**Calling all budding Stephen King fans... this is the book for you!
**
**The first book in a horrifying new fantasy sequence from Joseph
Delaney, the internationally multi-million-selling author of The
Spook's Apprentice.
**
They heard shouting, and cries of fear. Crafty looked down the slope
and realised what had happened to cause so much panic. Without warning,
the dark wall of the Shole had advanced.
Crafty can't remember a time before the Shole - the terrifying mist that
has engulfed most of Britain, leaving those trapped in it to either die
or be transformed into terrifying monsters: the aberrations.
He's been stuck in his family's cellar for nearly a year, his only
companions his restless, whispering dead brothers, and an unusually
friendly aberration he names the Bog Queen.
But then Crafty's life abruptly changes.
He is ordered to report to the Castle, where he will train as a gate
grub - operators of magical portals that allow the mysterious guild of
Gatemancers to explore within the Shole. It is a dangerous job, with a
very short life expectancy...
To survive, Crafty will have to use every inch of his cunning -
whatever the cost.
