Magic, mystery, monsters, and a witty, fire-wielding skeleton are all elements that make up Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant.
The world of the books is fairly standard for fantasy novels. There are the good guys, largely affiliated with The Sanctuary, the ruling body of the magical world. There are the bad guys, a shifting cadre of villains seeking to do what villains do, upset the balances, horde the power, subjugate the weak, slaughter the innocent, etc. etc. Most of their plans revolve around bringing back ancient evil beings called The Faceless Ones who were banished to another dimension many years ago.
There were also ancient good being called, conveniently, The Ancients. If you’re thinking a certain young female protagonist might just have a connection with these beings, you may be on to something.
The novels are greatly enriched with a cast of colorful side characters. There are some typical fantasy creatures, vampires, wizards, trolls, but there are also some more unusual touches, such as an appearance by English folklore character Spring Heeled Jack or an eyeless good old boy from Texas who can travel through the ground and has a nasty affection for a straight razor.
It has been two years since the Skulduggery Pleasant series finished. This series is pretty popular, more so in Britain and Ireland. But it still baffles me how this series hasn’t grown as popular as Harry Potter. Yes, the Potter books have been adapted into movies but the Potter books were hugely popular before the movies. Skulduggery should be a household name. Below is a review for each of the nine books in the series…
Skulduggery Pleasant
Stephanie and Skulduggery are quickly caught up in a battle to stop evil forces from acquiring her recently deceased uncle’s most prized possession—the Sceptre of the Ancients. The Ancients were the good guys, an extinct race of uber-magicians from the early days of the earth, and the scepter is their most dangerous weapon, one capable of killing anyone and destroying anything. Back in the day, they used it to banish the bad guys, the evil Faceless Ones. Unfortunately, in the way of bad guys everywhere, the Faceless Ones are staging a comeback and no one besides our two heroes believes in the Faceless Ones, or even that the Sceptre is real.
So Stephanie and Skulduggery set off to find the Sceptre, fend off the minions of the bad guys, beat down vampires and the undead, prove the existence of the Ancients and the Faceless Ones, all while trading snappy, snippy banter worthy of the best screwball comedies.
You might think that being dead and alive is impossible. Well, not for our mischievous Mr. Skulduggery Pleasant, it isn’t. This detective is one un-killable man- because he’s already dead. Oh yes, meet the world’s first living skeleton. He’s also a powerful magician, just incase you thought that a living, talking, walking skeleton wasn’t enough.
Skulduggery Pleasant is one of those books I’ve wanted to read in a long time, but have never got quite round to actually turning the pages. I expected it to be funny, but I never realised it was this funny. The whole book is littered with humour- mainly from wise-cracking Skulduggery. The humour makes it a very fun read, unputdownable and exciting.
Derek Landy has created a fantastic titular character-Skulduggery. With his wittiness and ego, Skulduggery is the jewel if the book, a character whom many authors, I suspect, are envious of. Stephanie and the rest of the cast are pretty standard, Serpine, the villain not being a particularly unique villain. In general, the other characters-Stephanie, Tanith, Ghastly…- could have done with a bit of work in the personality department, but Skulduggery’s character alone is more than enough to fuel the whole book.
The Magic system Landy has created is an interesting one. While it isn’t (yet) developed a lot, it still has structure, history and culture. I hope Landy does develop the magic-world in future books, as it is interesting and a good base from which to work on.
My only big worry comes with the story; the climaxes just don’t seem epic or intense enough. For example, the first culmination of the book seems over in a chapter, and it seems all too easy for the characters. The second and final culmination, too, suffers from a lack of intensity, and while how it happens is good, how it’s written isn’t so good. In fact, a few times throughout the book, it seems all to easy. Something, again, I hope improves with later books.
Landy’s writing style is quite a different matter, though. Easy to read, witty and amusing, it couldn’t be better suited to the book. His dialogues are particularly humorous, full of dry humour, sarcasm and one-liners.
All those (mainly) small criticisms being said, books are meant to entertain, and entertain Skulduggery Pleasant certainly does; so in that respect, this is a great book that is already popular with a great many people. A fantastic start to what looks like a fantastic series, fast paced, extremely funny and with an intriguing setting. A thrilling debut novel.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire
Skulduggery and Valkyrie are facing a new enemy: Baron Vengeous, who is determined to bring back the terrifying Faceless Ones and is crafting an army of evil to help him. Added to that, Vengeous is about to enlist a new ally (if he can raise it from the dead): the horrible Grotesquery, a very unlikable monster of legend.
