What if the world you knew wasn’t real? What if the world you thought you existed in was simply a shadow, cast by the lights of the stars, forcing you into a deep slumber from which you cannot wake?
Bo Munro, a divorcee from a small English town on the Essex blackwater, rediscovers an ancient relic, given to her by her grandfather on his death bed.
From the moment she finds the relic - which forms part of a key - Bo Munro’s world is turned upside down and she is thrown into the hidden world of ancient societies, government conspiracies, sacrifices, and demonic realms of which she has no understanding.
In desperation, and with powerful organisations after them, she and her dad begin a race against time to stop them from using the key to permanently open a doorway between the earthly plane and the underworld plagued with bloodthirsty demons…
What if the world you knew wasn’t real? What if the world you thought you existed in was simply a shadow, cast by the lights of the stars, forcing you into a deep slumber from which you cannot wake?
Bo Munro, a divorcee from a small English town on the Essex blackwater, rediscovers an ancient relic, given to her by her grandfather on his death bed.
From the moment she finds the relic - which forms part of a key - Bo Munro’s world is turned upside down and she is thrown into the hidden world of ancient societies, government conspiracies, sacrifices, and demonic realms of which she has no understanding.
In desperation, and with powerful organisations after them, she and her dad begin a race against time to stop them from using the key to permanently open a doorway between the earthly plane and the underworld plagued with bloodthirsty demons…
It was a squally November evening outside and Byker Grove was just finishing on the BBC from a small television set in the corner of her granddad’s private hospital room. The small white-tiled room was consumed by the giant size of his medical bed; the monitors to which the old man was hooked up to which beeped and buzzed and grumbled and clicked like a four-piece band interspersed with the raspy sounds of her granddad sleeping.
Being early evening, the corridors outside the room were still busy with nurses, patients, visitors, porters; wheeled beds, wheelchairs and the endless ringing of phones. Despite knowing her parents were only two floors down, Bo felt entirely alone in the chaos of an NHS hospital.
Hospitals were not the place for a ten year old child, she remembered telling herself, staring at the wrinkled, dry body of her elderly grandfather, whose droopy, weeping eyes were still closed, looking like loaded grocery bags. Children were new to the adventures of life and had no real understanding of what ‘death’ was, other than that death rendered all lifely achievements meaningless. Did that make every single person on the planet meaningless too, Bo wondered.
It was a heavy philosophical question for a ten year old.
The sounds of the traffic below from the latch-free windows in the room, rubber tyres splashing through the rain-drenched roads as they spun their cargo back to their homes, ready to have them rested and returned to their work the following day, reinvigorated and more productive.
She scratched at her neck, pulling at her shirt collar as she swung her legs with vigour back and forth under the plastic chair upon which she was sitting, patiently waiting for her parents to return. The family had come to the hospital straight from school and her uniform was itching her; her mum must have changed washing powder again.
Her parents had picked her up after the final bell and driven her here through rush hour traffic - enough to warrant them racing to the hospital gardens for a quick cigarette before the entire family - Bo and her parents - continued the vigil for her mum’s father; a man riddled by a terrible disease called cancer. When she’d first told her granddad was not going to get better, Bo was confused. She’d not understood that doctors weren’t magicians, they couldn’t defeat everything nature threw at them.
Laying in a large, metal-framed bed, the tired, limp body of her grandad was sliding down the hospital pillows the nurses had propped him up with, his eyes were dark and sunken and his cheekbones jutted out sharply as a cliff-face juts out into the sea, thought Bo, remembering a holiday to Dover once.
Blockbusters began on the tv. This was granddad’s favourite.
Bo jumped down onto the floor and wandered over to the old man and gently shook him awake.
‘Granddad,’ she whispered. ‘Granddad, Blockbusters is on. Wake up!' His hand twitched. 'Come on granddad, you’ll be annoyed if you miss this, like yesterday when you shouted at mum.' She poked at his skinny deltoid. The sagging skin of his eyelids began to rise upward like stage curtains.
'Eh?’ Her granddad shouted as he jumped awake. ‘When? What happened?' His eyes blinked heavily and somehow he found the strength within his fright to sit himself almost upright in bed.
‘You’re ok, granddad, you’re ok. It’s me, Bo.’ she said, trying to reassure the frightened old man. ‘You remember you’re in hospital and me, mum and dad come and see you every night.’
He could barely see or hear anything, his body now failing to withstand the speed of the disease. Bo watched his eyes as his surroundings met with a memory of being in the hospital.
'Am I still ’ere?’ he groaned as he stared miserably around the room. ‘I was hoping someone up there had taken pity on me and released me from this hellhole whilst I was a-kip.’
