Early Praise for Edward Carey's HEAP HOUSE

Edward Carey's HEAP HOUSE, Book One in the Iremonger Triology, has been selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the "Big Indie Sleepers of Fall 2014."

Heap House will be published on October 16, and has already received widespread praise. 

“Set in 1875, Carey’s delightful variation on Mervyn Peake’s classic Gormenghast books features young Clod Iremonger, sickly scion of an eccentric family that has grown rich off of the trash heaps of London. Heap House itself is a mad conglomeration of building fragments attached willy-nilly to the original mansion located amid dangerous, ever-shifting Heaps. Full of strange magic, sly humor, and odd, melancholy characters, this trilogy opener, peppered with portraits illustrated by Carey in a style reminiscent of Peake’s own, should appeal to ambitious readers seeking richly imagined and more-than-a-little-sinister fantasy.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"What an astonishing book this is! A novel for children so good, so peculiar, so magical that it bears comparison to classics like The Hobbit or The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Golden Compass or the Green Knowe books. That is to say, adults should read it too, in order to be given the uncanny, wrenching sensation of visiting a new and strange place -- and finding a home there."  —Kelly Link, award-winning author of Magic for Beginners

"The first in a deliciously macabre trilogy . . . channels Dickens crossed with Lemony Snicket. . . . a Gothic tale in turns witty, sweet, thoughtful and thrilling—but always off-kilter—andpenned with gorgeous, loopy prose. Suspense and horror gradually accumulate into an avalanche of a climax, leading to the most precipitous of cliffhangers… Magnificently creepy.”  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Heap House is delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical, everything that an novel for children should be.” —Eleanor Catton, winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries

“Heap House torques and tempers our memories of Dickensian London int a singularly jaunty and creepy tale of agreeable misfits.”—Gregory Maguire, best-selling author of Wicked

In this first installment in a new fantasy series for young adults, The Iremonger Trilogy, Heap House introduces a fascinating world whose inhabitants come alive both on the page—and in Edward Carey’s fantastical illustrations. 

An acclaimed novelist, Edward Carey now presents the gorgeously and ghoulishly illustrated story of the Iremonger clan and their gothic, eccentric world with dazzling literary style. Heap House is full of unforgettable characters—anxious, animal-loving Tummis with his pet seagull, menacing cousin Moorcus, dreadful Aunt Rosamud and more. As Carey writes, “Every life is thick with rubbish, but the Iremongers did it with a difference . . .”

The extensive Iremonger family of Filching (“kings of mildew, moguls of mould”) has made a fortune from junk, building a dark and sprawling mansion from salvage scrap. Young Clod is an Iremonger. He lives in at Heap House, in the outskirts of Victorian London, his family’s mansion at the center of the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items whose ever-shifting masses have been known to swallow people alive. 

The Iremongers are an odd old family, each the owner of a Birth Object they must keep with them at all times. Clod is perhaps the oddest of all—his gift and his curse is that he can hear all of the objects of Heap House whispering.  And yes, a storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the house’s many objects are showing strange signs of life. Clod is on the cusp of being “trousered” and married off (unhappily) to his cousin Pinalippy when he meets the plucky orphan servant Lucy Pennant, with whose help he begins to uncover the dark secrets of his family’s empire. Mystery, romance and the perils of the Heaps await!

Edward Carey is the author and illustrator of two novels for adults, Observatory Mansions and Alva and Irva, which was longlisted for the IMPAC Literary Award. Heap House is his first work for young readers and the first in the Iremonger Trilogy. Born in England, he now lives with his wife, Elizabeth McCracken, and their two children in Austin, Texas.  Follow him on Twitter @EdwardCarey70 and at www.edwardcareyauthor.com.