Once Vengeous is on the loose, dead bodies and vampires start showing up all over Ireland. Now pretty much everybody is out to kill Valkyrie, and the daring detective duo faces its biggest challenge yet.
But what if the greatest threat to Valkyrie is just a little closer to home?
I had high hopes for Playing With Fire: while I had many criticisms of the original Skulduggery Pleasant it was still enjoyable to read. Playing With Fire has expanded the story arc, but in some cases this has been at the cost of the humour aspect of the novel. It is very hard to balance humour and seriousness in a book: while you do want to crack jokes, you also want your readers to take you seriously as a writer. For me, this balance just wasn’t reached, and I felt that there could have been both more seriousness, and humour. Perhaps not more humour- just better humour, as some of the jokes are poor and just don’t manage to make me chuckle. Whilst book two had some great laughs, none of the jokes are as memorable as the ones in the original Skulduggery Pleasant.
That isn’t to say that Playing With Fire isn’t an improvement in other areas: because it is. The relationship between Valkyrie and Skulduggery is getting better and better, although I do wish Landy could have spent more time on this: there is hardly a quiet moment. Playing With Fire is literally packed with one fight after another. The last half of the book is made up of one fight followed by another, and after a while it becomes hard to process. Just like in anything, a book should be a mix of action and more slower-paced moments.
My greatest criticism of the first book was it’s lack of climax: while the story came to s climax, it seemed all to easy. Playing With Fire is very different, and much improved. The climax of this book is far more tense than that of it’s predecessor’s. Landy’s easy writing style also makes this very smooth and a joy to read.
On top of that, Playing With Fire has an improved plot. While book one shows you all the guns and whistles, Playing With Fire expands on this, and needs far less explaining to do. This gives it more time to delve into the plot, and it’s really thick this time, with a multitude of new characters that really broaden the world.
Again, like Skulduggery Pleasant, Playing With Fire is far from perfect. That doesn’t make it a bad book though, and I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Fans will love it, and while I didn’t love it per se, it was a good book. Perhaps not as good as Skulduggery Pleasant, but still an enjoyable read that was worthwhile.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones
The third bone-breaking, belly-busting adventure in the series that puts the “funny” back in, um, funny series. That didn’t really work, did it?
If you’ve read the previous Skulduggery books then you know what the Faceless Ones are — and if you know what the Faceless Ones are, then you can probably take a wild guess that things in this book are going to get AWFULLY sticky for our skeletal hero and his young sidekick. If you haven’t read the previous Skulduggery books then what are you doing reading this? Go and read them right now, so that you know what all that stuff in the previous paragraph was about. Done? Good. So now you’re on tenterhooks too, desperately awaiting the answers to all your questions, and instead you’re going to have to wait to read the book. Sorry about that.
While I was disappointed with Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire, the third book in the skeleton-detective series, The Faceless Ones, has taken the series in a whole new direction, a direction that has drastically improved my opinion of the books.
It’s the third time that someone has tried to unleash the power of the Faceless Ones in the series, in just as many books, but The Faceless Ones manages to bring that repetition to an end and drive the story forward. The plot itself is fantastic- while the previous book was non-stop action, The Faceless Ones has toned that down, and it is far easier to read and enjoy. Not only that, but consequences are now also beginning to happen for the actions of Valkyrie and Skulduggery, making it far more realistic. In fact, numerous characters seem to die. As far as plots go for teen and preteen novels, The Faceless Ones manages to do it quite well; building the tension in a fantastic way and really notching up the story to a new level, that I haven’t seen in Skulduggery Pleasant before.
In previous books, I always felt that Valkyrie, while the books were supposed to be centred around her, always took the second position when it came to development of characters. With this third instalment, this problem seems to have been extinguished, and I have really come to like Valkyrie in The Faceless Ones. Derek Landy has managed to define her fully now, and while I always felt that Skulduggery was always the main character, as it were, that invisible line seems to be disappearing, and Valkyrie manages to become more than just a background sidekick.
