A Printz Award Honor Book

“Horror lovers will be rapt.” —Publishers Weekly

An orphan apprenticed to a monster hunter reveals their “page-turning, nightmarish adventures” (Kirkus Reviews) in this first book of the diary-style, historical gothic Monstrumologist young adult series.

These are the secrets I have kept.

Will Henry, an orphan in nineteenth-century New England, works as the assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late-night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will’s world changes forever.

The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus—a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest—and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume the world…before it is too late.