Competition: WIN The Demon Road Trilogy by Derek Landy

This competition has now closed and the winner has been notified. Thank you to all who entered.

Happy Hallowe'en!

I wrote yesterday about how much I enjoyed Derek Landy's, dark and bloody Demon Road trilogy.

Now you have the chance to win the trilogy, simply by filling in your details in the form below. Thanks to the generosity of HerperCollins I have a set of the three books to give away.
  

The first name drawn at random after the closing date will win a set of books. The deadline for entries is 7pm GMT Friday 4th November. This competition is open to UK residents only.

Contest open to UK residents only.
Neither the publisher or I will be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Review: The Demon Road Trilogy by Derek Landy

For anyone who ever thought their parents were monsters Amber Lamont is a normal sixteen-year-old. Smart but insecure, she spends most of her time online, where she can avoid her beautiful, aloof parents and their weird friends.

But when a shocking encounter reveals a horrifying secret, Amber is forced to go on the run. Killer cars, vampires, undead serial killers and red-skinned, horned demons Amber hurtles from one threat to the next, revealing the terror woven into the very fabric of her life. As her parents close in behind her, Amber’s only chance rests with her fellow travellers, who are not at all what they appear to be

Witty, action-packed and heart-stoppingly thrilling, Demon Road will take you on an epic road-trip across the supernatural landscape of America.

Long time readers of The Book Zone will know that I was a huge fan of Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant books. When I was offered a proof of Demon Road, the first book in his new trilogy, I obviously shouted yes please, and dropped everything to read it when it came through my letterbox. And then calamity struck - I just couldn't get into it, and put it down after a few chapters and picked up something else to read, always meaning to give it another go. 

That 'other go' never materialised though, until at the tail end of August I was approached by the fab people at HarperCollins, letting me know that American Monsters, the third book in the trilogy was soon to be released and enquiring as to whether I would be interested in a set of the three books to binge read. I decided to accept the challenge and when they arrived I restarted Demon Road from the beginning... and this time I loved it! So much so that I leaped straight into the sequel, Desolation, with barely a pause for breath, and then moved on to American Monsters.

I genuinely do not know what was wrong with me when I first attempted Demon Road, as it has everything I loved about the Skulduggery Pleasant books: awesome characters; great action scenes; Landy's trademark of fabulous,witty dialogue; really nasty villains. And on top of that Demon Road, and its sequels, are true splatterfests - between them they have some of the bloodiest and goriest scenes ever to be printed under the YA banner. I don't know how Landy gets away with it; perhaps it is because there is the thread of wry humour that is woven through almost everything he writes?

If you're looking for a dark and bloody Hallowe'en read then you should really give this trilogy a go. Unlike the Skulduggery series of nine books (plus two other stories and now even more in the pipeline), you're not signing yourself up for the long haul - this is just a trilogy and the third book has a great ending, that brings the trilogy to a hugely satisfying end, but also does leave Derek the opportunity to return to the world and its characters in the future if he so chooses.

And if you have not yet discovered these books then come back tomorrow for a chance to win the complete trilogy.