Much of the witty banter of the previous books has gone, and in its place is a more serious, dark tone. While Skulduggery’s endless humour was very amusing in the first two books, making The Faceless Ones into a more serious book benefits the ‘end of the world’ story. The writing style is very similar to the previous books; quite simple, but effective, although I did notice more description than I remember.
While I was quite frustrated with the previous two books for the slight flaws, The Faceless Ones has managed to increase the tension and the realism of the story. The plot is by far the best of the three books so far, and Derek Landy really makes use of the climax, driving the series forward from the stagnant pool it was in before. Quite simply, this is a real improvement on the rather poor sequel that the original Skulduggery Pleasant did not deserve, and The Faceless Ones might even top Skulduggery Pleasant.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days
Skulduggery Pleasant is gone, sucked into a parallel dimension overrun by the Faceless Ones. If his bones haven’t already been turned to dust, chances are he’s insane, driven out of his mind by the horror of the ancient gods. There is no official, Sanctuary-approved rescue mission. There is no official plan to save him.
But Valkyrie’s never had much time for plans.
The problem is, even if she can get Skulduggery back, there might not be much left for him to return to. There’s a gang of villains bent on destroying the Sanctuary, there are some very powerful people who want Valkyrie dead, and as if all that wasn’t enough it looks very likely that a sorcerer named Darquesse is going to kill the world and everyone on it.
Skulduggery is gone. All our hopes rest with Valkyrie. The world’s weight is on her shoulders, and its fate is in her hands.
After the intrepid escapades of Valkyrie and Skulduggery in the previous book, Dark Days continues to improve on what I thought was the best novel in the series. Dark Days is what all the Skulduggery books should have been like: witty and unpredictable, with plenty of action and magic.
Dark Days returns to the sarcastic humour of the first book, presenting Skulduggery in an almost Sherlock Holmes-esque way, which I thought was an interesting take. One of the most improved areas of Dark Days is probably the character development. Dark Days reveals Skulduggery’s darker side, something that’s been hinted at quite heavily in the last few books, but hasn’t come truly to light. This unseen side of Skulduggery is ruthless, angry and unforgiving, and it really fleshes him out as a character.
What I like about Dark Days the most though, is the reintroduction, or should I say, the higher concentration of Skulduggery’s jokes. The Faceless Ones saw much of the witty banter fall away, which was a real shame as it is the heart and soul of the series. In this fourth instalment, Skulduggery’s jokes are better than before, and genuinely had me chuckling!
Story-wise, Dark Days is, again, moving in the right direction. With enough action to keep young audiences interested, but also some calmer parts, Dark Days delves into the grittier element that was introduced in The Faceless Ones: the idea consequences, which was something that was lacking from the first two novels, and something that didn’t make them quite as realistic.
Continuing in the style of The Faceless Ones, Dark Days moves towards a grittier, darker, perhaps more character driven story that will be enjoyed by teens and preteens alike. Derek Landy’s magical world continues to widen its boarders, and nearly every book seems to improve on the last. Let’s see if Landy can continue this feat!
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil
Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are back — just in time to see their whole world get turned upside down! While they struggle to protect a known killer from an unstoppable assassin, Valkyrie is on a secret mission of her own. This quest, to prevent her dark and murderous destiny, threatens to take her to the brink of death and beyond.
And then the body-snatching Remnants get loose, thousands of twisted souls who possess the living like puppets, and they begin their search for a being powerful enough to lead them. Facing such insurmountable odds, Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Ghastly and Tanith can trust no one. Not even each other!
Mortal Coil is far more of a character story than its predecessors- focussing primarily on Valkyrie and how she comes to terms with the revelations that were revealed at the end of Dark Days. In previous books, Valkyrie has always trusted her closest allies; but Mortal Coil makes her question whether she can trust them enough to help her. She takes huge risks alone, resulting in a near-death experience. Just when she is ready to confide her secret with her friends, 2000 remnants (loose, evil souls that take over the souls of the living) are released from captivity and wreak havoc on Ireland. Suddenly, she can trust no-one again, not even her boyfriend, Fletcher.
The fact that Mortal Coil was a very personal plight for Valkyrie really strengthens her character. I have to say, I much prefer Valkyrie’s 16 year-old self to her 12 year-old self. In the original novel she was a mediocre character, giving the impression of being an uninspiring sidekick to the witty Skulduggery. In the past few books, Landy has really fleshed her out, and she really is one of my favourite characters of the novels now. Her relationship with Fletcher is endearing (I fully approve!), although it was a shame that there weren’t many intimate scenes between them. A little more smooching and several more Fletcher-and-Valkyrie scenes wouldn’t harm anyone.
