Second paragraph of third chapter:

The strange woman watched them, still holding Mrs Skraeveling’s hat. Her antlers were a sort of hat too, Utterly realized. Now that she had got over the first shock of them she could see the wires to which they were attached shining in the woman’s russet hair. It was a peculiar sort of a hat, but then she was a peculiar sort of person altogether. She was one of the troll-people who lived at the north end of Wildsea in the rocky wooded region called the Dizzard. Reverend Dearlove said that it was rude to call them trolls, but Utterly could see why people did, for the woman with the antlers was quite ugly. All the features of her face were too big and too definite, and her thick eyebrows met above her nose. Her eyes were large and deep-set: dark brown eyes with flecks of gold in them.

I got to know Philip Reeve in person at the 2022 Eastercon, Reclamation, where we were both guests of honour. We had a couple of very pleasant dinners together, and ended up sharing a taxi to escape Heathrow. At that point the only one of his books that I had actually read was a Doctor Who short from 2013. He is of course best known for Mortal Engines, of which Minnesota governor Tim Walz is also a fan. I bought this at that Eastercon, but have shamefully only now got around to reading it.

It’s very good. Utterly Dark is a foundling girl brought up on a strange island off the Cornish coast. Her adoptive father, who was the Watcher of the island, keeping an eye out for the Hidden Isles and the creature known as the Gorm, is found drowned, and his brother is summoned from London to take over. Under the new regime, disaster of a YA Lovecraftian type comes ever closer. It’s all very nicely done, and I’ll keep an eye out for the two sequels now. (Oddly enough my reading of this overlapped with Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward, which also features young protagonists and seaside horrors.)

You can get Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep here.

This was the SF book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is Elfland, by Freda Warrington.