Mister Creecher by Chris Priestly
Available 3rd October 2011
What's it about?
Billy is a street urchin, pickpocket and petty thief. Mister Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man who terrifies all he meets. Their relationship begins as pure convenience. But a bond swiftly develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them ever northwards on the trail of their target ...Victor Frankenstein. Friendship, trust and betrayal combine to form a dangerous liaison in this moving and frightening new book from Chris Priestley.
My review:
4/5
First off I have to say a big thank you to Donna at
Book passion for life for asking me to review this for them, I'd never heard of it and might not have read it otherwise and I'm really glad I did because I ended up really enjoying it.
I've never read Mary Shelley's frankenstein but after this adaption and reading the factful authors note at the end I'd really like to, to see the authors inspirations for Mister Creecher. Chris Priestly has come up with a great twist and made the story his own here with some wonderful characters.
I loved watching the unlikely friendship between Billy and Creecher develop during the book, they come together for their own reasons and gain but it turns out they have a lot more in common than they realize, they both have a yearning to fit in and to have someone to love and i think the author did a good job at putting these emotions across throughout. I really felt connected to both of these characters and cared what happened to them, my fingers were crossed for happy endings.
Most the books I tend to read are set in the US, other worlds or space lol so I always particularly enjoy when I read something set in merry old England, even if is set way before I was even born! I thought Priestly did an excellent job of describing London and later more parts of England as our characters travel up North.
Whilst this is a horror novel I will say that I didn't feel scared or particularly freaked, maybe I'm just thick skinned lol I did find it plenty interesting though and I just loved the extra twist at the end!
I'd definitely recommend this one to anyone and i'm anxious to try something else by this author :)
My thoughts on the cover:
Hmm it's a hard one, when I first saw this cover it didn't really jump out at me, it's nice but it's kind of cartoonish and makes the book look like it might be a bit silly. Now that I've read the book I know exactly what this scene is and think it matches my imagination of it really well and it's a good depiction of Creecher, so I guess I like it but I don't love it.
Favourite quotes:
Billy raised an eyebrow. Who was this strange foreign monster of a man? Was he a freak from a show? Had he escaped from Bedlam?
But unnatural or not, Billy did sense humanity in Creecher. He was not some man-shaped thing. He had feelings and desires. He had a heart and, for all Billy knew, he had a soul as well.
