Practical Demonology
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Clare Rees’s Practical Demonology is a chilling YA novel set in a world overrun by plague and demons—and a group of teens doing anything they can to survive.
There have always been castles in the valley, and the people have always been under threat. They’ve always needed those thick walls, the protection of that enclosing stone. Non feels like she needs it more than most, because her mother was infected by the demons that live in the woods.
As the doctor’s daughter, Non had planned a career in medicine—partly to please her father, but also because it would keep her inside the protective walls of the citadel. When plague strikes the citadel, all the teenagers are evacuated to the ruined Cirtop Castle. While there, she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to study the demons that she’s always feared. But will she be brave enough to take it?
In the footsteps of Jelly, Rees’s brilliant and original debut novel, comes a new story of survival and community—and just a little bit of literal guts.
“This fantasy with a side of horror offers an original take on demons, a faux medieval setting, and an anxious protagonist whose perceptive, amusing voice carries the narrative with aplomb . . . A clever and atmospheric read.”—Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Presumed-white teenagers fight pestilence and an eerie demon siege with epidemiology in this grotesque fantasy horror standalone. A recurring plague has reached socially anxious Non's citadel, an oasis in lands haunted by the demons who killed her mother. Quarantined at abandoned Cirtop Castle with students from religious Kintaborel and athletic, militaristic Castle Goch, Non, who has been studying medicine, is swallowed by repair work, mapping the abandoned landscape, and an instant attraction to Goch resident Sam. After Cirtop residents find a church full of corpses incubating demon eggs, demon attacks and an escalating siege spur Non to pick up her mother's unfinished research into demonology. Kinetic prose and a unique approach to apocalypse imbue Rees's (Jelly) humorous but no less claustrophobic world with slow-creeping dread and body horror. Though secondary characters can be thinly rendered, this volume's unsettling spirit will linger deliciously for fans of Iain M. Banks or Kendare Blake. Ages 12–up.