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Devilskein & Dearlove
When thirteen-year-old Erin Dearlove has to move in with her aunt on Cape Town’s bustling Long Street, she struggles to adapt to her new life, harbouring a dark secret. But her friendship with their upstairs neighbour, Mr Devilskein, soon helps her to adjust. Like Erin, Mr Devilskein has something to he is the keeper of six mysterious doors. He entrusts Erin with the key for one of these doors, and she discovers that they lead to infinite magical worlds. In wonder she explores an underwater paradise, the lost works of William Shakespeare, and a beautiful Chinese garden. During her adventures she meets a prisoner names Julius Monk, but Julius is not all he appears to be. The captive and his Book of Dooms prove dangerously enticing, and soon it is up to Erin to save the lives of those she’s grown to love.
Devilskein & Dearlove is as sinister and intriguing as it is quirky and colourful. With inimitable storytelling flair, Alex Smith weaves an enchanting tale of friendship, adventure and magic.
Devilskein & Dearlove is as sinister and intriguing as it is quirky and colourful. With inimitable storytelling flair, Alex Smith weaves an enchanting tale of friendship, adventure and magic.
- GenresFantasyYoung AdultAfrica
255 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2014
1 person is currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Alex Smith
5 books23 followersAlex Smith is an English teacher, Creative Writing tutor, Office administrator extraordinare, mother, former textile merchant and adventurer. One of her great writing inspirations is travel. She has visited 30 countries around the world, walked the Camino de Santiago across the top of Northern Spain, hiked in Turkey, lived in mainland China, worked in Taiwan, sojourned for a month of silent meditation at a golden temple in Chiang-Mai Thailand, and road-tripped through Iran and Southern Africa to the boarder of the Democratic Republic of Congo. ‘Four Drunk Beauties’ won the 2011 Nielsen Booksellers’ Choice Award in South Africa. Agency Blue, received a silver medal at the Sanlam Youth Literature awards. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and her writing has been translated into German, Swedish, Turkish, Afrikaans, Setswana and Xitsonga. She has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize She lives in beautiful Ireland with her husband and two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 19, 2018
This YA novel was hard to put down!
Thirteen-year-old Erin Dearlove is sent to live with her aunt in a flat on Cape Town's Long Street after her parents and brother are brutally murdered.
The trauma has caused Erin to block the memories of what happened, instead telling people her parent were horrible and eaten by crocodiles, describing in detail the mansion with a glass staircase she used to live in.
Erin is difficult, stroppy and rude. She refuses to go to school or to make friends with anybody.
But then she discovers her dark and mysterious upstairs neighbour, Mr Devilskein. Devilskein is an ancient being, who is a keeper of the souls of those who made Faustian deals.
When Devilskein gives Erin the key to one of six colourful doors in his home, she discovers multiple worlds of magic: an ancient and beautiful Chinese garden, an underwater paradise and William Shakespeares's lost works.
But Erin doesn't know that this world of magic is also one of dangerous secrets and that the more she's drawn into it, the more she and those she holds dear, are in mortal peril.
In "Devilskein & Dearlove" Alex Smith spins a beautiful tale that has gothic undertones. It is enchanting and it would be wonderful to read more about Erin Dearlove in future books.
Thirteen-year-old Erin Dearlove is sent to live with her aunt in a flat on Cape Town's Long Street after her parents and brother are brutally murdered.
The trauma has caused Erin to block the memories of what happened, instead telling people her parent were horrible and eaten by crocodiles, describing in detail the mansion with a glass staircase she used to live in.
Erin is difficult, stroppy and rude. She refuses to go to school or to make friends with anybody.
But then she discovers her dark and mysterious upstairs neighbour, Mr Devilskein. Devilskein is an ancient being, who is a keeper of the souls of those who made Faustian deals.
When Devilskein gives Erin the key to one of six colourful doors in his home, she discovers multiple worlds of magic: an ancient and beautiful Chinese garden, an underwater paradise and William Shakespeares's lost works.
But Erin doesn't know that this world of magic is also one of dangerous secrets and that the more she's drawn into it, the more she and those she holds dear, are in mortal peril.
In "Devilskein & Dearlove" Alex Smith spins a beautiful tale that has gothic undertones. It is enchanting and it would be wonderful to read more about Erin Dearlove in future books.
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August 24, 2014Devilskein & Dearlove is a whimsical and slightly dark take on the classic The Secret Garden (a book I have always loved, so this was great fun for me.) It is a book of hearts
and keys and lies and sacrifices, set in the wonderfully prosaic (a block of flats in Long Street, Cape Town) and the wonderfully metaphysical (A labyrinth of bartered souls.)
