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The Glass Demon

by Helen Grant (Goodreads Author)

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 695 ratings · 145 reviews

The first death: Seventeen-year-old Lin Fox finds a body in an orchard. As she backs away in horror, she steps on broken glass. The second death: Then blood appears on her doorstep – blood, and broken glass.The third death: Something terrible is found in the cemetery. Shards of broken glass lie by a grave.Who will be next? As the attacks become more sinister, Lin doesn’t k...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published June 22nd 2010 by Puffin UK

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Jan 29, 2012 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: teen

To begin with this book was rating at 1, 2 stars tops. The first 100 or so pages I just couldn't get into it. The characters didn't seem all that interesting. It didn't read like a book I thought I should enjoy. Not just that I felt that things were happening in a blink of an eye, no detail just boom, boom boom. I didn;t see what else could happen. How it could develop, especially develop into a book worthy of 3/4 stars, one I would not regret buying.

BUT.....to my delight it achieved this. I wou...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Warnie B. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, mystery, young-adult, central-europe, faves-from-2010

Helen Grant's books always seem to get such mixed reviews, but I really kind of love them. If you've read The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, you'll notice some similarities here: the setting of a small German town, the main character's reluctant relationship with a neighborhood boy, some really crappy family dynamics, the possibility that supernatural elements are at work. And while sometimes similarities in books by the same author like this can really annoy me, I found that they didn't at all...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Andrea Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

LOVED This book. The characters were fabulous - rich and interesting and deep with lots of empathy. The two main characters are teenagers, with another teen being a primary secondary character. Grant does a fabulous job of catching the teen voice - somewhat disgruntled, misunderstood, a little rebellious and a lot scared/cautious. She is able to give us a real mystery, with the added benefit of taking most of us - Americans anyway - out of our physical space comfort by placing the whole story in...more

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Nov 08, 2011 CD rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystery lovers

I finished her first book, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, in a day. I could not put it down. It was smart, funny and uber-frightening. This one ratchets the fright down and isn't funny at all, but is a speeding train of mystery and teen angst and murder!

Lin Fox is yanked off to Germany right when she should be in her last year of high school in England. Her older sister is in the middle of a crisis, her mother and their younger brother Ru are something of an odd pair of ducks. It is the fath...more

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Jan 16, 2011 Hp Tan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya

It was a sort of love-hate relationship I had with The Glass Demon. The story is narrated in a retrospective style so at about the end of every other chapter Lin goes like, "I was not to know (blablabla) will be (insert some horror)". It's an intriguing storyline, I must say, and the balance between some paranormal cause and a criminal cause of the deaths must have been difficult to hold, but it was done pretty well. You have no idea whether it was the glass demon or some other townie not so kee...more

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Jun 19, 2011 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Spooky story of a girl, Lin, whose family moves from England to Germany so that Lin's professor father can study a set of stained glass windows. The windows are rumored to have been haunted by a demon, but are widely believed to no longer exist. But then Lin learns that someone--human or demon--is willing to kill to keep the windows hidden.

Things I loved: Terrific tension--The Glass Demon is really scary! Great writing. Realism of Lin's family: they're not absent, they loom large in the story an...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Danya rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-but-not-owned, just-contemporary-challenge

This is one of my "snapshot" reviews.

The subject: a set of stained-glass windows that seem to be connected with a series of deaths and the rumor of a demon...

The setting: a small village in Germany in the present-day. (Points for a setting outside the U.S. or Britain!) Some of it feels Gothic, though — in the best sense.

Shutter speed: steady. It's not a thrilling page-flipper, but the mystery builds continually as one creepy event after another occurs. The pattern of events turns out to be prett...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Stefanie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought this book was interesting. I picked it up in the library because I liked the cover, the writing style and shimmery bits caught my eye. I was surprised when I got home to find the book was set in Germany and I must admit I was a bit apprehensive.

