Festergrimm

In the fourth tale in this beloved series, villainous Sebastian Eels returns to Eerie-on-Sea, thrusting Herbie and Violet into a new adventure involving a missing girl, a spooky wax museum, and a dangerous clockwork robot. Herbie Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, and his fearless friend Violet Parma have unearthed many secrets in their village of Eerie-on-Sea: secrets lurking beneath the waves, lapping onto the beaches, and lying behind locked doors. When their brilliant and ruthless nemesis, Sebastian Eels, returns with a plan to open the long-shuttered waxworks museum, Herbie and Violet suspect nefarious motives. Their investigation leads them into the dark Netherways below the town—and into the tragic past of the famous toymaker and inventor Ludovic Festergrimm and his doomed daughter, Pandora. Sebastian Eels is convinced that within the story of Festergrimm is the key to Eerie’s deepest secret—a secret in which Herbie himself plays a crucial part—and he’ll stop at nothing to uncover it, including bringing a terrifying clockwork legend back to life. With echoes of fairy tales and monster movies, plus a dismembered finger or two, this is a deliciously creepy addition to a fantastical mystery series that is perfectly calibrated to thrill middle-grade readers.

A quirky, creepy fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea finds a colorful cast of characters in hot pursuit of a sea monster thought to convey a surprising gift. It’s winter in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, where the mist is thick and the salt spray is rattling the windows of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor. It seems that Violet Parma, a fearless girl around his age, lost her parents at the hotel when she was a baby, and she’s sure that the nervous Herbert is the only person who can help her find them. The trouble is, Violet is being pursued at that moment by a strange hook-handed man. And the town legend of the Malamander — a part-fish, part-human monster whose egg is said to make dreams come true — is rearing its scaly head. As various townspeople, some good-hearted, some nefarious, reveal themselves to be monster hunters on the sly, can Herbert and Violet elude them and discover what happened to Violet’s kin? This lighthearted, fantastical mystery, featuring black-and-white spot illustrations, kicks off a trilogy of fantasies set in the seaside town.

In the third mysterious tale of Eerie-on-Sea, it’s almost Ghastly Night, and the Shadowghast—an ancient spirit in a lantern—lurks in wait for the power to enslave the town. In this third adventure, shipwrecked orphan Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, must square off with a creature of town lore as he confronts a shadow from his past. While other towns celebrate Halloween, in Eerie-on-Sea it’s Ghastly Night, and a grim spirit in a lantern awaits its moment. Legend has it that if people fail to light manglewick candles on Ghastly Night, and if no showman conjures shadow puppets on the pier as an offering, the insulted Shadowghast will seize and devour the shadows of the living. This year, a professional theater troupe has been summoned, including a raven-haired magician named Caliastra with startling news of Herbie’s origins. No sooner have the players checked into the hotel than townspeople start vanishing into thin air, including the guardian of Herbie’s best friend, Violet Parma. It’s up to Herbie and Violet to separate truth from sleight of hand and solve the mystery of the Shadowghast lantern before darkness swallows them all.

In the second fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea, Herbert and Violet team up to solve the mystery of Gargantis — an ancient creature of the deep with the power to create life-threatening storms. There's a storm brewing over Eerie-on-Sea, and the fisherfolk say a monster is the cause. Someone has woken the ancient Gargantis, who sleeps in the watery caves beneath this spooky seaside town where legends have a habit of coming to life. It seems the Gargantis is looking for something: a treasure stolen from her underwater lair. And it just might be in the Lost-and-Foundery at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, in the care of one Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder. With the help of the daring Violet Parma, ever-reliable Herbie will do his best to figure out what the Gargantis wants and who stole her treasure in the first place. In a town full of suspicious, secretive characters, it could be anyone!

In this fifth and final tale, the arrival of a team of cryptozoologists sets off a series of events that could reveal the deepest secrets of Eerie-on-Sea—and the truth about shipwrecked orphan Herbert Lemon. It’s Midwinter again in Eerie-on-Sea, when legend claims the terrifying Malamander emerges to hunt—and search for its long-lost mate. It’s the anniversary of daring Violet Parma’s arrival in Eerie; a year later, she still hasn’t found her missing parents, just as anxious Herbert Lemon has learned little else about why he washed up on the shore in a crate of lemons. What’s more, the creators of the Anomalous Phenomena podcast have dropped anchor in town and are fishing around for Eerie secrets. Keeping ahead of the podcasters, Herbie and Violet set sail for the dangerous “Treasure Island,” where villain Sebastian Eel’s own sister mysteriously vanished years ago. Will they discover the heart of Eerie-on-Sea’s mysteries, or will Herbie and Violet be the next to disappear? Like a visit to an old boardwalk arcade, this conclusion to the spooky, fantastical series will leave readers shivering with fright and delight.

Does history have a ghost of a chance? Eddie, Adam, David. Each has the same strange power: the ability to time-travel. Through portals of dreams, they can appear as ghosts, wherever and whenever they want. The first boy, Eddie, is the genius who has sworn to protect the past and uphold the dreamwalker's code. The second, Adam, is a haunter, a dream-terrorist, dead-set on changing history for his own nefarious ends. The third, David, is the neophyte who must fight for the future by keeping the other two apart! Can he surf the time warps, back and forth between 1940s London and today, to save the present from oblivion?

There are so many whiz-bang great pets you can get! How about an enormous brown bear? Or a tentacled beast from the sea? Or even a humongous smoky dragon that glows? But as this small boy learns, even the smallest of pets can be surprisingly fun too!

Jack goes for a ride on his big, red tractor with a trailer fixed behind, and collects lots of noisy animals to play with.