In the spirit of Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins, and Edgar Allan Poe, Michael has crafted a fascinating and disturbingly dark Freudian fairy tale for grown-ups and given us a different sort of Faustian monster in Mr. Whatley. The atmosphere crackles, but beneath it all is a sly sense of humor. The novel is epic in scope, but deeply human in its concerns. Not since Coraline unlocked a door and discovered a distorted mirror-world has the simple act of walking through a dense fog revealed such a phantasmagorical journey that is so splendidly strange, frightening and exhilarating. This beguiling debut is a cabinet crammed with the most creative and grotesque curiosities you will ever encounter in your wildest drug-induced dreams. It is so diabolically good that those whose taste tends toward the intelligently macabre will surely stay up past their bed time. Readers of fantasy and literary fiction alike will be charmed and enthralled.

An unconventional heroine in the vein of Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennett, Charlotte Markham is no swooning maiden. Sensible but high-strung, haunted by loss yet yearning for a new life, she fights for the children fearlessly against otherworldly creatures with complete disregard for her own life. When events move from ominous to outrageous, you are compelled to cheer her on.

I had an instant connection with this novel the minute I laid eyes on the first paragraph. I knew it was something special because it made me sit up immediately and take notice, which was no small feat, as it was probably the 100th query letter I read that day. I requested the full manuscript right then and there, and the rest, as they say, is history.