The setting however wasn't so much the problem but the family dynamic, I believed that Tuesday was Lin and Polly's stepmother and Reuben's real mum but she turned out to be their real mother. Polly apart from mothering Reuben seemed younger, I i...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Dionne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow what a book! Fast-paced narrative with a character I liked. Helen Grant writes with a style I enjoy reading. Her sense of humour shines through, with the main character, Lin, snarky and with little patience for stupidity or arseholes. The characterization rang true for me—a teen who is not afraid to stand up for what she thinks is right, but second-guesses herself at times.

The main story was mystery and horror combined, underscored with the secondary plot of Lin’s sister, Polly, having anore...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Mandy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I discovered this book in a list of best adult books for teens in a magazine that arrived for me at my library. I was able to obtain a copy, and it did not disappoint! From the very start, I was hooked. The action begins early with the discovery of a body by Lin, our teenage protagonist. Her family is en route to a rental home for the coming months because her father failed to make professor in a disappointing and politically motivated act by his university. The only viable alternative is for hi...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Melanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The premise was interesting, and the suspense and pace were good enough to keep me reading, but in the end I was left disappointed. The conclusion was sort of anticlimactic in its normality, and none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming characteristics, other than perhaps Polly and Michel. But then again, their only positive traits tended to be their selflessness to the point of being doormats. I couldn't figure out why Michel loved Lin, unless it was just based on physical attraction...more The premise was interesting, and the suspense and pace were good enough to keep me reading, but in the end I was left disappointed. The conclusion was sort of anticlimactic in its normality, and none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming characteristics, other than perhaps Polly and Michel. But then again, their only positive traits tended to be their selflessness to the point of being doormats. I couldn't figure out why Michel loved Lin, unless it was just based on physical attraction and her being foreign. I also couldn't understand how Lin went from using Michel and not caring about him, to suddenly deciding she loved him. There was no epiphany, other than her suddenly realizing he was good looking after being humiliated by the priest she has a crush on, nor any sort of growth in her feelings for him.
Relationships between Lin's family members were also confusing. I was honestly shocked to discover near the end that Tuesday was her real mother, and Polly was actually her older sister, not her younger sister. There was something about the dynamics between them and how each of them acted that gave me the impression that Lin was older, and I don't recall anything in the text giving us their ages.
Because of the way Tuesday relates to the girls differently than she does to her infant son, I was under the impression for most of the book that Polly and Lin's birth mother had died when they were little, and Tuesday was her father's second wife, and Reuben was Tuesday and their father's son.
Lin tells us early on that she wants to be a scientist and be the only one in her family not interested in the arts. But as far as I can tell, only their father is interested in the arts, as a historian. Tuesday doesn't seem interested in much of anything other than fashion mags, Polly only seems interested in taking care of the baby, and there's no real indication that Lin is actually interested in science. Her whole "I'm going to be a scientist" routine only seems to come up when she's trying to rationalize her ill-fated crush on the handsome priest at her school. The fact that Lin can spontaneously draw the elaborate stained glass windows from memory in a matter of minutes was really hard to believe, particularly since Lin doesn't seem to spend any time during the rest of the book drawing or displaying any artistic talent at all, and she only has a few brief encounters with the windows in real life.
And for all of her apparent sympathy for Polly doing everything while Tuesday does nothing, Lin herself doesn't seem to actually pitch in to help out. Aside from going to school, and the few trips to the woods, I can't really figure out what Lin herself is spending her time on, and why she couldn't help her poor sister out.
I also think considering how much misinformation is given about Michel's brother, it would've been more effective to have Lin actually meet him, rather than coming to the realization that he was harmless via Michel's words and her own analysis of an event she didn't actually witness (when Michel's father comes over to the castle to threaten Lin's family, and Jorg comes along).
All in all, it's an interesting premise, the suspense and tension are well done, but it was hard to care about what happened to any of the characters when I didn't really like any of them (other than perhaps Michel and Polly, the only two I found sympathetic), and the big reveal was sort of a let down. (less)

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Oct 09, 2011 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, twas-good, young-adult, horror

Lin Fox and her family move to Germany for a year so her father can track down the fabled Allerheiligen stained glass and win himself a reputation. Yet the moment of their arrival, death seems to follow, leaving behind a track of broken glass; the sign of Bonschariant, the demon who haunts the glass.