‘Don’t you like it here, granddad?’ She asked.
‘Never mind that.’
Bo pointed up at the square tv unit hanging precariously from a bracket on the wall. ‘Blockbusters is on grandad, you know how you hate to miss it.'
Bo pulled the thin hospital blankets upward to cover his chest, trying to make him comfortable and she tried to plump the pillow for him, although she couldn’t quite reach. He grimaced. ‘Gerroff. I can manage.’ He extended a couple of long bony fingers which he then clamped down on the blanket, and pulled with all his might. The blanket didn’t move far. Bo picked up the television controller and pointed it at the tv, turning the sound up to full volume.
‘Mum and dad are downstairs. Smokin’’
‘Filthy habit.’ The old man snapped. ‘I didn’t raise your mum as a chimney pot, so god knows why she has to behave like one!'
There he is, thought Bo, there’s the old misery-guts, as her mum liked to call him! He was wide awake now and scowling. This made her happy. There was still life in him, yet.
She threw the remote back onto the bed just as Bob Holness was saying good evening to the returning contestants - a student named Alex was going for his sixth victory in a row. ‘They haven’t brought your dinner yet.’ Bo pointed out as she returned to her seat. ‘It’s gettin’ a bit late isn’t it, granddad, shall I go and fetch someone?’
The old man wobbled his head, trying to shake it. 'No, no, no. I’m not ‘’ungry. Your mother can get me something later, if I do get peckish. Just sit there and let me watch this, there’s a good girl.' The old man had no patience for the young anymore. Ever since his own children had grown up and flown the nest, he found his tolerance for the antics of children had all but disappeared.
Bo began to swing her legs again, her blonde pig-tails whirling in time as she moved her head from side to side, humming playfully to herself. She had no interest in letters and questions and grown men asking Bob for ‘P’s’. That always made Bo and her friends laugh, though.
‘Can’t you sit still for thirty seconds!’ He asked her, not taking his eyes from the tv. ‘Like you’ve got ants in your pants!’
‘Ants in my pants?’ Bo repeated inquisitively, having never heard the expression before.
‘Just sit bloody still!’ he moaned. However, he felt guilty immediately. He hadn’t meant to snap at her. ‘How’s school?’
‘Alright, I guess’ she replied.
‘Just alright?’
‘It’s boring.’
‘Boring, how?’
‘Dunno. Just boring.’ She said, shrugging her shoulders.
Her granddad pointed his finger at her. ‘You kids dunno how lucky you are, some kids in this world can’t go to any school.’
Bo was surprised. ‘Why not?’
‘Money, mainly.’
‘Haven’t they got any money?’
‘No.’
‘Why? Where’d all their money go?’
‘Well, it don't grow on trees that’s for sure!’ He said firmly, fixing his eyes back onto the tv screen, fixed to the wall and grumbled at his own joke.
‘So, why can’t they go to school then?’
Because all these countries are poor.’
‘Why are they poor?’
‘Because of the rich countries.’
‘But if countries are rich, why don’t they give some to the poor ones?’
‘Because then they wouldn’t be rich anymore.’
Bo wrinkled her nose. ‘Why does everyone wanna be rich?’
‘Greed, my girl, greed!’
‘D’ya know any greedy people, granddad? I think my friend Dominic Winters is greedy. I told him in the playground the other day.’
‘Why? Is he a fat kid?’ Her granddad asked, weakly grinning at her. She laughed too.
‘Granddad?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I ask you another question?’
‘Yes’ he replied.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to ask the question; she’d played it over and over in her mind. She’d been wanting to ask him about it for a very long time, but just didn’t know how without upsetting him.
‘When are you gonna die?’
He turned to face her and grinned. ‘So many bloody questions, young Bo.’
The room was engulfed in a morose silence once again. He took a deep breath as he could manage and sighed weakly as the machines continued to beep and trill. 'I’ll probably be gone by this time tomorrow,' he told her plainly, staring at her with his watery eyes. ‘I didn’t think I’d wake up this morning, but I bloody well did!'
'Don’t talk like that grandad. You must be ok, you’re still eating sweets!' said Bo, looking at the half eaten packet of Bond’s lemon sherberts sitting on the sideboard.
‘Your dad ate most of them, I don’t even like lemon sherberts.’
‘Oh.’
The old man coughed and wheezed. Once recovered, he said ‘Bo, listen. There’s something I need from you. It’s a big ask but you really can’t say no because you’re it - you’re the only person I got. It’s quite a responsible thing I need to ask of you and I wish I didn’t have to ask you to do it, but, I have to, I have no choice now. I’ve run out of time.’
