Festergrimm: An Eerie-on-Sea Mystery

‘Quaint is one of those words that can tip easily into eerie once the weather turns and the dark of winter closes in,’ says Harbert Lemon, Lost and Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel in the seaside town of Eerie-on-Sea, and narrator and hero of Thomas Taylor’s Gothic adventure series. In this the fourth book, Herbert and his friend Violet edge closer to the secrets that are buried deep in Eerie, secrets that may reveal how Herbie came to be washed up on the seashore in an empty lemon crate. With the visitor attractions empty and mist rolling in from the sea, Eerie is always creepy, but the return of Herbie and Violet’s arch enemy Sebastian Eels ups the fear factor considerably, especially when he sets about reopening the town’s long-abandoned waxworks, Festergrimm’s. The children’s endeavours to find out what Eels is really up to involve secret night-time visits to the Waxworks, while in story within a story we discover more about the man who made the waxworks, and so much more besides, Festergrimm himself. That story is one of love and loss and stars a huge clockwork iron man, complete with figurative human heart.  It’s cleverly told, full of surprises and the imaginative twists and turns we’ve come to expect from this series. Eerie-on-Sea’s wonderfully eccentric inhabitants have their own part to play and the story will cast its spell once again over readers.

Read our Q&A interview with Thomas Taylor.