Darkmouth 4 – Hero Rising

Shane Hegarty's Darkmouth - Hero Rising is a monster-hunting adventure for 9 year olds about a boy whose family has been thrown out of the job they were born to do.

What happens

Finn used to be the town's future Legend Hunter. Now he's following two people in grey suits through the back lanes in a baseball cap that says Cool Dude, whispering updates to his friend Emmie down the phone.

The suits are arguing about cakes. Sherbet, chocolate, custard. It sounds ridiculous, which is exactly why Finn keeps following them.

They lead him to a covered hole in the collapsed cliffs with a rope ladder inside, and to bursts of light coming up out of the dark.

Meanwhile every tree on the hillside is oozing sap. Finn frees one small finch from it, warms it in his hand and watches it fly. Then he looks up and sees that the same thing is happening to every bird in sight.

It's a funny book that keeps doing that. A gag, then something that isn't a gag at all.

The family has lost everything. Lucien has taken their house, moved his own children into it and hung nothing on the wall where three generations of portraits used to be. Finn's father Hugo, still officially the greatest Legend Hunter on Earth, is combing knots out of a labradoodle in a shop called Woofy Wash.

Hugo is only there because dog shampoo has the chemicals he needs to make monster fluid at home. Is that funny or is it sad? It's both, and your reader will get both.

The threat is real. Legends eat people, the gateways between the worlds are opening again, and Lucien's parting line is that one more slip and Finn's parents and Emmie will all be sent away, and it will be Finn's fault.

This one sits a long way into the series and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Names, feuds and a grandfather who exploded in a cave are all treated as things you already know.

What to read next

So please don't start here. Start with the first Darkmouth book, which is in the library too. Finn is twelve, he has a home-made suit that sounds like a bag of forks falling downstairs, and he is running away from a Minotaur in the rain.