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Published Oct 2014
416 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Young Clod is an Iremonger. He lives in at Heap House, his family's mansion at the center of the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items whose ever-shifting masses have been known to swallow people alive. The Iremongers are an odd old family, each the owner of the birth object they must keep with them at all times. Clod is perhaps the oddest of all - his gift and his curse is that he can hear all of the objects of Heap House whispering. Yes, a storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the house's many objects are showing strange signs of life. Clod is on the cusp of being "trousered" and married off (unhappily) to his cousin Pinalippy when he meets the plucky orphan servant Lucy Pennant, with whose help he begins to uncover the dark secrets
of his family's empire.
The first installment of the Iremonger Trilogy, Heap House introduces the reader to a fascinating world whose inhabitants come alive on the page - and in Edward Carey's fantastical illustrations - Clod and Lucy, anxious, animal loving Tummis with his pet seagull, menacing cousin Moorcus, dreadful Aunt Rosamud, and more. Mystery, romance, and the perils of the Heaps await!
"Starred Review. A deliciously macabre trilogy for middle graders and young teens channels Dickens crossed with Lemony Snicket ... in turns witty, sweet, thoughtful and thrilling - but always off-kilter-and penned with gorgeous, loopy prose just this side of precious... Magnificently creepy." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Full of strange magic, sly humor, and odd, melancholy characters, this trilogy opener, peppered with portraits illustrated by Carey in a style reminiscent of Peake's own, should appeal to ambitious readers seeking richly imagined and more-than-a-little-sinister fantasy. Ages 10–up." - Publishers Weekly
"Astonishing and inventive, it calls out to be read." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"My favourite novel for children published this year was the marvelously funny and inventive Heap House" - The Guardian (UK)
"A rare work of individual brilliance." - Inis magazine (Ireland)
"Heap House is delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical, everything that an novel for children should be." - Eleanor Catton, winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries
"Heap House torques and tempers our memories of Dickensian London int a singularly jaunty and creepy tale of agreeable misfits." - Gregory Maguire, best-selling author of Wicked
This information about Heap House was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist, and playwright. His previous novels include The Swallowed Man, Little, Alva & Irva, and Observatory Mansions, and an acclaimed series for young adults, the Iremonger Trilogy. His writing for the stage includes an adaptation of Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice, a continuation of the Pinocchio story. Born in England, he now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives with his wife, the author Elizabeth McCracken, and their family.
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