BOOK SUMMARY (publisher)
Set in a four-hundred-year-old boys’ boarding school in London, a chilling gothic thriller by the author of the critically acclaimed A Good and Happy Child . . .
A fierce and jealous ghost . . .
A young man’s fight for his life . . .
The Harrow School is home to privileged adolescents known as much for their distinctive dress and traditions as for their arrogance and schoolboy cruelty. Seventeen-year-old American Andrew Taylor is enrolled in the esteemed British institution by his father, who hopes that the school’s discipline will put some distance between his son and his troubled past in the States.
But trouble—and danger—seem to follow Andrew. When one of his schoolmates and friends dies mysteriously of a severe pulmonary illness, Andrew is blamed and is soon an outcast, spurned by nearly all his peers. And there is the pale, strange boy who begins to visit him at night. Either Andrew is losing his mind, or the house legend about his dormitory being haunted is true.
When the school’s poet-in-residence, Piers Fawkes, is commissioned to write a play about Byron, one of Harrow’s most famous alumni, he casts Andrew in the title role. Andrew begins to discover uncanny links between himself and the renowned poet. In his loneliness and isolation, Andrew becomes obsessed with Lord Byron’s story and the poet’s status not only as a literary genius and infamous seducer but as a student at the very different Harrow of two centuries prior—a place rife with violence, squalor, incurable diseases, and tormented love affairs.
When frightening and tragic events from that long-ago past start to recur in Harrow’s present, and when the dark and deadly specter by whom Andrew’s been haunted seems to be all too real, Andrew is forced to solve a two-hundred-year-old literary mystery that threatens the lives of his friends and his teachers—and, most terrifyingly, his own.
SHORT AND SWEET REVIEW
If you like THRILLERS, GHOST STORIES AND GOOD WRITING, you will enjoy The White Devil. The story follows a troubled teen in a British boarding school and reveals some interesting characters who are along for the scary ride. I wouldn’t say this is the scariest book I’ve ever read, but I liked the plot, the characters and the “literary mystery” about Lord Byron. You won’t be disappointed. I already have Justin Evan’s first novel, “A Good and Happy Child” ebook dowloaded on my iPad.
REMINDS ME OF: Dean Koontz mixed with Donna Tart’s A Secret History
GO SHOPPING
Kindle Price: $11.99
Hardcover: $15.66
Print Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins
Available: May 10, 2011
Views: 85
Aliya D.
This school sounds a bit like my Nanny’s old boarding school… *shivers* I’m gonna see if I can get my hands on a copy. Thank you!
Tracy
Ha,ha. It’s a fun read:)
Arlene Wylie
Finished White Devil last night and the ending didn’t disappoint. I could easily imagine a movie made from the book.