J. M. Miro Knihy

The first in a captivating new historical fantasy series, ORDINARY MONSTERS introduces the Talents with a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world, and the gifted, broken children who must save it. There in the shadows was a figure in a cloak, at the bottom of the cobblestone stair, and it turned and stared up at them as still and unmoving as…

"England, 1882. In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness-a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When a jaded female detective is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous. What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theatres of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts - the Talents - have been gathered. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of what is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts. Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world-and of the gifted, broken children who must save it"-- Publisher's description

1883. Agrigento, Sicily. A city of spires and now broken hopes and bodies... With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only chance of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine - long-hidden, thought lost - which might not even exist. But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they'd feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will - and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs - an evil which the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving, or destroying forever. So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the roar of the streetmarkets in nineteenth-century Alexandria, to the sunlit silences of the Dalmatian coast. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together - if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend. A breathtaking sequel to Ordinary Monsters, delving even deeper into the rich worldbuilding and darkly sparkling tale of The Talents. Praise for Ordinary Monsters (Book One of The Talents Trilogy): 'Terrific... A book that creeps up on you, wearing brass knuckles' Conn Iggulden 'A dazzling mountain of wild invention, Dickensian eccentrics, supernatural horrors and gripping suspense. Be warned... once you step into this penny dreadful to end all penny dreadfuls, you'll never want to leave' Joe Hill 'Haunting, tense, earth-shattering' Tamora Pierce