The Black Book of Secrets

"Wonderful. Anyone looking for the next big thing has come to the right place.

Higgins has created a uniquely grim fantasy world that more than holds its own with Dickens or Peake.

Her characters are brilliantly realised and the story grabs at the reader with hooked talons" - Eoin Colfer.

When Ludlow Fitch's parents cruelly betray him, he steals away on the back of a carriage and leaves behind the stinking City.

He arrives in the dead of night at a remote village, where he crosses paths with the tall and limping figure of Joe Zabbidou - a pawnbroker with a difference.

For Joe trades secrets, not goods, for cash. Employed as Joe's assistant, Ludlow records the villagers' fiendish confessions in an ancient leather-bound volume: "The Black Book of Secrets".

There's the gravedigger who has been resurrecting bodies; the butcher who made a mouse-meat pie for his bullying father, with fatal consequences; the wizened bookseller who went to murderous lengths to get her hands on a priceless tome.

Ludlow longs to trust his mysterious master, but he senses Joe has much to hide.

But then Ludlow Fitch has his own, very dark, secrets ...