The Monstrous Child

Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award 2016

I wasn't always lying rotting on a stinking bed in the Underworld‚ I didn't start off hating everything.

I liked flowers.

I liked trees.

I liked mountains.

I liked glaciers.

It was just mortals I couldn't stand. And the gods. And my family.

They say, Hell hath no fury.

Meet Hel, an ordinary teenager - and goddess of the Underworld. She's just got one question: why is life so unfair?

Hel tries to make the best of it, creating gleaming halls in her dark kingdom and welcoming the dead who she is forced to host for eternity. Until eternity itself is threatened.

A stunning, operatic and epic drama like no other Francesca Simon has taken a story of dysfunctional family relations and made it eternal mingling the grim with the glorious in her own inimitable style.

Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571330263
Number of pages: 304
Weight: 468 g
Dimensions: 211 x 161 x 26 mm