cover image The Auguries

The Auguries

F.G. Cottam. Severn, $28.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8869-3

In Cottam’s dark and unsettling occult horror novel, a book that should have never been written falls into the hands of a young, callous loner girl, and present-day London and its citizens pay a horrible price. Prof. Juliet Harrington is the leading expert on the Almanac of Forbidden Wisdom, a 16th-century compendium of occult spells. When a ship mysteriously sinks in the Thames and statues around London begin bleeding from their eyes, Harrington is called on by the Home Secretary to solve the mystery. Dawn Jackson, a 14-year-old who insists she “absolutely [isn’t] on any kind of spectrum” despite indications to the contrary, tells her twin brother the events are called “auguries,” and she knows why they are occurring: because she’s tinkering with the almanac. Her first experiment is to reanimate her dead turtle, Freddy. Then she shoots her brother “on a whim, out of curiosity” to test the powers of the book. But after every spell, nature takes a toll on London—plagues, floods, boiling seas. Can Harrington stop it all before the city is obliterated? The story’s only flaw is the overblown treatment of Dawn’s autism, which is depicted as central to her heartlessness and violence. Cottam (The Lucifer Chord) packs plenty of nightmares into this crisply paced frightfest. Agent: Caroline Michel, PFD (U.K.). (June)