Erin Dearlove is an orphan who is blocking out the horror of her family's death with an intricate fantasy history, and a cold and bitter demeanour. Sent to live with her Aunt Kate in an apartment in Van Riebeek Heights, she is constantly sneering at the apparent poverty and the people who live there, comparing it unflatteringly with her “previous” life in a mansion with staircases of glass, with peacocks roaming the grounds. She rebuffs the friendliness of fellow teen Kelwyn Talmakies and is isolated even from her aunt, who doesn't know how to help her.
Miserable and antisocial and damaged, she meets a person even more so than herself – The Companyman Mr. Devilskein, who keeps a fantastical secret in apartment 6616. Devilskein has lived for hundreds of years, bartering the souls of people desperate for fame or love or genius, and making it so that they can never reclaim those souls, trapping them in his interconnecting worlds behind a series of doors called The Indeterminate Vault; the keys all unmarked and muddled. In Erin and Kelwyn, Devilskein sees a chance at immortality – he will take the children’s hearts to replace his own failing one.
But there are other factors at play – the cricket Zhou who guides Erin through the fantastical world, and a shadow boy called Julius Monk, trapped in the Haga; a doorless,
windowless prison. Both play Erin for their own purposes – capturing her with friendship real and false. Zhou guides Erin to a Chinese garden behind a turquoise door, and there, is where Erin begins to grow back her lost self, by caring for a garden that was salted with tears, and bringing it back to life. The book is layered with this kind of delightful metaphor, and deep readers will get a lot from the shadings that writer Alex Smith uses to deepen the narrative.
Through the story, Erin changes from the sour, lost teenager who invented a fantasy past, to one who is powerful, artistic, and brave, one who will be able to finally face the horror of her parents' and brother's murders, and see real magic. She is fooled by false friendships and rejects true ones, but it will take these actions for her to change her world, and be able to free lost souls, and save a city.
The story has magical charm, embroidered with sensory details, and is a lovely and strange little book. The characters are all very different, though I would say the one thing that I found jarring was that sometimes the ages of the teen characters were hard to place. I knew they were teens, but often they read younger than that, which may also be down to trying to capture a little of the spirit of the source material.
Published by Umuzi Press, so although the book is available in South Africa, overseas readers will probably have to go through Amazon to get a copy.
and keys and lies and sacrifices, set in the wonderfully prosaic (a block of flats in Long Street, Cape Town) and the wonderfully metaphysical (A labyrinth of bartered souls.)
Erin Dearlove is an orphan who is blocking out the horror of her family's death with an intricate fantasy history, and a cold and bitter demeanour. Sent to live with her Aunt Kate in an apartment in Van Riebeek Heights, she is constantly sneering at the apparent poverty and the people who live there, comparing it unflatteringly with her “previous” life in a mansion with staircases of glass, with peacocks roaming the grounds. She rebuffs the friendliness of fellow teen Kelwyn Talmakies and is isolated even from her aunt, who doesn't know how to help her.
Miserable and antisocial and damaged, she meets a person even more so than herself – The Companyman Mr. Devilskein, who keeps a fantastical secret in apartment 6616. Devilskein has lived for hundreds of years, bartering the souls of people desperate for fame or love or genius, and making it so that they can never reclaim those souls, trapping them in his interconnecting worlds behind a series of doors called The Indeterminate Vault; the keys all unmarked and muddled. In Erin and Kelwyn, Devilskein sees a chance at immortality – he will take the children’s hearts to replace his own failing one.
But there are other factors at play – the cricket Zhou who guides Erin through the fantastical world, and a shadow boy called Julius Monk, trapped in the Haga; a doorless,
windowless prison. Both play Erin for their own purposes – capturing her with friendship real and false. Zhou guides Erin to a Chinese garden behind a turquoise door, and there, is where Erin begins to grow back her lost self, by caring for a garden that was salted with tears, and bringing it back to life. The book is layered with this kind of delightful metaphor, and deep readers will get a lot from the shadings that writer Alex Smith uses to deepen the narrative.
Through the story, Erin changes from the sour, lost teenager who invented a fantasy past, to one who is powerful, artistic, and brave, one who will be able to finally face the horror of her parents' and brother's murders, and see real magic. She is fooled by false friendships and rejects true ones, but it will take these actions for her to change her world, and be able to free lost souls, and save a city.
The story has magical charm, embroidered with sensory details, and is a lovely and strange little book. The characters are all very different, though I would say the one thing that I found jarring was that sometimes the ages of the teen characters were hard to place. I knew they were teens, but often they read younger than that, which may also be down to trying to capture a little of the spirit of the source material.
Published by Umuzi Press, so although the book is available in South Africa, overseas readers will probably have to go through Amazon to get a copy.
September 6, 2014
Erin Dearlove is a pretty, talented and highly-intelligent teenager. She is also moody, intolerant and wields her considerable grasp of the English language like a rapier. She lives in an apartment with her aunt, above Long Street in Cape Town. Yet, behind the facade of an irritable and perpetually-dissatisfied teenager, lie the embers of a horrific event in her past, something so damaging that she cannot face it. Yet.
