Title: The Whispering Skull
Author: Jonathan Stroud
Series: Lockwood & Co., #2
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Imprint: Disney-Hyperion
Publication date: September 16th, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5
(Book
read from August 4th to August 15th, 2014, from the eARC received
from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange of an honest review.)
Summary:
In the six months since Anthony, Lucy, and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England, Lockwood & Co. hasn't made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwood's investigations. Finally, in a fit of anger, Anthony challenges his rival to a contest: the next time the two agencies compete on a job, the losing side will have to admit defeat in the Times newspaper.Things look up when a new client, Mr. Saunders, hires Lockwood & Co. to be present at the excavation of Edmund Bickerstaff, a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead. Saunders needs the coffin sealed with silver to prevent any supernatural trouble. All goes well-until George's curiosity attracts a horrible phantom.
Back home at Portland Row, Lockwood accuses George of making too many careless mistakes. Lucy is distracted by urgent whispers coming from the skull in the ghost jar. Then the team is summoned to DEPRAC headquarters. Kipps is there too, much to Lockwood's annoyance. Bickerstaff's coffin was raided and a strange glass object buried with the corpse has vanished. Inspector Barnes believes the relic to be highly dangerous, and he wants it found.
The author of the blockbuster Bartimaeus series delivers another amusing, chilling, and ingeniously plotted entry in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series.
My Thoughts on the Book:
I absolutely adored the first book in the Lockwood & Co. series - The Screaming Stairscase. I was so surprised & amazed & blown away by that book last year, so I had really high hopes for the sequel.
The Whispering Skull is a great sequel to The Screaming Staircase. Despite the fact that I didn't find this book to be as eerie & scary & horrific from the beginning as its predecessor, it got there before it was over, and I pretty much adored every second of it.
The story itself was really interesting, and horrific enough in the end, and once again I didn't want it to end, and I was left eager for the next book in the amazing Lockwood & Co. series.I can't even express how much I love the characters. I loved them even before this book, but Anthony, Lucy & George are a trio that with their second book crawled under my skin, and are one of my top favorites now. What I absolutely adored in this book was how close they became before this book ended. They fought & argued a lot, and despite that, they had each others back when it was important, and now they're a real family. I can probably gush about them each separately (especially Anthony) for a long time, but I'll stop myself here.I also enjoyed the secondary cast of characters. There were some interesting quirky new ones, as well as some old ones, that despite not quite liking them, I enjoyed learning more about them & getting to know them more.The Whispering Skull is one mysterious, humorous, entertaining & eeire ghostly story featuring an amazing cast of characters set in an interesting world, and I can't recommend it enough, as well as the series itself! Definitely one of my favorites, and I can't wait for the next book!
So glad you loved this one. My son loved the first book and I'm planning on getting this one for him too.
ReplyDeleteThat cover is FANTASTIC
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