Secretive townsfolk, open hostility, even unhelpful law enforcers seem to point to only one thing. No one wants the glass to be found. What they do want is the Foxes out of their town, or dead.

There...more Lin Fox and her family move to Germany for a year so her father can track down the fabled Allerheiligen stained glass and win himself a reputation. Yet the moment of their arrival, death seems to follow, leaving behind a track of broken glass; the sign of Bonschariant, the demon who haunts the glass.

Secretive townsfolk, open hostility, even unhelpful law enforcers seem to point to only one thing. No one wants the glass to be found. What they do want is the Foxes out of their town, or dead.

There is something eerie in the way the town and its inhabitants were portrayed, and it set a lovely backdrop for the story to unfold. The castle in the woods, an almost isolated feel in the atmosphere - it was a great horror waiting to unravel.

Even the dysfunctionality that was the Fox family added to the overall suspence of the story. And at first glance it was lovely. Tuesday's somewhat immature, coquettish behaviour made me think of her more as an older sister than a mother. Polly's lie-low-and-let-everyone-tramp-all-over-her attitude reminded me a bit of Beth from Little Women. And although I couldn't relate to the doormat aspect of her personality, it was a relief to see her character develop - or change - spiralling into a darker side that we unfortunately never saw very much of.

As for the father. A work-driven, single-minded man, who could even momentarily forget the death of one of his own children for the sake of this hallowed glass (don't act like that's a spoiler because it isn't) - he frightened me the way a quietly unstable, charismatic villain would.

Then we have Lin. Lin and her foolishness. I didn't dislike her character, but I didn't like her either. For someone who seemed so determined to keep her family safe, I was astonished at some of the decisions she made. To me, she was imprudent, wreckless, and her treatment of Michel was just plain selfish.
And I ADORED Michel. But then again, I ADORE German boys so that may be a little biased. I didn't understand why he loved Lin, though (and no, it's not jealousy speaking); it seemed a little too forced for me. It would've been just as well if they were made platonic friends and nothing more. The "love" aspect really grated on me a bit. The word being thrown out and about in the book also made me cringe one too many times.
Maybe it's just me, but when I was seventeen I sure as hell didn't just see some random hunkaspunk and decide I was in "love" with him just because I imagined having special conversations with him.

The plot itself was ... fast-moving? Deliberate? The downside is that we didn't get a complete feel of the town and its townsfolk (or is it village and villagers?); somewhat understandable since Grant would want to focus on the Allerheiligen glass and the search for it.
What was a pity for me is that what made the book scary was the underlying feel in its backdrop. The story itself was not frightening, nor was it even suspenseful.

Another nit I have to pick is how forced things seemed. And I'm not just talking about Michel's sudden love for Lin - I'm talking about the hostility and cold shoulder the townsfolk gave to the Foxes. Sure, it was all spooky-spooky and suspicious when you were reading the book, but once you've finished and you think back, you'd realize there really wasn't any reason for that cold treatment. And don't tell me it has anything to do with post-war enmity between Germany and England because I. Don't. Buy. It.

Yet I enjoyed The Glass Demon; I liked the character development, disregard whether or not I liked the characters themselves. Grant also has a way of building up emotion and setting up mood, nudging readers to read on. So this one earns much over three but still less than four stars from me.(less)

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Jul 19, 2011 Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Helen Grant’s books are charming. I enjoyed very much The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. The Glass Demon is more clearly a YA book that the previous one.

It may not be top notch literature, but it is very lively, with a great sense of suspense, some scary stuff if you enjoy those, and you can even learn a lot about Medieval art, and art inspired from the Bible, if you take time to research what she’s talking about. When she writes about Durer, why not go and look at some of his engravings online,...more

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Feb 18, 2011 P.E. at Tantalizing Illusions rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I first saw this book, I knew I had to read it right away. It sounded spooky and scary, and it was.