‘Sure thing, I can help you,’ she replied, shrugging once again. Bo didn’t mind doing her granddad one final favour. Later, she remembered the look which formed in his eyes at that very moment. It was a strange look, a hybrid between a scowl and a smile.
'Pass me the water, will you, my girl, my throat is as dry as a desert.'
Bo jumped down and passed him the half-filled plastic cup of water. He took it from her, his hands trembling and then he sipped from it. He dribbled a little water down his bony, protruding chin.
'Your mum will be back soon and- there’s something I need... there’s something I should-' he said seriously, his eyes appearing even more hollow as they widened. 'Climb up on ‘ere.' commanded her grandfather in a stronger tone, tapping his skeletal forefinger weakly on the bed beside him.
Bo did as she was told and clambered up onto the bed. She was careful not to kick the old man. She turned to face him. He smiled weakly. ‘Just know I don’t do this to you because I want to. I just ran out of time.’
What was he going on about? He sounded half mad. She let him continue uninterrupted however, maybe all would come clear… Her granddad’s tone had become serious. ‘Please, Bo, you have to know this, my girl. I don’t wanna have to do this but… I don’t have much choice; there’s no-one else I can trust and who’s young enough to do something about it, I’m afraid I, myself, am outta time.’ He stared off into the distance. ‘Now I wish I hadn’t spent so much time wasting it.’
Bo cocked her head to one side in confusion. Why did her granddad sound so sad?
He began his story.
‘Years ago, when your nan and I were very young–’ he began.
Suddenly, the door opened and a nurse walked in. Her grandad stopped talking and watched the nurse closely as she moved around the room, taking computer readings and checking machinery. It felt like she was in the room forever but eventually, she turned and left, closing the door behind her. Her granddad turned to look at Bo again, his grimace even more profound than it was before. ‘Years ago when your nan and I were really young,’ he repeated as if he’d planned this speech a zillion times. ‘We got involved with some real– real nasty stuff. I can’t explain it all: it would take me days, and time is something I don’t have the luxury of just now.’
Bo felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Nasty stuff! What kind of nasty stuff?
Seeing the expression of alarm which spread across her face like butter, her granddad sighed. He needed to make her understand; she had to be made to understand. He had no choice. But he hadn’t envisaged she would still be so young when the time came. He could only trust her; not Harry and not his own daughter - she would be the last person he’d let know what he had in his possession for all these years.
‘We didn’t murder anyone or anything like that - in fact - we never harmed anyone at all. But –’ he shrugged weakly, ‘We were forced to keep secrets. Big secrets.’
Bo took a sharp intake of breath. This was getting exciting, like a TV murder mystery. ‘What kinda secrets?’
‘Other people’s’ He muttered, realising she’d never understand at such a tender age but - one day - she would understand things for herself. ‘That’s not important right now, but what I’m about to give you is part of all the secrets we kept.’ Her granddad reached beneath his bed covers then hesitated for a moment. There was something he needed to say.
‘You’ve always been very special, Bo. On the day you were born, my heart almost exploded with joy!’ His face softened as his mind wandered back to his past, when life was happy. ‘You’re a very intelligent, kind and sensitive little girl and I’m so very proud to have been your granddad.’ He smiled warmly at her, water welling in his eyes. ‘I know I’ve not been good with words over the years, not words which describe feelings anyway, but I wanted you to hear it from the horse’s mouth. When you came into this world it was like when movies went from monochrome to technicolour - you coloured the world for me, Bo.’
‘Like a colouring book?’ She asked him happily.
‘Yes,’ he nodded, smiling, his eyes glistening as he watched the little girl. ‘Like a colouring book.’
Bo liked colouring books.
‘Like I said before, I don’t wanna give this to you but I have to. I have no choice - and it's something we both need to keep secret from everyone else, okay?’ He stroked the top of her head.
Bo was confused. ‘What about mum and dad? I’m not allowed to keep secrets, they’re very strict about it, they said children mustn’t fear telling truths.’
‘This is different. This is something your granddad asks of you. Can’t you do this little thing for this tired old man?’
Bo thought about it. She’d once kept it a secret that her best friend had copied all her maths homework from her friends. Another time, Bo had seen Lyra Kincade chuck the caretakers’ keys on top of the bike shed roof creating chaos in the school for weeks after. Bo had not breathed a word. ‘Yes. I’m a very good secret keeper!’ She was pleased to inform her granddad.
