The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer

In this shimmering Chinese-inspired fantasy, debut author Joan He introduces a determined and vulnerable young heroine struggling.

Shop Descendant of the Crane online at best prices at desertcart - the best international shopping platform in Honduras. He builds her fantastical world and characters by methodically weaving and layering details until the reader is completely enthralled by and entangled in the story. And we get thrown straight into the supernatural in both novels: here, our first encounter with Ropa – “What is she, twelve? She’s got green dreadlocks and black lipstick, for Christ’s sake. What is that even – goth, punk, I don’t know.” – is a full blown exorcism. An ethereal grey figure rushing hither and thither in the dimness, knocking furniture over…” to which Ropa responds wonderfully We are screamed at by a ghoulish poltergeist, we get the whole nine yards: “curtains fluttering, the locked windows rattling, commotion and chaos, small objects flung through the air. ‘This is quite the racket you’re making here.’ ‘I said, are you done, sir?’ I reach for my backpack and stand up. Ropa’s matter-of-factness, combined with her unrepentant disdain for the wealth of her clients, letting them “yak on” about the history of their home, created a wonderfully vivid character. A ghostalker, Ropa has been trained by her grandmother to liaise between the dead and the living, passing on messages, warnings or – critically – the recipe for the perfect Battenberg cake! Always for a fee – no freebies. When she is confronted by a recently deceased spirit desperate for her to find her son who has gone missing, she turns her down because she does not do freebies… but then her conscience pricks at her. Her quest finds other disappeared children, appallingly deformed children, a terrifying milkman and a malevolent force in her midst.

The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer