Piper Houdini: Apprentice of Coney Island is available in paperback, hardcover, or e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and our publisher, Balboa Press!
When she wasn’t being shunted from one foster home to the next, Piper Weiss spent the first twelve years of her life in an orphanage. But everything changes when a dark stranger shows up claiming to be her father. Things get even weirder when Piper is taken to live with her uncle, who happens to be the world-famous magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini. And Houdini is not at all pleased about having a curious twelve-year-old running around his home.
Piper attends school, gets detention on her first day, and meets some friends who will help her unravel the clues to her mysterious past. But something sinister and powerful has been unleashed in New York, an evil force hell-bent on bringing about the Apocalypse. Sideshow freaks are being murdered and it all seems to be leading to a dark ritual started twelve years earlier—the day Piper was born. How can Piper defeat this malevolent entity when she may be the reason for its very existence?
Piper Houdini: Apprentice of Coney Island is a young adult novel set in the Roaring Twenties against the hustling and bustling background of New York’s Coney Island—a time filled with silent movies, secret speakeasies, and an unscrupulous Spiritualist movement that is the unwitting pawn in a plot to bring about hell on Earth. Populated with a cast of actual historical figures—including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dion Fortune, and Aleister Crowley—this spine-tingling tale will appeal to readers who enjoy urban fantasy and paranormal historical fiction as much as a jaunt on the Wonder Wheel.
Publishers Weekly
“. . . strong central characters, evocative writing, and an atmospheric setting result in a fresh and fun novel.”
Herdling debuts with a jam-packed supernatural adventure set against the backdrop of 1920s New York City. Read the full Publishers Weekly book review >
Kirkus Review
“Plenty of storytelling magic, although the story’s not yet finished.”
Harry Houdini’s niece discovers a talent for real magic in this 1926-set YA novel. Read the full Kirkus book review >
Piper Houdini: Nightmare on Esopus Island is available in paperback, hardcover, or e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and our publisher, Balboa Press!
After running away from Houdini and Bess, saving wild animals from a raging inferno, and a breathtaking showdown with a vampire named Flapper, Piper settles in with the performers of the Coney Island freak show only to discover that she may be the greatest freak of all. As the summer of 1926 heats up, Piper continues the quest for her dark legacy. Along the way, she will encounter a variety of real-life luminaries from the 1920s, including the erudite author H.P. Lovecraft and a Rudolph Valentino zombie! Piper will need to use all the valuable skills she learns from her new friends to confront the maniac who has been murdering sideshow performers.
In this pulse-pounding conclusion to the tale begun in Piper Houdini: Apprentice of Coney Island, author Glenn Herdling takes readers from the rousing backdrop of the legendary Brooklyn amusement pier to a mysterious island up the Hudson River where a sinister rite takes place that could enslave the human race—unless Piper and her unusual friends can stop it.
PLUS: Piper Houdini: Nightmare on Esopus Island includes an adaptation of “Under the Pyramids,” a short story by Houdini and Lovecraft that contains valuable clues to Piper’s origin!
Kirkus Review
“As with the first book, Herdling combines period detail—such as flappers, speak-easies, Rudolph Valentino, and spiritualists—with an engaging heroine and Lovecraft-ian supernatural horrors into a nonstop action adventure.”
After running away to a Coney Island “Freak Show,” Houdini’s niece gets drawn into an apocalyptic battle with an occultist and his evil minions in this YA novel. Read the full Kirkus book review >