Then, slowly, from underneath the bedcovers, her granddad pulled a strangely shaped metallic object, no bigger than the palm of her hand. It looked like a knotted mass of metal. He passed it to his granddaughter. She reached out and touched the shiny metal object, her eyes growing larger. She took it in both hands and stared down at it, it was like a large, expensive ladies’ brooch of gold knotted rope. It was heavily discoloured making it look very old.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
“I need you to keep it hidden,’ he said firmly.
‘Why, is it a present for someone?’ she asked, turning the object around in her hands and staring in wonder at it.
‘Well, kinda.’ he admitted solemnly. ‘It’s a present for you, isn’t it? I’m giving it to you.’
‘I suppose that’s true.’ She replied absent-mindedly. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘Never mind that.’
‘What does it do? It must have a purpose or it wouldn’t have been made.’ she discerned, still turning it over in her hands.
‘Never mind that either. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone you have it.’
‘Are people looking for it then?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Why do I need to hide it then?’
‘Because you just do!’ This time he shouted in frustration. Bo drew away from him a little, her mouth falling ajar.
Her granddad rubbed his eyes, he could feel himself tiring once again. ‘Please. It’s not a hard job, Bo. All you need to do is to put it in your coat pocket until you get home and then, then put it under the floorboards in your bedroom–’
‘-But there’s a carpet in the way.’
‘Then put it in the pocket of an old dress hanging in your wardrobe or stash it under your bed or zip it up in an old cushion and then just forget about it. Just hide it and then forget about it. Understood?’
Bo didn’t know why he was making such a fuss over it, it seemed ridiculous for something so small and insignificant as a lump of twisted brass that wasn’t even pretty to look at. ‘Alright, alright!’ she replied. ‘I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die.’
‘Even your mum and dad–’
‘Even my mum and dad!’ she promised.
The anxiety on her granddad’s face ebbed away and he relaxed, relieved. Bo took the object and put it in her coat pocket as her granddad had instructed.
Her granddad died in the early hours of the following morning, leaving Bo and her parents distraught.
Her granddad was a long time in his grave before Bo was forced to break the promise she’d made him that day.
Wow, wow, wow - I am thoroughly impressed!
Not only did this novel deliver on what it promised in its marketing blurb, it is so much more - LITERALLY! For one, while its synopsis presents it as the story of Bo Munro, it is really the story of three individuals: Bo, Gabriella and Sam - the three wielders of three mysterious golden items that, when come together combine to become a key that opens the portal the realm of demons. It is a very suspenseful race-against-time around the world adventure story with two literal demons and a cult-ish secret society at the heels of our protagonists. The story combines a very well researched early occult lore and interweaves it with the concept of dark matter and worlds-between-worlds, which I think is a pretty clever re-contextualization of the otherworldly realms of angels and demons.
It is a hefty novel, but it is so well-paced with the story juggling the perspectives of our three protagonists in a way that leads them to their eventual coming together to solve this problem that is plaguing them. While I won't get into the resolution of the story in the hopes of not spoiling the ending, I am definitely hooked on their individual stories (Roberts has such unique voices for all three that you are never lost in her words) and there is so much that happen in their lives apart from getting the pieces of the keys together. The world feels very "lived-in" and the characters are written like normal people, with very normal and understandable reactions to the abnormal events that occur around them, which help to make you want to root for them. In my one-line review, I say that this is what the Robert Langdon Da Vinci Code series wish that it would be, and I meant it because here we have three very ordinary individuals navigating very extraordinary events in a very human way - with believable stakes and payoff.
So then, why is this not a full 5-stars? Well, for one, I wasn't kidding about the length of the novel. It is huge - and well I think that it's good to catch the readers up at each chapter during the perspective shift, it might get a tad repetitive when done in excess. Because of this, I think the story warrants an editor's cut, where parts of the story can be trimmed down while still maintaining the coherence and pacing that the author intended. There is also quite a few grammatical mistakes - a misplaced opening quote when a closing quote should be there, or a few places where the author used certain words incorrectly:
Chapter 2: Their home boasted three bedrooms, which were small but cosy on account of the meticulous eyes of Ros Munro's, before she passed, almost ten years ago. When her mum had passed away when Bo was just fourteen.
Chapter 2: the Alzhemeirs
Chapter 18: 'He did do.' said Gabi laughing.
To be fair, these are few and far in between and they seem to recur at the start of the novel - or perhaps I stopped tracking these mistakes because I'm so engrossed in the story the further along I read. In any case, this certainly did not detract me from enjoying such a wonderful story and I have been dying to experience an adventure like this in a long, long time - so thank you Reedsy, RomaReads Publishing and the author, Jayn Roberts for putting this incredible work out. I can't wait for the general public to enjoy this really great story and I do hope that I might be able to see this story come to life in the big screen in the future.