If Erin can be considered irritable, Albertus Devilskein is completely caustic. He has the scary countenance of a horridly-disfigured old man (although it's absolutely impossible to venture exactly how old) and the personality to match. What he does for a living is another mystery and he has two rather "unique" pets who are perhaps the only living entities whom he addresses with a modicum of respect.
In an attempt to rid herself of the attentions of a young boy named Kelwyn, who (for reasons even he cannot grasp) is completely in love with her, Erin concocts a fake appointment for tea between her and Mr Devilskein. And so, with Kelwyn looking on in horror. Erin knocks on the door, strides in as if there was nothing was awry and announces that she has arrived for tea and scones. And so Mr Devilskein meets Ms Dearlove.
The narrative and the various characters blend together seamlessly and although I found myself wishing the story wouldn't end, I was soon completely swept up in this swirl of fantasy and the real. Certainly, "Devilskein & Dearlove" is a wonderful book, but the novel addresses issues that are all-too-real in virtually everyone's lives. Questions such as who and what we choose to let into our worlds, and who we don't? How we choose to perceive aspects of our lives and what we are blind to? And of course, love and loss.
Alex Smith is an uniquely talented and well-established author. This she has already aptly demonstrated in her previous works and "Devilskein & Dearlove" is certainly no exception.
If Erin can be considered irritable, Albertus Devilskein is completely caustic. He has the scary countenance of a horridly-disfigured old man (although it's absolutely impossible to venture exactly how old) and the personality to match. What he does for a living is another mystery and he has two rather "unique" pets who are perhaps the only living entities whom he addresses with a modicum of respect.
In an attempt to rid herself of the attentions of a young boy named Kelwyn, who (for reasons even he cannot grasp) is completely in love with her, Erin concocts a fake appointment for tea between her and Mr Devilskein. And so, with Kelwyn looking on in horror. Erin knocks on the door, strides in as if there was nothing was awry and announces that she has arrived for tea and scones. And so Mr Devilskein meets Ms Dearlove.
The narrative and the various characters blend together seamlessly and although I found myself wishing the story wouldn't end, I was soon completely swept up in this swirl of fantasy and the real. Certainly, "Devilskein & Dearlove" is a wonderful book, but the novel addresses issues that are all-too-real in virtually everyone's lives. Questions such as who and what we choose to let into our worlds, and who we don't? How we choose to perceive aspects of our lives and what we are blind to? And of course, love and loss.
Alex Smith is an uniquely talented and well-established author. This she has already aptly demonstrated in her previous works and "Devilskein & Dearlove" is certainly no exception.
August 9, 2014
I flew through this book - one of the quickest I've ever read! Readers will be drawn in by the loneliness and vulnerability of the protagonist, and then by her fantastical experiences that follow. I'm not usually a huge fan of fantasy writing, but this way (more of a 'real world' setting and experiences first), meant that I was already drawn in and had to keep reading.
The characters were unique, original and well thought-out (especially Erin, the protagonist), meaning that she didn't annoy me, as lots of characters do! The plot's pace was pretty good, didn't leave me hanging for too long, and kept moving. The mixture of lots of different emotions and ever-changing tone kept me on my toes (even as an adult reader, let alone YA), and kept me wanting to read more. I loved the dark undertones and sinister suggestions under the surface!
I was also impressed by the aesthetics of the book - the cover is simply beautiful and appeals to the imagination and curiosity of readers. Gender neutral too, which is always a plus, especially for YA readers!
Fab for YA readers, but great for a wide, modern audience and I would highly recommend this quirky novel to all, very readable.
I received this book as part of Goodreads Firstreads programme and I am grateful to Goodreads, the author and the publisher for sending it to me. (N.B this review has also been posted on amazon UK, for the benefit of the author).
The characters were unique, original and well thought-out (especially Erin, the protagonist), meaning that she didn't annoy me, as lots of characters do! The plot's pace was pretty good, didn't leave me hanging for too long, and kept moving. The mixture of lots of different emotions and ever-changing tone kept me on my toes (even as an adult reader, let alone YA), and kept me wanting to read more. I loved the dark undertones and sinister suggestions under the surface!
I was also impressed by the aesthetics of the book - the cover is simply beautiful and appeals to the imagination and curiosity of readers. Gender neutral too, which is always a plus, especially for YA readers!
Fab for YA readers, but great for a wide, modern audience and I would highly recommend this quirky novel to all, very readable.
I received this book as part of Goodreads Firstreads programme and I am grateful to Goodreads, the author and the publisher for sending it to me. (N.B this review has also been posted on amazon UK, for the benefit of the author).
