If there’s one thing better than finding a great book to read – it’s finding a great book that’s also the first in what looks to be a great series. The monsters had a delivery of fresh books the other day and, while Mark distracted the guards by zooming around the cave, pretending to fly a fighter jet (he does that a lot), I snuck into the pit that doubles as a warehouse and liberated a copy of Flood and Fang by Marcus Sedgwick.

The book is the first in the new Raven Mysteries series and, in a move that shouldn’t therefore have surprised me but somehow did, is narrated by a raven itself.  Edgar, the ‘pet’ raven of the Otherhand family (I say ‘pet’, but it’s very obvious that Edgar practically runs the place), has the advantage of being able to get just about anywhere to witness goings on around the castle (but only by flying – a raven’s walk, claims Edgar, is often ridiculed) but the disadvantage of not being able to communicate what he sees to the other residents.  So, when the castle begins to fill slowly but steadily with water – water with something big and scary swimming in it – it takes an act of superhuman (or should that be superraven?) effort to warn everyone of the danger.

Flood and Fang is as funny and twisted as the members of the Otherhand family themselves – from the scientificly curious Valevine to the cake tray obsessed Minty, the darkly beautiful Solstice to her monkey loving brother, Cudweed.  You’ll laugh when you read this book – a lot.  You’ll also realise that your family is actually quite normal, after all…

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