Wormwood - Softcover

G. P. Taylor is the author of several best-selling novels, including Shadowmancer, Shadowmancer: The Curse of Salamander Street, Wormwood and Tersias, as well as the Mariah Mundi trilogy. A former vicar of Cloughton in Yorkshire, he has enjoyed a varied career, moving from rock music to social work to ten years in the police force before his ordination. He now lives with his family in Scarborough.

Grade 7 Up–In this unremittingly dark fantasy set in 18th-century London, Dr. Sabian Blake, a scientist/Cabalist, receives a strange gift–a book of arcane knowledge that foretells the approach of a cataclysmic comet. As Wormwood draws near, bedlam breaks out and humanity's sinister side comes forward–all conveyed in exquisitely detailed scenes of violence and mayhem. When Dr. Blake's 14-year-old servant, Agetta, steals the book, she is pursued by demons, angels, and gargoyles come to life. Warring factions of an occult group seem to be vying with each other for possession of the volume, but in truth, it's all a plot to sacrifice Agetta so that the fallen angel Lillith can live on in her body. The horrors that evil begets are made palpable, but goodness has little purpose in this book. When the angel Rafael says, "It is not for power that the universe was created, but for love," it leaves less of an impression than the eye-popping murders he carries out by spraying his victims with his explosive blood. Indeed, the author seemed to be more concerned with special effects than with plot or character development. Agetta is nothing more than a pawn, the adults around her are unrelentingly self-interested, and the characters who do discover how their lust for power has made them blind persist in their blindness anyhow. Teens with a taste for the gruesome will be attracted to this supernatural thriller, but they'll find little sustenance here.–Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.