Foulsham by Edward Carey

Iremonger book 2. Hot Key Books, 2014. ISBN: 9781471401619
(Age: 13+) Highly recommended. 'The blackness. The blackness. It wasn't night. It wasn't night at all, it was fire. Fire! Foulsham was on fire. Whole streets of it must have gone up by then, great gusts of black smoke, not from the chimneys of Bayleaf but from the fire spreading all around us.'
Clod Iremonger is trapped as a half-sovereign and the voices are louder than ever. Is he a even a true Iremonger? Or is he his own person?
Lucy Pennant is a clay button lost somewhere out in the heaps. Will she ever find Clod again? And who is the strange child out in the heaps?
Both are desperate to find each other and escape their object form before they are forever trapped.
The citizens of Foulsham believe the Iremonger family are reigning terror on them and the Heap Wall is quickly crumbling. Clod and Lucy must discover who they truly are on the inside . . . and the outside, then save the day.
I would recommend this novel to male children aged 13 and above as some of the themes a quite descriptive and gruesome. I would also recommend this novel to people who have read the first book, as the story continues on from the end of Iremonger book 1: Heap House.
Edward Carey does a brilliant job of describing and illustrating the scenes that are taking place. The novel has an extremely original and eccentric storyline.
Jazmin H. (Student, Year 7)