• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

The first in a gripping gothic trilogy from an acclaimed author, featuring monsters from classic literary tales, secret societies and the fight between good and evil.

Edgar Brim is a sensitive orphan who, exposed to horror stories from his father as a young child, is afraid of almost everything and suffers from nightly terrors. His stern new guardian, Mr. Thorne, sends the boy to a gloomy school in Scotland where his dark demons only seem to worsen and he is bullied and ridiculed for his fears. But years later, when sixteen-year-old Edgar finds a journal belonging to his novelist father, he becomes determined to confront his nightmares and the bullies who taunt him. After the horrific death of a schoolmate, Edgar becomes involved with an eccentric society at the urging of a mysterious professor who believes that monsters from famous works of literature are real and whose mandate is to find and destroy these creatures. With the aid of a rag-tag crew of friends, the fear-addled teen sets about on his dark mission, one that begins in the cemetery on the bleak Scottish moors and ends in a spine-chilling climax on the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London with Henry Irving, the infamous and magnetic actor, and his manager, Bram Stoker, the author of the most frightening and sensational novel of the day, Dracula. Can Edgar Brim truly face his terror and conquer his fears?

Shane Peacock is a novelist, playwright, journalist, and television screenwriter. His first book was a biography of the spectacular Canadian personality “The Great Farini,” his plays have been produced by the acclaimed 4th Line Theatre, and his documentaries have included Team Spirit, aired on the CTV national network. His best-selling series for young adults, The Boy Sherlock Holmes, has been published in ten countries in twelve languages and has found its way onto more than forty shortlists. It won, among other honors, the prestigious Violet Downey Award, The Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction, the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Award, a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Gold Medal, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction and The Libris Award. Each novel was also named a Junior Library Guild of America Premier Selection. The Ottawa Citizen said of the series, “More than just right, dazzlingly right for teen readers, is a new series by Ontario writer Shane Peacock. The vitality of Peacock’s creation of Sherlock is so inspired it feels like the writer is possessed, channeling Sherlock’s spirit.”

Shane Peacock's profile page

Very dark and eerie

by Nicola Mansfield

I adored the author's Boy Sherlock series and was delighted to hear about this new series. High Victorian Gothic horror and mystery abound in this tale set in approx. the same timeframe as the Sherlock books. Victorian era, but this time mostly set in the Scottish highlands. Very dark and eerie. The paranormal elements come from a boy who can literally feel the emotion and action in tales of fiction. He finds out there are others like him and that the monsters are real. The literary connections make the plot even more exciting for book lovers. "Frankenstein" and Polidori's "The Vampyre" are spoken of a great deal, while Goethe's "Faust" and "Dracula" become main plot elements. Bram Stoker is himself a secondary character as is a famous stage actor of the time. I found the story highly atmospheric and entertaining. The pace was a little slow, but it was a great beginning to a new series.