About this item
THE DAYS BETWEEN Christmas and New Year’s Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant, Boy, a child with no name and no past. The quick-witted orphan girl, Willow, is with them as they dig in death fields at midnight, and as they are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape.Praise for The Book of Dead Days:“Beautifully paced and sometimes blood-soaked. . . . A very tangible sense of evil.
About the Author
MARCUS SEDGWICK was born and raised in East Kent in the south-east of England. He now lives in the French Alps.He is the winner of many prizes, most notably the 2014 Michael L. Printz Award for his novel Midwinterblood. Marcus has also received two Printz Honors, for Revolver in 2011 and The Ghosts of Heaven in 2016, giving him the most citations to date for America's most prestigious book prize for writing for young adults. Other notable award winning books include Floodland, Marcus' first novel, which won the Branford-Boase Award in 2001, a prize for the best debut novel for children published in the UK each year; My Swordhand is Singing, which won the Booktrust Teenage Prize for 2007, and Lunatics and Luck, part of The Raven Mysteries series, which won a Blue Peter Book Award in 2011.His books have been shortlisted for over forty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (seven times) , the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (four times) . He has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award three times, in 2016, 2017 and 2018.Marcus was Writer in Residence at Bath Spa University for three years, reviews for The Guardian newspaper and teaches creative writing at Arvon and Ty Newydd. He has judged numerous books awards, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Costa Book Awards. He has illustrated some of his books, and has provided wood-engravings for a couple of private press books.www.marcussedgwick.com
