Rec: The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray (Young Adult) The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding - because I've been enjoying his adult fantasy novels (I've read The Weavers of Saramyr and The Skein of Lament so far, with the third book of that series, The Ascendancy Veil, waiting to be read and then probably recced...) I thought I would check out some of his other work. Before he started writing adult fiction, Chris Wooding published a number of books which would be categorised in the US as Young Adult and I'm pleased to say that on the basis of this one, they're equally as good as the others I've read.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray is set in a kind of alternate-Victorian London that will be familiar to anyone who's read Dickens or his contemporaries. However, this London is very much a place of two halves: twenty years earlier it had been heavily bombed by Prussian airships, after which the wych-kin came to inhabit those places south of the Thames after dark. Along with the wolves that also roam that part of the city, every worst figment of human imagination lurks there in the darkness.
Our protagonist, Thaniel Fox, makes a living hunting the wych-kin and his solitary life is interrupted when he literally runs into the eponymous Alaizabel Cray on one of his forays south of the river. She can't remember what has happened to her, but the creepy tattoo in the small of her back gives an indication that it's something important. From that point on, Thaniel's quest to find out just what Alaizabel is involved in intertwines with the ongoing hunt for a mass murderer. My only minor quibble about the book would be that at one point Wooding has one of his characters use the anachronistic term 'serial killer', which threw me for a moment, since it's a label that was really only used from the 1960's onwards.
It's an excellent book, well-written and evocative, so I look forward to seeing what else Wooding produces. Like I said before, I have the final book of his first trilogy to read and I understand from his website that he's in talks about writing more adult fiction alongside the YA stuff, which can only be good news for anyone who likes a good story!