J. M. Miro Libri

In 1883 Agrigento, Sicily, a city once filled with hope now lies in ruins. With Cairndale destroyed and Marlowe missing, the search for a legendary second orsine, believed to be lost, becomes crucial for rescue. However, the discovery of a body near Cairndale reveals a more significant threat. A new, ferocious drughr, capable of moving freely between worlds, emerges alongside a sinister figure known as the Abbess, who seeks the dust for her own dark purposes. Meanwhile, a terrible evil stirs in the realm of the dead, with the corrupted dust potentially holding the key to its revival or destruction. The Talents embark on a perilous journey through the underworld of London exiles, bustling street markets of nineteenth-century Alexandria, and the tranquil Dalmatian coast. Faced with bone witches, mud glyphics, and a twilight house in a netherworld, they must unite to prevent the encroachment of the dead and find their lost friend. This thrilling sequel expands on the intricate worldbuilding and darkly enchanting narrative established in the first book of the trilogy.

Charlie Ovid, despite surviving a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When Alice Quicke, a jaded detective with her own troubled past, is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous.What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts--like Komako, a witch-child and twister of dust, and Ribs, a girl who cloaks herself in invisibility--are forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. With this new found family, Komako, Marlowe, Charlie, Ribs, and the rest of the Talents discover the truth about their abilities. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, a new question arises: What truly defines a monster? Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world--and of the gifted, broken children who must save it.