Tunnels
Publisher: Chicken House
The first in a series of fantasy novels, Tunnels starts slowly, introducing us to Will and building a picture of his unusual and dysfunctional family life. But the pace picks up with the discovery of a mysterious subterranean psuedo-Victorian parallel world, and the unpleasant Styx, who appears to have malevolent designs on its 21st century discoverers.
Combining the weirdly familiar with the dystopian, this is an exciting but disturbing adventure, with greater depths than are initially apparent. The underlying humour should particularly appeal to children of upper primary and lower secondary age.