Lin was a good character. She hated having to move into Germany and she had her faults, and her good points. Though she wasn't a super memorable character, she was nice to read. The other characters were much more interesting, especially Tuesday, and her dad. Tuesday seemed like an airhead who didn't care about her kids at all, but when one of them was threatened, we really see how much she ca...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Kriss Morton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: club-fantasci, cabingoddess-com-reviewed

This is going straight into my personal ”Favorite & Beast Books of 2013” pile!

Among the mitigating factors why this book became a favorite of mine is that I am a medievalist; I love a good mystery; I spent a year, which included a summer, wandering the countryside of Germany before my senior year, visiting abbeys, cathedrals and castle ruins. Heck, I am even writing a book about my adventures called ‘The Gargoyle Girls’! This story made me feel like I was back there doing it all over again....more This is going straight into my personal ”Favorite & Beast Books of 2013” pile!

Among the mitigating factors why this book became a favorite of mine is that I am a medievalist; I love a good mystery; I spent a year, which included a summer, wandering the countryside of Germany before my senior year, visiting abbeys, cathedrals and castle ruins. Heck, I am even writing a book about my adventures called ‘The Gargoyle Girls’! This story made me feel like I was back there doing it all over again. But more than anything, this book was so incredibly written—from characters, to plot, to descriptions, to making me feel like I was there right along with Lin and her family each step of the way—these alone were enough for me to place it into the pile of personal favorites and best books of 2013.

Helen Grant weaves a tale of mystery and suspense involving not only the stained glass surrounding the legend of the The Glass Demon, Bonschariant, but the mystery of Lin’s family itself. Each chapter unveils a bit of the secret of both. Each step and discovery Lin makes, whether it be about her family, the village, the glass, her emotional status, her father… everything is intertwined, like “a thicket of thornbushes”, as Lin has narrated to us about one of her father’s reading recommendations:

‘“The abbot’s niece.” My father was holding a small hardback book in a faded green binding; now he flourished it to me. “This is a fascinating book,” he added. “You should read it.”

I didn't take the bait. One glimpse of the Gothic title stamped on the spine in gold had convinced me that trying to read even a single page in that typeface would be like picking your way through a thicket of thornbushes. Even if you got to the other side, you would wish you hadn’t tried it.’ (shared from book–location 1821)

Obsessions are a key theme throughout the book, and they all are a lot like “picking your way through a thicket of thornbushes.” (Lin’s fabulous simile of her father’s book) It fits in not only with the dysfunction enmeshed within the family, but also saturates the plotlines. There is not one word that can describe everyone’s specific obsession. Tuesday is obsessed with not being old and labeled a mother. Poly is obsessed with not being fat. Lin’s father is obsessed with finding the glass so much he doesn't have time for anything or anyone else. The laicized priest is seemingly obsessed with convincing everyone the glass does not exist anymore, but… oh, spoilers sweetie… And Lin? Lin is obsessed with a plethora of things, and she can be; she is the protagonist!

The story is narrated by Lin, and though first-person point of view is one of the hardest POVs to write in, Ms. Grant pulls it off without a hitch. There were no problems at all. Not once did the tone drop out of Lin’s voice. In the dark, or in sunlight, or in humor, Lin’s snarky teenage voice shines through. Helen writes with a great use of similes, as shown above in the example. This is still in Lin’s voice, due to her being a very smart teenager. We still see the typical weakness in her actions and choices, same as most teens have. To name a few, her unsure and awkward tendencies when faced with love or lust or the crush of a boy, and being the new kid in school.

I could not put this book down once I opened it up. With the pattern of murders splintering the countryside, leaving a trail of broken glass and feeding the paranoia of the legends and tales of The Glass Demon, it is no wonder this book had me trapped and unable to sleep till I was finished. I would recommend this not only as a family read, as it definitely fits into the Young Adult genre; but also I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a smart, well-written literary thrilling suspense.

This review was done for Club Fantasci - April Book of the Month I bought it and reviewed it on my own. All of us did decide if there was one thing we had issue with was how or when or why or what the deal was with the baby brother! Other than that I gave it a solid five stars.(less)

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Jan 22, 2011 Nurshafiqa rated it 4 of 5 stars

did not have any expectations at all when i first picked this book up. in fact, i was somewhat expecting to read something sluggish and sleep-inducing. i was wrong.

throughout the book, i kept thinking how much i really liked it. it wasn't what i thought it was, and the idea of discovering ancient stained glasses was really neat. plus the story took place in some remote part of germany which i thought feels pretty exotic.

but the relationship between lin and michel was a bit off for me, especially...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Mara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, supernatural, this-heroine-annoyed-me

I did not realize yet, that summer when I was seventeen, and my sister Polly was still alive, when the sun was shining and even the wind was warm, and my whole body was restless, that there are worse things than being stuck in a small town for a year. There are demons, and they are more terrible than we can imagine.

This was an interesting supernatural story. It started out slow, but got more interesting after the events were put into motion and we got to know the characters. The setting was wel...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Natalie Cheetham rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: gstba-2013

Lin Fox is not happy to be spending her last year of high school in Germany, as her father searches for medieval stained glass. It's rumored that the glass is cursed, and when Lin and her family keep encountering death, and when someone/something begins threatening Lin's own family, she begins to believe the rumors. Can Lin and her new friend, Michel, find and fight the demon behind the glass before it's too late?

I really didn't get this book. A demon haunting medieval stained glass...not really...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, mystery

This was a suspensful story, with unexpected revelations and some truly creepy parts. It's smartly told, and the 17 year old protagonist is realistic and likable.

The book is set in Germany, and the little bits of German are a nice touch without feeling gimmicky. It generally has a dark, foreboding tone to it, with moments of foreshadowing which add to the tension without giving anything away, except for one major plot point--she tells us that a major character is going to be dead by the end of...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Kat rated it 3 of 5 stars

A novel set in a small German town, with English visitors, crazed locals, missing haunted stained glass window. What gave me the chills was not the creepy murders and the supposed demon but the portrayal of the parents of the protagonist, 17 year old Lin. The Dad is obsessed with his career and ruthlessly moves the family to Germany after an academic set-back and refuses to move back even after a bunch of very scary events. The mom (is she the mom? Lin for most of the book says she is not, but t...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Malin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-books

Lin Fox and her family are moving to Germany for a year. Her father is a history lecturer who dreams of a glamorous TV career, and is taking his family with him on a sabbatical year in Germany after he was passed over for a promotion. While driving to the village they're to live in for the next year, Lin and her family come across a dead body. An old man is lying in an orchard, with a head wound, surrounded by broken glass. Lin's father and stepmother are not interested in being questioned by th...more Lin Fox and her family are moving to Germany for a year. Her father is a history lecturer who dreams of a glamorous TV career, and is taking his family with him on a sabbatical year in Germany after he was passed over for a promotion. While driving to the village they're to live in for the next year, Lin and her family come across a dead body. An old man is lying in an orchard, with a head wound, surrounded by broken glass. Lin's father and stepmother are not interested in being questioned by the police, so bundles Lin and her sister into the car and drive off, letting someone else report the death.

Lin's father is in Germany to find a set of legendary and rumoured to be nearly priceless stained glass windows, made by an artist in the Middle Ages. However, the Allerheiligen glass is also rumoured to be haunted by a demon, and anyone connected to them dies horribly. If Doctor Fox can actually locate the glass in rural Germany, his reputation would be guaranteed, and his career secured. Most people seem to think the glass was destroyed centuries ago, though, and the German historian who contacted Lin's dad is dead, drowned in the bath shortly before they arrived in the village.

Most of the villagers are generally hostile towards the English family, and while Lin seems to have made an admirer, Michel, who offers to drive her to school, even he seems to think that Doctor Fox' quest for the glass is a wild goose chase. As more people turn up dead under mysterious circumstances, all surrounded by broken glass, Lin's sister seems to get more withdrawn and insecure, multiple attempts are made to scare the family away, Lin starts wondering if the stories about the demon's curse are actually true.

