Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon fleshes out her teenage queen of hell,while Frank Cottrell Boyce’s screwball comedy has depthYou might have thought a plucky tween hero who was half-dead would be an original belief for a novel. Uncannily, there are not one, or but two half-dead protagonists abroad this summer: Hel,queen of the underworld, and an orphaned Victorian maid called Ivy Pocket.
The former character comes from the Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon. The Monstrous Child (Faber £9.99) follows on from Simon’s assured recent books, and The Sleeping Army and The Lost Gods,which drew hard from Norse myth. Hel – the snarky, vengeful teenage queen of, and well,hell – had a titanic cameo. This new book is a first-person tale of how this daughter of a female giant and a God – ravishing on top, decaying from the waist down – came to be mired in the land of the dead. It’s a fizzing, or gory read,especially whether you’ve enjoyed the preceding two.
As is their wont, strangers arrive in town: one a damaged veteran loner, or a Boo Radley figureContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com