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Book Summary and Reviews of Lamplighter by D. M. Cornish

Lamplighter by D. M. Cornish

Lamplighter

Monster Blood Tattoo Series #2

by D. M. Cornish

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  • Published:
  • May 2008, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Rossamund Bookchild is finally becoming a lamplighter. Sworn into the Emperor's service, his duty is to light the lamps along the Emperor's highways, and protect all travelers from the ferocious bogles that live in the wild. But he's found it no easier to fit in with the lamplighters than he ever has - always too small and too meek, his loneliness continues no matter how hard he tries to succeed. But when a haughty young girl, a member of a suspiciously-regarded society of all-women teratologists is forced upon the lamplighters for training, Rossamund might no longer be the most despised soul around.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A most fitting sequel that will leave readers eagerly waiting for the third book." - Booklist.

"Fans of high fantasy will delight in detailed maps, the lengthy "explicarium" of terms, and the delightfully wicked idea of commemorating victories with a tattoo from the blood of the vanquished monster." - VOYA.

"Libraries with Foundling in their collections really must purchase this title; as for those who do not own the first book, purchase of both titles is strongly recommended." - KLIATT.

"Devout fantasy fans will welcome the return to the socially and morally complex world of the Half-Continent and eagerly anticipate the concluding installment." - School Library Journal.

"Cornish again buries a likable protagonist and perfectly viable plot under a mountain of obscure words and pretentious prose in this overweight sequel. Ages 10-14." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Lamplighter was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

D. M. Cornish Author Biography

D.M. Cornish studied illustration at the University of South Australia, where he began to compile a series of notebooks, beginning with #1 in 1993. He had read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, The Iliad, and Paul Gallico's Love of Seven Dolls. Classical ideas as well as the great desire to continue what Mervyn Peake had begun but not finished led him to delineate his own world. Hermann Hesse, Kafka and other writers convinced him there were ways to be fantastical without conforming to the generally accepted notions of fantasy. Over the next ten years he filled 23 journals with his pictures, definitions, ideas and histories of his world, the Half-Continent.

It was not until 2003 that a chance encounter with a children's publisher gave him an opportunity to develop these ideas further. ...

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