My enjoyment of heroine's name notwithstanding (as a history buff it amused me greatly, but I can see why she insists on going by simply Lin), I was about halfway into this novel before I realized that it was a mystery novel, and not a paranormal fantasy. Both the title of the novel, and the blurb of the book seemed to suggest that there were paranormal elements to the story. So when they didn't appear, I was puzzled and I suspect it's part of why I may not have been as taken with this story as I could have been. The publishers should possibly have marketed this book differently, as if you're expecting paranormal fantasy, straight forward mystery is not really the same thing, and seemed like a bit of a let down, really. Approaching this book with actual knowledge of the specific genre might add to the reader's enjoyment. The ending of the book was also a bit ambiguous, I'm unsure if the author is setting up for a sequel, or whether the story is complete the way it is written. Either way, I don't know if I'm eager to read anymore about these characters. (less)

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May 09, 2012 Lighthearted rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: gothic, suspense, mystery

A suspenseful blend of legend, mystery, and horror – Grant certainly demonstrates a deft touch in her storytelling. I loved the legend of the Allerheiligen stained glass, as well as the Gothic setting with its crumbling ruins, dark forests, and brooding priests. Claustrophobic, eerie, and nicely plotted, the only aspect of the book that didn’t quite convince me was the relationship between Lin and Michael; it was a bit jumpy, but it didn’t detract from the story. I must add that I desperately wa...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Quite the spellbinder - keeps your interest from first page to last. Hope her next book takes off where this one finishes.

The first death: Seventeen-year-old Lin Fox finds a body in an orchard. As she backs away in horror, she steps on broken glass. The second death: Then blood appears on her doorstep – blood, and broken glass.The third death: Something terrible is found in the cemetery. Shards of broken glass lie by a grave.Who will be next? As the attacks become more sinister, Lin doesn’t know...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Mieneke rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, mystery, young-adult

I have a new must buy author and I'm blaming the lovely Liz from My Favourite Books. She sent me The Glass Demon to read and now I want to read The Vanishing of Katarina Linden asap and I can't wait for Helen Grant's third book Wish Me Dead, which is due for publication on June 2nd. So why did I love The Glass Demonso much? Let me tell you.

Lin is the seventeen-year-old narrator and she's a wonderful protagonist. She's smart and brave, but at the same time slightly self-centered and self-absorbed...more I have a new must buy author and I'm blaming the lovely Liz from My Favourite Books. She sent me The Glass Demon to read and now I want to read The Vanishing of Katarina Linden asap and I can't wait for Helen Grant's third book Wish Me Dead, which is due for publication on June 2nd. So why did I love The Glass Demon so much? Let me tell you.

Lin is the seventeen-year-old narrator and she's a wonderful protagonist. She's smart and brave, but at the same time slightly self-centered and self-absorbed. Which, let's be honest, every seventeen-year-old girl is, however sweet and caring she maybe. It causes her to miss the fact that not everything is right with her sister Polly, in fact things are very much wrong, that Michel is developing feelings for her and the fact that he's a wonderful friend gets overlooked. To be fair, Lin acknowledges this herself, admitting that she should have done better by Polly and that she might be taking advantage of Michel's feelings for her, even if she isn't yet sure of what she feels for him. And I love that. I love that she did and I love that she realises that it's probably not entirely ethical to do so, but does it anyway. Because that is what happens in life and it's what people do. In the end, Michel and Lin's relationship was sweet. It wasn't instant love, but grew slowly with stumbles along the way. There are two scenes in Michel's beat up little car, which I particularly loved in this context. In both cases Lin initiates a kiss, but the motivations and outcomes couldn't have been more different. I loved the mirroring in them and Michel's reactions to them.

Lin's parents are just awful, especially Tuesday. She leaves the care for the girls' baby brother completely to Lin's sister. Tuesday is a diva to her finger tips and the prototype of a high-maintenance female. I kept wondering what had happened to Polly and Lin's real mum. When the answer to that came it was completely unexpected but rather cool!

