Stoneheart Trilogy

I am late to the table discovering  this series.   

Stoneheart (Hyperion, 2007) by Charlie Fletcher is a page-turner with an intriguing focus for a fantasy novel.

George , 12 years old, breaks off the head of a dragon carving from the wall of the museum during a class field trip.  Uh-oh.  This action opens the way into an unseen dimension of London where all the statues of the city are good (the spits) and trying to help him or bad (the taints) and trying to kill him. He meets a girl named Edie who has the unwanted ability to see past events. 

For this Anglophile, the most delightful aspect to these books (I am in the middle of the second volume, Ironhand) is identifying the REAL statues and public art in London that are characters in the story.   

 

The cover art for Stoneheart IS the  Temple Bar Griffin or Dragon.

Locating the statues and memorials in the story has turned into a kind of obsession right now.  Some of the ones that I have identified include Boadicea and her daughters, Peter Pan, the Royal Artillery monument,  the Black Friar Pub and more

The audio books are read by the wondrous, Jim Dale. He is so firmly the voice of Harry Potter for me that I do not always enjoy his readings of other books, but this series is OUTSTANDING.  The storyline, characters and locales play to all his strengths as a narrator.  

Fletcher is improving as a writer.  Ironhand is stronger than the first volume. (Must identify the statue on the cover now.)  The final volume Silvertongue should be a cracking read.


Update:  Found the statue on the cover of Ironhand.  It is  the Cnihtengild, Devonshire Square.

More statues:

Terra-dactyl from Natural History Museum (Stoneheart, Silvertongue)

Arial (Ironhand)
Hodge (Silvertongue) 
Wellington Arch (Silvertongue)
Dictionary aka Dr. Johnson 
The London Stone (Silvertongue)
WWI Memorial - the old soldier and the (grand, bloody, panjandrum of the painfully bleeding obvious) young soldier   (outside the Royal Exchange) (Silvertongue)
The Duke with no stirrups outside the Royal Exchange  (Silvertongue)
The Firefighters Memorial (Silvertongue)
Anteros from the Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus (Silvertongue)
Cleopatras Needle Sphinxes- Victoria Embankment - another view and another (Stoneheart, Silvertongue)
Merchant Navy Memorial - Jack Tar (Silvertongue)
Richard the Lionheart and a close-up (Silvertongue)
Queen of Time at Selfridges
Shackleton aka Shack @ Royal Geographical Society
Queen of America and "Bill" the buffalo from Albert Memorial
Is Railway Man Isambard Kingdom Brunel?
The Knight of Wood @ Southwark Cathedral

Renaissance Man holding a feather quill @ Southwark Cathedral

The Admiral
Bulldog
Boy with a Dolphin

Discovering London Statues and Monuments
 By Margaret Baker