Story-wise, Mortal Coil really steps up from Dark Days (although how that is possible is alien to me. Dark Days already had an epic storyline!). There are plenty of twists and turns, particularly towards the end, and the situation was pretty dire. Things don’t get much more nail-biting than this!
Derek Landy rounds that all off with a wonderful ending, setting up the next book well while keeping it short and not dragging on. The last few pages were incredibly cinematic, and I could visualise the credits rolling after I finished the last word. Skulduggery Pleasant is definitely, in my opinion, highly suited for film, and you’ll be glad to hear that there have been talks of a film with Warner Bros. I will, of course, post more details on the blog as and when they arrive.
All in all, it was an incredibly satisfying read. Mortal Coil is probably my favourite novel. In the last few books I’ve really gotten into Derek Landy’s style, and I really enjoy reading his fantastic novels. I just hope that Skulduggery Pleasant goes on for a long time- because I can’t get enough of Skulduggery’s sarcasm!
Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer
The sixth instalment in the historic, hysterical and horrific Skulduggery Pleasant series. Think you’ve seen anything yet? You haven’t. Because the Death Bringer is about to rise…
The Necromancers no longer need Valkyrie to be their Death Bringer, and that’s a good thing.
There’s just one catch. There’s a reason the Necromancers don’t need her any more. And that’s because they’ve found their Death Bringer already, the person who will dissolve the doors between life and death.
And that’s a very, very bad thing…
The best authors make us, the readers, love and hate them. In the case of Derek Landy, this is all too good a description. It’s hard not to love Landy for his excellent wit and writing, but at the same time I care so much for Valkyrie and Skulduggery and Fletcher and the lot, that anything Landy does to hurt them or bring them down is so offensive to me that I just want to beat him up for being so mean to his own characters.
It has been said and it needs saying again: this series gets better and better as it progresses. Skulduggery Pleasant was a good start. Playing with Fire was good, but too similar to the first. The Faceless Ones picked things up again. Dark Days catapulted the series into new (awesome) territories, and Mortal Coil vaulted Skulduggery and Valkyrie into excellence. And Death Bringer? If there is such a thing, then Death Bringer is beyond excellent; it’s a masterpiece perhaps, of modern middle-grade-come-young-adult writing. And one that you can’t put down.
Landy has succeeded in creating an incredible growth in the characters. Valkyrie is now a egoistic and sassy sixteen year old. Like all good characters we’re not sure whether we love her or hate her imperfections, which can raise her from a low-life murderer to a hero within pages. Her relationship with Fletcher is the only grounding in reality she has because as Stephanie Edgeley, she is of course living a different lie. Even that relationship must come to an end, as much as I think Fletcher and Valkyrie are perfect for each other. (I’m being rather tame about this. Whilst reading, I was literally screaming my head of at Landy for being such a bastard and setting them against each other!)
Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer also sees Landy bring an excellent compromise between the dry humour of Skulduggery and Valkyrie and the brutal nature of the story to create an intense bathos. Plenty of scenes are deliciously violent and hard-hitting, but these are offset by some hilarious jokes. The Skulduggery Pleasant series has always been something of a black comedy, but none of the previous novels have ever truly gotten such a fantastic contrast between the funny and the deadly.
Death Bringer, if anything, is a study of the corruptible and addictive nature of power, explored primarily through Valkyrie’s villainous side Darquesse. She shows Valkyrie’s unaccepted full potential. This is supplemented by other power struggles including that of the Death Bringer Melancholia St Claire. She has been mutilated by the power given to her by Necromancer Craven as well as several more earth-shattering details about Skulduggery’s own history, which deepen and darken him as a character. Death Bringer is filled with shades of grey; Valkyrie and Skulduggery might not always be the good guys as Skulduggery illustrates so perfectly: “We punch people, Valkyrie. That’s who we are.”
Few authors manage to outdo themselves with every book they publish, but Landy seems to be one of them. Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer is above and beyond what anyone could have expected. With one epic saga of a storyline and with characters who are growing to be ever shady-er, Death Bringer is an excellent novel. I can only hope that Landy continues to write so fantastically well.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the WickedAcross the land, normal people are suddenly developing wild and unstable powers. Infected by a rare strain of magic, they are unwittingly endangering their own lives and the lives of the people around them. Terrified and confused, their only hope lies with the Sanctuary. Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are needed now more than ever.
