Peregrine Harker & the Black Death

by Luke Hollands

MURDER. SPIES. EXPLOSIONS. REVENGE.

THIS BOOK FOR TEENS HAS IT ALL

Peregrine Harker is about to learn you;re never too young to die.

London 1908: A secret society stalks the murky streets, a deadly assassin lurks in the shadows and a series of unexplained deaths are linked by a mystery symbol.

When boy-detective Peregrine Harker stumbles across a gruesome murder he sparks a chain of events that drag him on a rip-roaring journey through a world of spluttering gas lamps, thick fog, deadly secrets and dastardly villains.

Every step of Peregrine's white-knuckle adventure brings him closer to the vile heart of a terrifying mystery - the true story behind the Brotherhood of the Black Death.

• ISBN13: 9781907230448
• Publish Date: 3 June 2013 (first published 3 May 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 9 June 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Sparkling Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 260
• Language: English

Reviews

[tellemonstar]

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars

Peregrine Harker is not your average 15 year old. He works as a journalist and is sent to discover the mystery of why tea prices have soared so high in England lately. Unfortunately this leads to people of all kinds trying to kill him - it must be very special tea. Or rather, something mysterious is going on with the tea and the shipping of tea into England from India. Our hero faces several near-death situations in order to find out the truth.

The story is very fast-paced and pretty much non-stop. To the point where I was feeling like "Woah. Slow down a little bit there, Peregrine. I have to process everything that's just happened to you." It felt a little bit like it was being told to me by my brother (who is the same age as Peregrine) and had a sort of stumbling over itself, not really explaining anything very much feeling.

One issue I had with this book is that you feel a little restless throughout it. The chapters are really short, and I felt that some of them could have been expanded. The storyline was intriguing, but would have been better with some more fleshing out and expansion on some of the areas. You just start to get into that part of the plot when it's finished with and you're moving onto the next thing that's happening. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to make it an exciting and action-packed novel. A little more background on Peregrine and Archie would have been good as well.

I think it is a good boys novel because there is quite a bit of action and if they are into action or adventure, then they certainly won't get bored. I didn't get bored as I enjoy a it of action and adventure in my reading, I just felt it was too fast. Almost like the author had a maximum word limit and needed to fit everything that happened into that limit.

[limabean74]

I received a copy from Sparkling Books Ltd on netgalley.com my request.

Peregrine Harker & The Black Death is a fasted pace book about a boy reporter who goes out on a story only to be caught up in an action packed adventure....

Let me start by saying this was a really fun book. If I was a middle grade boy this would have all the adventure I would dream about..Murder, Mystery, Spies and a lovely lady to save. But since I'm not a middle grade boy I will say this was a very fun, fast paced book that gave a lot of twists and surprises. It did lack something with only 150 pages I felt that it needed something more. The Story was very good just not enough of it. I can see Mr. Hollands writing more books about this character he was VERY likable and the other characters that revolve around him are well written as well. I'm hoping maybe since this was an "introduction"to the life of Mr. Harker maybe more of the story will be written in the next installment? Either way I would recommend this to younger people preferable boys or even maybe adult that are just looking for a fun short story without a lot of thinking involved :) Enjoy!!!