Don't be at a Loss... (Lord Loss - Darren Shan)

Member Name: xBorgx

Product:	Lord Loss - Darren Shan
Date:	30/12/08 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy reading, hard to put down..

Disadvantages: None...

'Lord Loss' is the first in a series of books based on the fictional demon world of the Demonata, written by Darren Shan. I must admit, when my sister passed me a copy of this first book I was not too thrilled about the prospect of reading it, even though both her and my eleven year old niece raved about it. I had read a thousand horror books before and thought that a horror book for kids was not going to thrill me much. But after finishing a slog of a read that was overly descriptive, this one appeared to leap from the book shelf and land on my lap at just the right time.


Grubbs Grady lives a relatively normal life, save for the fact that him and his immediate family appear to have pretty strange names, that is! But one evening whilst his parents and sister are at the opera and he is staying at a relative's he suspects that something untoward his going on and returns to the family home, to see all the lights are on. He enters to see a terrible scene - his parents and his sister have been murdered, and the murderers are still at large - however they are not your everyday killers, they are demons from hell, and his family look to have been tortured to death. The demons see him, but Grubbs escapes by the skin of his teeth.

When the police arrive he tells them what has happened, but they don't believe him - obviously. And when he continues to insist that demons killed his family, he ends up in a hospital, being pumped with pills. This is where he stays until his Uncle Dervish comes to see him and asks him if he wants to live with him. He knows all about the demons, but tells Grubbs it is probably better not to keep mentioning them to the doctors. He moves into dervish's grand house in a small village... Here he make a new friend Bill-E.

However things are not quite right, and Grubbs soon discovers that the Grady family has a dark secret and that he must face the demon Lord Loss. I am probably being vague here, but I do not want to give much more away as that will spoil it for readers.

At 200 or so pages this is just right. I feel there is far too much padding in adult books at the moment. And reading Lord Loss has made me feel surprised just at how good kids' fiction is. I have read the Harry Potter books, like most adults, but it did not cross my mind to read other works written for children. To say that it is written for kids, though, it is quite graphic. There are no holds barred here and the author gets away with a lot of stuff. Death, blood, gore... But it is written with tongue in cheek - and with plenty of sick humour that did surprise me. The style is straight to the point. And very well written at that!


Darren Shan is English born, real surname O'Shaughnessy. His first book, 'Ayuamarca,' was published in 1999, but did not sell well. This was an adult work, and it is his subsequent children's books, such as the Demonata and his vampire fiction that have made him the popular children's writer he is today...
Thanks, Sis...

I am now up to the third installment ...

Also published on Ciao as 'Borg.'

Summary: Gripping, thrilling, chilling...