Riverkeep

Description

A gripping and moving tale of loyalty and adventure from a bright new British YA talent. Fifteen-year-old Wulliam is dreading taking up his family's mantle of Riverkeep, tending the river and fishing corpses from its treacherous waters. But then everything changes. One night his father is possessed by a dark spirit, and Wull hears that a cure lurks deep within the great sea-beast known as the mormorach. He realizes he must go on an epic journey downriver to find it - or lose Pappa forever.

Martin Stewart has previously worked as a recycling technician, university lecturer, barman, golf caddy, and English teacher. Having written his first book on Post-Its as an eight year-old, it was his time back in the classroom that made him understand the unique joy of writing for younger readers. A native of Glasgow, where he still lives, he enjoys buying books to feed his to-be-read pile, and combining the city's urban splendor with walks on the beaches of Scotland's west coast. Riverkeep is his first novel. Follow him on Twitter: @martinjstewart.

Riverkeep is utterly engrossing. There are elements of Game of Thrones in the grittily realised violence; there is Gormenghast in the grotesque comedy; and it has the strange magic of Earthsea. The prose is by turns dense, sensuous, and funny, but never less than gripping. A superb debut novel -- Anthony McGowan award-winning author of The Knife that Killed Me and Henry Tumour