Darren Shan // HarperCollins Children’s Books // Out Now

In a nutshell: When a powerful family curse manifests itself at full moon, teen-weirdo Grubbs Grady finds himself sinking deep into a world of magic and monstrous demons in this young adult horror title.

Review: Darren Shan has sold more than 10 million books worldwide, appearing in 20 different languages and becoming bestsellers in America, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Japan and Taiwan, amongst others. This success is largely founded upon his now completed Saga of Darren Shan (published as The Cirque Du Freak in the US), a series of twelve books following the adventures of the titular hero who just so happens to share the author’s pen name.

Blood Beast is the fifth book in Shan’s second series, The Demonata. Like its predecessor the new series is a lengthy affair, projected to run to ten books in all, though otherwise unconnected to the Saga of Darren Shan. Blood Beast itself is a self-contained novel and can be read without prior knowledge of earlier books in the series, but does suffer from a slow plot and a disappointing ‘To be continued…’ at the book’s conclusion, hinting at a future arc to connect the series but making this somewhat less than satisfying.

Where Blood Beast does succeed is in talking to its young readers in their own terms, broaching the usual adolescent themes of friendship, isolation and the things that boys and girls do through the likeable Grubbs, narrator and chief protagonist. An amusingly gruesome tale, Blood Beast holds some appeal for the adult reader too, but perhaps lacks the charm to inspire the kind of rabid following that accompanied Shan’s first series. Enjoyable as it is, it’s hard to imagine anyone seeking out the other nine volumes on the strength of this alone.

This review originally appeared in issue 2 of Death Ray magazine.