Heap House

Starred review from August 25, 2014
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. All Iremongers possess birth objects, such as a sink plug or a mustache cup, which they must never lose on pain of death or transformation; Clod is considered odd even by his relatives because he can hear each birth object speak its name. When orphan Lucy Pennant comes to Heap House as a servant, things become even stranger for Clod and his fellow Iremongers. Birth objects and other bits of the house grow restless, moving about on their own, and Clod finds himself falling in love. 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. Ages 10–up. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.

Starred review from January 1, 2015

Gr 7-9-Welcome to Heap House, a sprawling, dark, dingy mansion, situated in the middle of a vast pile of junk. It's home to the Iremongers, a strange and reclusive extended family. They intermarry to preserve their bloodlines and consider themselves almost royalty. People with partial Iremonger blood are their servants. Their identities are tied to "birth objects," commonplace things that represent and shape who they are from birth. Clod Iremonger is 15, with a bath plug for a birth object. He is unhappily engaged to his cousin Pinalippy. Clod has a skill that makes him seem odd in the eyes of the other Iremongers; he can hear the birth objects speaking. They only speak their names, but their voices are always with him. He is resigned to his dreary life until he meets Lucy Pennant, an orphan who is told she has a little Iremonger blood and forced to work at Heap House. Lucy changes the way Clod sees his world, but her arrival sets off a chain of events that might mean the end of Heap House. Black-and-white illustrations are as deliciously unsettling as the text. Characters are rich with personality, from Clod's frightening Granny who has never left her bedroom, to his bath plug, who manages to be sassy even though the only thing he says is "James Henry Hayward." Some colorful language makes this most suitable for older middle grade and teen readers. Stories don't get much weirder, but that's precisely what makes it so magical.-Mandy Laferriere, Fowler Middle School, Frisco, TX

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 15, 2014
The first in a deliciously macabre trilogy for middle graders and young teens channels Dickens crossed with Lemony Snicket.The Iremongers made their fortune scavenging the discards of London, and now the enormous extended family resides in the eponymous agglomerated mansion surrounded by feral rubbish heaps. Sickly Clod Iremonger, on the cusp of being "trousered" and saddled with adult responsibilities, is distrusted for his queer talent: He hears voices from those assorted "birth objects" (including his own sink plug) to which every member of the household is bonded for life. But now the objects are going astray, there are reports of an ominous Gathering, and storms are brewing in the heaps. When Clod teams up with the spunky servant Lucy Pennant, the sinister heritage of the Iremongers can no longer be concealed. Morbid black-and-white portraits reminiscent of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey punctuate a Gothic tale in turns witty, sweet, thoughtful and thrilling-but always off-kilter-and penned with gorgeous, loopy prose just this side of precious. The malevolent setting and delightfully loathsome cast highlight the odd likability of Lucy, so gleefully felonious and brash, and poor, strange, diffident Clod, whom she inspires to genuine heroism. Suspense and horror gradually accumulate into an avalanche of a climax, leading to the most precipitous of cliffhangers, yet what lingers are uncomfortable questions about treating things-and people-as disposable.Magnificently creepy. (Horror. 10-16)

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October 1, 2014
Grades 6-9 The Iremongers live in a tumbledown mansion in the middle of the Heaps, immense piles of junk that sometimes storm like the sea. Inside Heap House, scores of Iremongers work assigned jobs, and each member of the family receives a birth object, which he or she must carry with them at all times. Fifteen-year-old Clod (carrying a bath plug) has a gifthe can hear each object whisper a name. And upon the arrival of a new Iremonger servant, Lucy Pennant (book of matches), the objects grow agitated and start whispering more loudly. When a storm threatens to engulf the house and objects start disappearing, Clod and Lucy investigate and discover the unsettling origin of the objects and the house. The antiquated tone of Lucy and Clod's first-person narratives feels like a direct homage to Edward Gorey, featuring bizarre world building, dreary atmosphere, and an almost-certain dismal end to our poor heroes. Funereal chapter-heading portraits only add to woebegone mood. This series starter should find a good home with fans of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)