And then there’s the small matter of Kitana. A normal teenage girl who, along with her normal teenage friends, becomes infected. Becomes powerful. Becomes corrupted. Wielding the magic of gods, they’re set to tear the city apart unless someone stands up against them.
Looks like it’s going to be another one of those days…
The story that Kingdom of the Wicked tells is just amazing from start to finish. The Darquesse trilogy is a much darker story and the novel shows that clearly, while advancing the plots of many characters further along it also uses another character’s story to serve as a possibility of what is coming in the future, what could happen to another character that will usher in the end. Kingdom of the Wicked continues to expand on the mysterious background behind the events of the series, and introduces several new plotlines while continuing the current ones and taking them places you could never have expected. And the parallel universe allows Landy to show a much different Skulduggery Pleasant universe, and bring in a few characters we thought were gone, and one character we never thought we’d see, and to tell a very gripping story as Valkyrie is put up against enemies and events that surpass even Death Bringer for danger.
Kingdom of the Wicked has brilliant characterisation for it’s use of a parallel world. Characters that we knew were dead and gone make a reappearance, one or two were very amusing, and one character that we’ve only ever heard about makes his first appearance and in only a few moments proves to be everything we’ve ever read about him and more.
The return of Tanith Low and Billy-Ray Sanguine is a delight as we see how Tanith has changed since Mortal Coil, and the hitman-deluxe is still the same upbeat Texan/murderer that he’s always been. The new characters introduced like Argeddion and Kitana Kellaway were very interesting, Argeddion because of his beliefs and the irony of having to stop him, and Kitana’s psychopathic rampage is a rather depressing image of what a normal person would do if woke up one day and found that they could use magic.
The action is breathtaking. Landy once again steps up the power scale of the series. As usual we have the magical fights and drag-out brawls that the series does so well, and they never get boring no matter how many times you see Skulduggery throw fire or punch a bad guy in the face, it’s just always fun to read and laugh at when they make quips while doing it.
Fans of urban fantasy should not hesitate to get into the Skulduggery Pleasant series, and perhaps even those who don’t like urban fantasy should give Skulduggery Pleasant a try, it might change your minds. Skulduggery Pleasant has rapidly become my favourite urban fantasy series and one of my favourite series overall.
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Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Man War has finally come.
But it’s not a war between good and evil, or light and dark – it’s a war between Sanctuaries. For too long, the Irish Sanctuary has teetered on the brink of world-ending disaster, and the other Sanctuaries around the world have had enough. Allies turn to enemies, friends turn to foes, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie must team up with the rest of the Dead Men if they’re going to have any chance at all of maintaining the balance of power and getting to the root of a vast conspiracy that has been years in the making.
But while this war is only beginning, another war rages within Valkyrie herself. Her own dark side, the insanely powerful being known as Darquesse, is on the verge of rising to the surface. And if Valkyrie slips, even for a moment, then Darquesse will burn the world and everyone in it.
Last Stand of Dead Man offers everything you’d expect from the eighth installment in the Skulduggery Pleasant series: action, action and more action, with the usual witty one-liners and spiky dialogue thrown in to the horror – slash – comedy – slash – adventure mix.
Right off the bat Landy starts by delving into one of the key plotlines of the series, the mystery behind Roarhaven and it’s community of sorcerers, and deals with the war that has resulted from events in Kingdom of the Wicked. Both of these plots have been building for some time now and how they played out was excellently done, many things happened that I would never have guessed at and answers to questions that readers have had since the beginning of the series were finally answered, and one or two of them take the prize for Most Shocking Twist in the Series. The Darquesse plot also continues and thickens very nicely and while the Darquesse plot is not over yet it will be the centrepiece of book nine, where this series-long plot will finally reach it’s conclusion.
The action is very different from the rest of the series because rather than battles, this is war. Of course there are plenty of well-written duels and small-scale fights in the book but it’s the real war scenes that are the best parts of the action, seeing magic used on the scale necessary for war is great and especially for the novel as Landy introduces a few new kinds of magic users who make some very impressive scenes.
