"Absolutely gorgeous...beautiful" --Stephen King
"Absolutely gorgeous...beautiful" --Stephen King
"Mark Edward Geyer's illustrations lend old-fashioned atmosphere." --Publisher's Weekly
"Geyer's ink illustrations convey both humor and thrills." --Publisher's Weekly
"Marvelous illustrations that suggest woodcuts and have an Edward Gorey weirdness"--The Green Man Review
"Gorey-esque illustrations"--Jess Nevins, author of Encyclopedia of Fanstastic Victoriana
"Mark's work evokes the down-and-out grittiness of the 1930s and yet also boasts a level of detail and a quality of draftsmanship reminiscent of Gilded Age artists like Charles Dana Gibson." --Chris Moriarty
"Mark's lush, detailed illustrations make my books truly beautiful." --Cherie Priest
"Your talent shines through every line drawn." --Frank Darabont, director of The Green Mile, regarding the interior pen & inks for novel.
"beautiful" --Stewart O'Nan, regarding the illustrations for his novel The Speed Queen
"The Inquisitor's Apprentice is beautifully illustrated, and the endpapers--gorgeous." --Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief series.
"Mark Edward Geyer's illustrations are beautiful, and add even more depth to the story." --Book Page,
regarding The Inquisitor's Apprentice.
In the interest of full disclosure, the author of this delightful story is my wife’s first half-cousin; I last saw him when he was 15 years old. Regardless of the family connection, I liked this book. It is written for the middle-school crowd (the protagonist is a 12 year-old girl named Colophon), so there’s no blood and guts, no murders, and no sex. How refreshing! There is mystery, however. The family-owned publishing house, a 400 year old firm, has recently fallen on hard financial times and has suffered a series of mishaps (fire, loss of a famous author, and death of the family patriarch). One of the extended family seeks to take control of the firm from Colophon’s father, who inherited majority ownership in accordance with the founder’s will. Colophon overhears a phone conversation between this malevolent cousin and an unknown accomplice that gives her the impression shenanigans are afoot. Her 15 year-old brother thinks Colophon is barking up the wrong tree with her conspiracy theories, but is reluctantly drawn in to help solve the mystery. Another cousin, this one the family pariah, helps redirect Colophon’s attention to solving an ages-old mystery that will help her father stave off the power-hungry cousin: decipher the clues in the painting of the dynasty’s founder to find the “family treasure”. It was hard for me to put this book down. Not only is it engaging it is also educational. There are ‘overt’ history lessons contained within the dialog, and ‘covert’ lessons regarding Shakespeare’s writings, as each chapter’s title is a line from one of his plays. Needless to say there is a happy ending, but the villain obviously has other mischief up his sleeve, and we will be hearing more of him and his misdeeds in future novels. I can’t wait.
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