The Book of Dead Days: Bk. 1 - Hardcover

Sedgwick, Marcus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1842552171 ISBN 13: 9781842552179

Publisher: Orion Children's Books, 2003

Synopsis

The days between 27 December and New Year's Eve are dead days - days when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. There is a man, Valerian, whose time is running out, who must pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. His servant is Boy, a child with no name and no past; a child he treats with contempt, but who serves his master well and finds solace in the company of his only friend, Willow. Unknown to any of them it is Boy who holds the key to their destiny. Set in dark threatening cities and the frozen countryside in a distant time and place of the author's making, "The Book of Dead Days" conjures a spell-binding story of sorcery and desperate magic as Valerian, Boy and Willow battle to stop time and cling to life. Beautifully evoked, dramatic and emotionally powerful, this is a real page turner.

About this title

About the Author

Marcus Sedgwick has worked in children's publishing for ten years and before that he was a bookseller. He is also a stone carver and wood engraver and illustrates all his novels. His first book Floodland was hailed as 'a dazzling debut from a new writer of exceptional talent'. Floodland won the Branford Boase Award for the best first children's novel of 2000. With the prize money Marcus Sedgwick bought a piano and is now enjoying learning to play Schubert badly having given up lessons at primary school. Marcus Sedgwick lives in Sussex and has a five year old daughter, Alice.

From the Back Cover

'Marcus Sedgwick shows the potential of a young Alan Garner.'
Dinah Hall, Daily Telegraph

From the Inside Flap

The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A lot can happen in the dead days.

There is a magician called Valerian who must save his own life, or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant Boy, a child with no name and no past, given to Valerian by Fate when he fell from his hiding place in an old church. And the quick-witted Willow is with them as they dig in death-fields at midnight, and are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape. Unknown to any of them it is Boy who holds the key to all their destinies. His revelations will be shocking.

Set in dark, dangerous cities and in the frozen countryside of a distant time and place The Book of Dead Days, beautifully evoked and dramatic, conjures a spell-binding story of power, corruption and desperate magic.

Marcus Sedgwick has worked in children's publishing for ten years and before that he was a bookseller. He is also a stone carver and wood engraver and illustrates all his novels.

His first book Floodland was hailed as 'a dazzling debut from a new writer of exceptional talent'. Floodland won the Branford Boase Award for the best first children's novel of 2000. With the prize money Marcus bought a piano and is now enjoying learning to play Schubert badly having given up lessons at primary school.

Witch Hill published in 2001 has been equally critically acclaimed and The Dark Horse, published in 2002, was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award.

Marcus lives in Sussex and has a young daughter, Alice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion Children's Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1842552171
• ISBN 13: 9781842552179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272