August 9, 2020
Highly evocative fantasy set in Cape Town, South Africa. Alex Smith manages to bring the city to life, swapping between the the commonplace and fantasy elements seamlessly, blurring the lines to draw the reader into a place that feels so familiar despite its unique magical elements. Great characterisation as well. 👌
June 17, 2021
This was a sweet story, but I couldn't commit to finishing it as I was struggling with the pace. I didn't read it in one go, but over a period of several weeks, which probably influenced my experience of it.
October 20, 2021
What a lovely book.
September 15, 2014
The mind is a tricky beast. Bad memories can be swallowed whole or twisted into lies. This is the underlying message of, the new novel by Cape Town-based author Alex Smith, Devilskein and Dearlove.
13-year-old Erin Dearlove enjoys telling people that her parents were eaten by a crocodile. The truth is even more horrifying.
After the ‘incident’, Erin goes to stay with her Aunt Kate in her Long Street apartment. It is a small rundown flat, but in Erin’s world it is a portal to a wonderful hall of doors leading to ancient walled gardens, an ocean cabinet full of undersea creatures and a room filled with elaborate keys.
Erin’s aunt encourages these wild imaginations, believing them to be part of the healing process. So when Erin recounts having tea with the mysterious Mr Devilskein in apartment 6616, she doesn’t bat an eyelid, nor does she question the long hours her niece spends with her new best friend, a talking cricket named Zhou.
Smith believes fantasy allows people to mask their most painful memories. “But fantasy can also be a platform for our most brilliant potentials. We dream it before we can do it. I think the human mind is an extraordinary universe of possibilities along the continuum, the one extreme end being creativity, light, and the other absolute destruction, dark.”
Keys are an important symbol in her novel, which is written in lyrical, Dahl-esque prose. Some keys are there to unlock secrets and mysteries, others to seal them in. It is through one of the doors unlocked by a key that Erin discovers a beautiful walled garden from an ancient Chinese dynasty.
“As a child,” says Smith, “I was utterly enchanted by Jules Verne’s work, loved CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – and who could forget Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Michael Ende’s adventure The Never Ending Story?”
Like these classic works, Devilskein and Dearlove is sure to become a much-loved book for young adults. It’s a magical tale not soon forgotten.
This review first appeared in the Sunday Times.
13-year-old Erin Dearlove enjoys telling people that her parents were eaten by a crocodile. The truth is even more horrifying.
After the ‘incident’, Erin goes to stay with her Aunt Kate in her Long Street apartment. It is a small rundown flat, but in Erin’s world it is a portal to a wonderful hall of doors leading to ancient walled gardens, an ocean cabinet full of undersea creatures and a room filled with elaborate keys.
Erin’s aunt encourages these wild imaginations, believing them to be part of the healing process. So when Erin recounts having tea with the mysterious Mr Devilskein in apartment 6616, she doesn’t bat an eyelid, nor does she question the long hours her niece spends with her new best friend, a talking cricket named Zhou.
Smith believes fantasy allows people to mask their most painful memories. “But fantasy can also be a platform for our most brilliant potentials. We dream it before we can do it. I think the human mind is an extraordinary universe of possibilities along the continuum, the one extreme end being creativity, light, and the other absolute destruction, dark.”
Keys are an important symbol in her novel, which is written in lyrical, Dahl-esque prose. Some keys are there to unlock secrets and mysteries, others to seal them in. It is through one of the doors unlocked by a key that Erin discovers a beautiful walled garden from an ancient Chinese dynasty.
“As a child,” says Smith, “I was utterly enchanted by Jules Verne’s work, loved CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – and who could forget Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Michael Ende’s adventure The Never Ending Story?”
Like these classic works, Devilskein and Dearlove is sure to become a much-loved book for young adults. It’s a magical tale not soon forgotten.
This review first appeared in the Sunday Times.
December 31, 2014
I read an early draft of this novel and liked it very much. The published version is simply delicious. The feisty Erin is in denial about how she became on orphan. To deal with her loss she invents a fantastical story about her family's demise. She goes to live with her aunt Kate in Long Street, Cape Town. There she meets & befriends the mysterious Mr Devilskein who against all odds opens a door to hear heart again.
July 26, 2014
I think this is one of the best YA/fantasy novels I have read for a long time. The author acknowledges that the idea came from her favourite childhood novel, The Secret Garden, but she has added in darker, fantastical elements, demons, the nature of evil, and even a hint of romance. Highly recommended. Thank you Alex!
July 31, 2014
Read it and loved it. Perfectly pitched for the Young Adult market, yet so appealing for those of us who have long left Young Adulthood behind. I'd love to know if Erin Dearlove will be appearing in other stories. And as for Devilskein ...
January 1, 2015
3.5 stars
Review to follow
Review to follow
January 11, 2016
Loved this slightly dark fantasy set in Long Street in Cape Town. My only problem with it, it was a tad too short...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews