delusional fantasies created by his grandfather because of the traumas of war.
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| A photo of children from the Home |
However, all this changes when Jacob witnesses his grandfather's rather grisley end and is convinced that he sees someone - or something- lurking in the woods nearby. Terrifying nighmares then proceed to haunt him, along with his grandfather's plea for him to go to the orphanage that he grew up in, as he will then "be safe" there. So, after deciphering some cryptic clues, Jacob and his father travel "halfway across the world" to a small island off the coast of Wales, on which the orphanage is situated. A fabrication of a mentally ill elderly man's imagination, or real terrors? What awaits Jacob on the island?
If you want to find out, the book is out now, but if you'd like to 'test out' the prologue and first 3 chapters before that (79 pages), Quirk Books have them available for free online here:
Prologue & Chapters 1, 2, 3
Prologue & Chapters 1, 2, 3
You can also watch the video trailer, shot by Dirty Robber, below:
