Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull

By Author / Illustrator

Martin Howard, illus Pete Williamson

Genre

Supernatural

Age range(s)

Publisher

Nosy Crow

ISBN

9781805132257

Format

Paperback / softback

Expected

26-09-2024

Synopsis

Super funny, super spooky MG for budding horror fans about a talkative skull and a necromancer-in-training - perfect for Lemony Snicket readers!

Mallory Vayle would list her interests as being normal, books about ponies and very definitely NOT talking to dead people. But when her parents' carriage takes a leap off Gibbett Bridge - an accident for which there appears to be no explanation - she is taken in by a strange aunt the family disowned years ago and brought to her new, and very spooky, home. Aunt Lilith, a charlatan psychic, is quick to monetise Mallory's prodigious skills in talking to dead people and starts to advertise grand seances (ticketed obvs) in her spiritual news sheet.

The ghosts of her parents also take up residence in the house but are cruelly snatched away by the shadow of Hellysh Spatzl, the grimmest, wickedest necromancer in all of history. To get them back, Mallory will have to learn how to use the talents she hates and raise the old hag from the dead. Her teacher? A talking skull called Maggoty, who wants some favours in return for his help - not just a gorgeous blond wig and some sparkly earrings, but for Mallory to break the curse that has left his spirit locked inside his own skull for 500 years.

Mallory will have to lean into who she is and what she can do and make a pack with the evil Hellysh Spatzl to get her parents back while at the same time putting on a sensational Halloween spectacular at only five shillings a head for an amazed audience at Nightmare Castle. And learn to love her chatty sidekick and his glorious wig...

As darkly hilarious as The Addams Family, this is really good fun. An alternative spooky Victoriana packed with laughs and outrageous characters, at its heart, it's a story of a young girl coming to terms with her own gifts and accepting that nobody is 'normal'.

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Reviews

Gruesome, gothic and so, so good. This horrifyingly dark-humoured tale is hilarious and heart thumpingly entertaining and enthralling. Author Martin Howard and illustrator Pete Williamson have created a masterpiece of creepy illustrations and a narrative that tests the nerves every step of the way.

Mallory Vale and the Curse of Maggoty Skull takes its place alongside superb supernatural stories and weird and wonderful tales such as The Beast and the Bethany, A Series of Unfortunate Events and classic Tim Burton films. Even malevolent and putrid Beetlejuice himself would quake at the hands of the pure evil of ghostly villain Hellysh Spatzl.

Mallory Vale can see ghosts and, tragically, at the start of the tale, the ghosts she sees and talks to are her recently deceased parents. Suddenly orphaned, Mallory's long lost 'psychic' Aunt Lilith appears, "odd, tall and strangely dressed under a bent umbrella" at the rain-soaked funeral and claims Mallory as her only living relative. Home will now be Carrion Castle, in Nightmare Alley, in the district of Stabbings…

The scene is set for seriously spooky supernatural scares ahead. Within Carrion Castle lies an ancient, dark and dreadful presence. When her ghostly devoted parents are kidnapped, Mallory discovers that her own spectral powers are far greater than she ever had nightmares over and, accompanied by a talking skull with an inflated ego and serious high maintenance attitude and wig fetish, she must brave the terrors of her own talents as she tries to find and save her dead but dear mother and father and face a necromantic nemesis with truly torturous intentions.

Marvellously macabre in the most nerve tingling, spine chilling ways, the narrative grips the reader with its deeply dark descriptions. The spectral world within this book is so fully fleshed out and realised - the eerie, foreboding settings of Carrion Castle, the personification of the vile weather that swirls threateningly around the streets of Stabbings, and the horrified thoughts of Mallory herself are so fantastically woven together by author Martin Howard. Illustrations by Pete Williamson complete the pervading sense of fear and of fun and are a perfect match for the images the text is already creating in the minds of readers, with racing hearts and goosebumps galore.

This is so brilliantly written; so many lines just jump out and freeze the reader with fear - "Fingernails dragged down the chalkboard of her soul", as Mallory views her new home for the first time in Chapter 3. The accompanying deliciously disturbing illustration shreds the nerves even more…

Alongside the heart-stopping moments are, of course, the humour and the heart-warming scenes that lead the reader bravely on with Mallory. Maggoty Skull is a superb sidekick of a skull and, despite the lack of actual body, is lively, larger-than-life and entirely likeable . His bickering with Mallory is the spark that lights up the story and ensures the darkness never overwhelms the reader. Terrifically terrifying. I loved it.

304 pages / Reviewed by Jenny Caddick, teacher