The Eyeball Collector
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Although Hector Fitzbaudly has always lived a plush life on the posh side of the River Foedus, he's yearned to slip away from his comfortable home and see the seedy side of Urbs Umida. Unfortunately, he gets his chance when a blackmail artist confronts his father with a terrible secret from his past, and Hector finds himself penniless and on the streets. He is determined to get his revenge against the man responsible, who has been a pauper, a gentleman, and an Eyeball Collector—stealing jewels from the wealthy to make false eyes to replace his missing one. He is a master of disguise, and a swindler who moves from place to place.
Hector trails the Eyeball Collector to the small village of Pagus Parvus and the foreboding Withypitts Hall, run by the eccentric Lady Mandible who has a strange taste for the macabre. He takes a job incubating butterflies for Lady Mandible, and places himself in the perfect position to take revenge. Hector is so close to the Eyeball Collector, but will he be able to go through with his plan?
Once again, F. E. Higgins takes readers into her world filled with grand balls and hairy-backed beasts, plotting nobility and clever orphans, and creates a spine-tingling story that is her most eerie yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Higgins's witty "polyquel" to The Black Book of Secrets and The Bone Magician (it "contains elements from both stories as well as mysteries all of its own," per her postscript), young Hector finds himself homeless and penniless after his father is blackmailed and disgraced. When his father dies of heartbreak, Hector seeks revenge against the man who ruined them. The titular villain, Gulliver Truepin, is not as gruesome as his nickname suggests: he's a one-eyed con artist who wants a fake eyeball each with a different jewel at the center for each day of the week. Through a series of coincidences, both characters end up at Withypitts Hall, under the cruel watch of Lady Mandible. As Hector plots vengeance and Truepin works out yet another scheme, they both get caught up in Mandible's own plotting, the assorted plans all colliding on the night of an extravagant feast. Higgins fills her book with deliciously nasty bits (Mandible paints using blood leeched from a servant), riddles and a Dickensian atmosphere that's both stark and delightful. Some familiar faces appear, but this story works beautifully on its own. Ages 10 14.