When Derek Landy says on the cover, ‘No one is safe’, you’d better believe it. We finally learn the truth behind a few characters and we get to discover exactly what it is they want or plan to do, and in the main case of the Man with the Golden Eyes it was the turning point of the novel from great to excellence. I really enjoyed all the familiar faces that reappeared and a few of these characters revealed some hidden depths that surprised me, and in one case made me laugh quite a bit but that character has always been hilarious. Landy’s characters are some of my favourites to read about and after this novel none of them will be the same again, and I can’t wait to see how they are in book nine.
The war and Roarhaven storylines have concluded, but now Darquesse must be dealt with and with the events of book eight having shaken the entire series to it’s core, the changes that will occur can only be guessed at. Landy wraps up the plotlines of the series, bar the main one of course, very nicely and sets the stage for the final book to be more focused than the others.
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Valkyrie. Darquesse. Stephanie. The world ain’t big enough for the three of them. The end will come…
The War of the Sanctuaries has been won, but it was not without its casualties. Following the loss of Valkyrie Cain, Skulduggery Pleasant must use any and all means to track down and stop Darquesse before she turns the world into a charred, lifeless cinder.
And so he draws together a team of soldiers, monster hunters, killers, criminals… and Valkyrie’s own murderous reflection.
The war may be over, but the final battle is about to begin. And not everyone gets out of here alive…
The Dying of the Light is packed with action, just the right amount of pathos without being sentimental, and within the greater battle between good and evil, it takes time to ask smaller, quieter questions.
The plot continually twists and turns and is told from several points of view which can be confusing at times, but ultimately works, particularly when the stories start to come together and the ramifications of what is happening in each become apparent within the story as a whole.
Despite the fact that this book was quite dark, Landy did still manage to include a lot of his famous sarcastic wit and humour (mostly courtesy of Skulduggery) in this book which I loved, because for me, the humour is one of the many things that has made this series of books so wonderful. It’s a unique style of humour, very personal to Landy.
I liked that in this book Valkyrie’s parents finally learned about her magic in this book, I have been waiting for that for a long time and I thought it was done really well. Their reactions were exactly what I expected from them. I also liked that they had a bigger part in this final book than they have done previously.
I love Scapegrace so much, he’s really developed as a character throughout the series from being a pretty rubbish “killer supreme” to being a zombie to being an actual person and back to being and zombie again. Not only has he changed physically though, he’s changed as a person. Scapegrace had his chance to prove himself in this book, and he really did prove he wasn’t useless and was really a good guy, which was great.
I love how the relationship between Valkyrie and Skulduggery has evolved over the course of the books, at first he was just her teacher but they have become partners and friends over the course of the books. When he is the only one who realises that Darquesse is pretending to be Valkyrie, it also shows how well they have come to know each other.
I loved the scene with Valkyrie and Gordon, it was sad but truly beautiful. I liked seeing the return of characters from previous books (Serpine, Melancholia, Argeddion etc) but it seemed some of them were only there to be killed off, which was a shame.
I wasn’t all that interested in the subplot with Danny and Valkyrie, which takes place years after the war is over, it was good to see how it affected her, but I didn’t like the jumping around the timeline. I just wanted to see Skulduggery and co in the present, without having to jump away to see all these new characters in the future, although there were some good fight scenes in that subplot, and it did pick up a little more towards the end. I also wish it had tied into the main plot more.
There were also many unanswered questions, like what are Saracen’s powers, what happened to everyone after the battle? Tanith? China? Fletcher? Nye? Eliza Scorn? Dexter? Saracen? Dai? Scapegrace? Val’s family? Even Skulduggery? We don’t know what happened to any of them in the years that Valkyrie went into hiding. Also in one of the books Dusk said he tasted something special in her blood and we never found out what it was. Was it just the blood of the ancients or was it something else? How did Valkyrie end up with these random powers and what exactly is she? It wasn’t tied up as much as it should have been, almost as if he was leaving it open to possibly come back to one day (which I would totally support!).
The past six years have been a roller coaster ride with Skulduggery, Valkyrie and co. and I am sad it has come to an end, but hey, I can always go back and reread! These are truly great books.
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If you’re already a fan of the series, do you agree it should be as popular as Potter. It’s a tough task, but can anyone recommend any series similar to Skulduggery Pleasant. And if you haven’t started Skulduggery, what are you waiting for?
MissCaitlinLouise 