The other star of the novel was the Allerheiligen glass. Its lure and history are woven throughout the book and the way Lin goes from shrugging off the legend and scoffing at local superstitions, to slowly believing Bonschariant is real was convincingly done. The use of the stories the glass depicts was very inventive too. I was actually pretty proud of myself when I made the connection just a page or two before Lin did, though the actual unveiling of 'Bonschariant' caught me by surprise. I really hadn't expected the culprit to be who they are.

The only niggle I had was the time line. While immersed in the narrative this wasn't a problem at all, but when thinking about the book later on, I realised that I had no idea in what kind of time frame the story played out. The time line was hard to grasp in retrospect, and while this may be my faulty memory, there isn't much mention of time passing, even though it clearly does. And while for the main story this isn't a particular problem, when considering Polly's weight loss for example, it did raise questions for me. But in the end, this was only a minor detail and didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story one jot.

The Glass Demon was a fabulous read, it was spooky, funny, sad and gripping. I kept turning pages, even when I should have put the book away and turned my light off. Even if you do not normally read YA, if you enjoy a good mystery, I highly recommend you pick up Lin's story. Personally, I can't wait to read more of Helen Grant's work.(less)

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Feb 09, 2012 E.D. Martin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this shelved in the general adult section of the library and didn't even realize it was YA until I saw that in reviews, so at first I was disappointed that the novel focused so much on high school. That said, the protagonist Lin is very mature for her age. Combined with the authors vocabulary and style, this novel works at the adult level; it's much more adult than most YA I've read recently.

While the plot of the novel was original, I was disappointed in the storytelling as it veered fro...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Regina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-before

i liked this one a lot! the mystery behind it kept me interested and i liked how the relationship between Lin and Michael was well developed. It was very unique in that Lin was not instantly attracted to him and she grew to know him through what they share. In fact she kinda disliked and thought he was pathetic at first but i thought Michael was sweet in his persistence haha. Lin grows a lot in the novel which is always a good thing. She started off rather haughty and almost annoying in her sarc...more

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Jul 10, 2012 heather-lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

The murder-mystery aspect was compelling enough to get me to stay up and read the book, so I suppose that's why I rated this book as highly as I did. The author seemed to be trying very hard not to let the book go in the direction of a "conventional" mystery or crime novel, but it might have been loads better if she had. The family relationships the book spent a lot of time on were still not very highly developed or compelling, and the romance, such as it was, left much to be desired. Even the v...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Ann Charlier rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't shy away from reading YA books and have read a few excellent ones. ( I Am The Messenger and The Book Thief) I did like this Helen Grant book much better than her first one- "The Vanishing of Katharina Linden". This book was actually a very good mystery and I wasn't sure "who dun it" until the very end. However, there was a odd detour around chapter 40 into a "teenage older man obsession" that seemed out of place with the rest of the book. It felt like it was put there to appease the YA...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Kristy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011, teen-fiction

As a horror story for young adults this is great. It had me genuinely scared at certain points. It took me a while to get into it but then I read half of it in one sitting, I was so keen to know what would happen next.

This was a book that I read for work as it's nominated for the Leeds Book Awards which my reading group is following, it's not one I would have picked up otherwise but I would recommend it. One girl in the group said she found it weird and didn't entirely enjoy it but the more she...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: young adult readers

An engrossing tale from the point of view of a British high school girl, living in Germany with her family, who encounters the legend of a demon embedded in stained glass. Present day issues like anorexia contribute to the sense of foreboding. Dark forests, an evil priest, a "not normal" older brother of a school friend and suspicious deaths are more than enough for one girl to handle. But handle them she does. The story is a bit melodramatic but I like the way the girl discovers her own strengt...more

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Club Fantasci: Thoughts on "The Glass Demon" by Helen Grant	1	3	May 01, 2013 08:24am

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Horror

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Fantasy

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Fantasy > Supernatural

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Cultural > Germany

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Paranormal > Ghosts

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About Helen Grant

Helen Grant (born 1964 in London) is an English author of novels for young adults, now based in Scotland. She was educated at Dr Challoner's High School and went on to read classics at St Hugh's College, Oxford. Her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, was published by Penguin Books in April 2009.[1] It was shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the CILIP Carnegie Medal. It has

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