The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray

by Chris Wooding
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Alaizabel Cray isn’t exactly haunted. Ghosts don’t follow her around and cause trouble. She’s more possessed. Sometimes. Plus, monsters are drawn to her.

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray is set in London during the Victorian period, although they never say what year. The Victorian period feels right because houses and streets are still lit by gas lamps and horse-pulled carriages are still the main form of transportation. However, history doesn’t exactly match up. In this world, the United Kingdom lost a war with the Prussians and, not too long after that, monsters called wytch-kin started taking over part of London.

Two of our main characters, Thaniel and Cathaline, are professional wytch-hunters who run around London at night and do their best to kill wytch-kin. While hunting a Cradlejack, a wytch-kin that abducts babies, Thaniel stumbles across a dirty, crazy woman who doesn’t seem to mind hanging out near the Cradlejack. Feeling sorry for her, Thaniel takes her home and, much to his surprise, nurses her back to sanity. Not too long after that, Thaniel and Cathaline discover that they are all in the middle of a supernatural plot that threatens to destroy the entire world.

One thing I have always wanted to see in a book is a villain who says something like, “Yeah, I’m evil, but I don’t want to destroy the world. I live there!” We get one of those in this story. However, despite the fact that he sounded like he was off to save the world, I found his actual role kind of disappointing.

Some people put this book under horror. I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s more along the lines of supernatural investigation. It has monsters and a serial killer, and there a couple of slightly gruesome scenes, but nothing that bad.

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Where to Find It

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