Bram (nice nod there, Robin!) and his mum and aunty are all sketched in a couple of pages and come off as immediately believable as did the seaside setting.Īnd the reversal in the middle caught me by surprise. Surprisingly, most of the elements are there and work well.

Would this really come through in a short story format? One of the things that we love Robin for is his intricate plotting and convoluted jumps and reversals. I will confess, I was rather curious to see how this story would play out. Delighted to get the band back together for one night for this somewhat creepy journey to the seaside! Matt’s Thoughts: Well, happy Halloween, Jarvis fans. The tides of children’s publishing have changed and continue to change, but a Robin Jarvis story is a Robin Jarvis story, and the British seaside will always be haunted. Where Deathscent in 2001 was elderly enough to warrant a cassette tape adaptation, ten years later, young listeners were able to experience Bran’s chilling seaside encounter via digital download. Though only a few pages long, The Beach Hut carried on that worthy Jarvis tradition of being accompanied by an audiobook release. He’s the big brother of Lil and Verne, paving the way for a more empowered and active approach to whatever supernatural horrors the narrative throws at him. Neither a stalwart Gamaliel nor a wavering Ben caught up in a destiny too large for his puny mortal comprehension, Bran is just a young kid with young kid feelings and young kid ideas about the world. The prose is still florid enough to be recognisable as Jarvis, but the tone has the modern, straightforward feel of The Power of Dark. It reads a bit like a primer for a new era of Jarvis canon, with a new publisher and a new fantasy world, the slate is wiped on old timey London and everything that entailed. Published in 2011, The Beach Hut is difficult now to separate from what followed it – the Dancing Jax trilogy and the Witching Legacy.

Lots of exciting names next to our star author in Haunted, and after a four-year hiatus since Whortle’s Hope it was good to see Jarvis acknowledged as a notable name in dark middle grade beside Susan Cooper, Matt Haig, Phillip Reeve, and a host of others. We hope you’ll join us for the final Witching Legacy book next year, but until then, happy rereading! Myth & Sacrifice has been closed since then for hiatus, so we’ve only just received your lovely messages, but we were very pleased and humbled to find that our rather epic blogging journey still proves an interesting read. You’ll be my friend forever.’Īufwader’s Thoughts: First of all, a huge thank you from Matt and I to everyone who has contacted us since our last post in January. ‘We’ll play together on the shore every night. ‘You’ll stay with me always, Bram,’ she demanded.

Deathscent by Robin Jarvis