#dark days

~~~

Skulduggery Pleasant has been sucked into the dimension of the Faceless Ones. Chances are high that he’s been turned to dust, or driven insane. There is no official plan to save him. But Valkyrie's never had much time for plans.

Even if she can rescue Skulduggery, there might not be much for him to return to. There are some very powerful people who want the Sanctuary destroyed and Valkyrie dead, and on top of that, it looks likely that a sorcerer named Darquesse is going to kill the world.

With Skulduggery gone, all hopes rest with Valkyrie and her new powers. The world’s weight is on her shoulders, and its fate is in her hands. These are dark days indeed.

~~~

Skulduggery Pleasant is back, and reunited with his original head. But all is not well in the magical world. For one thing, Valkyrie has discovered she is Darquesse, the sorceress set to destroy the world. The problem is that she doesn’t feel she can tell Skulduggery…and that’s how all the trouble starts.

With Valkyrie on a quest to prevent her evil destiny from coming to pass, Skulduggery and the gang are even more vulnerable. Which is a shame, because the Remnants, beings of pure anger, hatred, and spite that dream of a dead world, have been set loose.

Oh, and because they can possess any body, they could be...well, anybody. Now Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Ghastly, and Tanith can trust no one. Not even each other…

~~~

The Necromancers no longer need Valkyrie to be their Death Bringer, the sorcerer prophesied to break down the wall between life and death in a process known as the Passage. That’s a good thing.

There’s just one catch. The Necromancers don’t need her anymore because they’ve found their Death Bringer already in Melancholia St Clair, a young sorcerer whose power cycles between debilitating weakness and immense strength. And that’s a very, very bad thing…

Faced with a possible cataclysm that could change the world, Skulduggery and Valkyrie have seven days to uncover the Necromancers’ secret before it’s too late. The clock is ticking. Lord Vile is loose. And after this one, nothing will ever be the same.

~~~

I’m only maybe a third of the way into this series (there’s eighteen main books plus at least four spin-offs and short story collections, so I have no idea how to count it) and already we’ve ramped up the tension and darkness to such a degree that I’m genuinely not sure how these books count as ‘children’s lit’ anymore! The first few featured some dark parts, sure, but these three have contained scenes such as one character being conscious through her own death and dissection and another letting her eye be popped just to see what it would feel like! (Bad, if you were wondering. It feels bad.)

That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying it, of course. I’m genuinely impressed by the way the author balances the incredibly dark and gory sections with short snippets of humour and domestic fluff to break the tension. I am curious how it’s going to continue raising the stakes, however – there’s at least twelve more main-continuity books to go and yet we’ve already tackled Eldritch monsters that will drive you insane if you look at them, a magical prodigy trying to kill at least three billion people, and characters being possessed by spirits that want to end the world – where the hell do you go from here?