"Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" was the surprise best seller of 2011—an unprecedented mix of YA fantasy and vintage photography that enthralled readers and critics alike. Publishers Weekly called it "an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters."This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine's island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises.Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerizing) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages.
Copyright © 2014 by Ransom Riggs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2013914959
eISBN: 978-1-59474-620-8
Designed by Doogie Horner
Cover photograph courtesy of John Van Noate, Rex USA, and the Everett Collection
Production management by John J. McGurk
Quirk Books
215 Church St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com
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FOR TAHEREH
JACOB PORTMAN
Our hero, who can see and sense hollowgast
ABRAHAM PORTMAN
(DECEASED)
Jacob’s grandfather, killed by a hollowgast
EMMA BLOOM
A girl who can make fire with her hands, formerly involved with Jacob’s grandfather
BRONWYN BRUNTLEY
An unusually strong girl
MILLARD NULLINGS
An invisible boy, scholar of all things peculiar
HORACE SOMNUSSON
A boy who suffers from premonitory visions and dreams
OLIVE ABROHOLOS ELEPHANTA
A girl who is lighter than air
ENOCH O’CONNOR
A boy who can animate the dead for brief periods of time
HUGH APISTON
A boy who commands and protects the many bees that live in his stomach
FIONA FRAUENFELD
A silent girl with a peculiar talent for making plants grow
CLAIRE DENSMORE
A girl with an extra mouth in the back of her head; the youngest of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children
ALMA LEFAY PEREGRINE
Ymbryne, shape-shifter, manipulator of time; headmistress of Cairnholm’s loop; arrested in bird form
ESMERELDA AVOCET
An ymbryne whose loop was raided by the corrupted; kidnapped by wights
FRANKLIN PORTMAN
Jacob’s father; bird hobbyist, wannabe writer
MARYANN PORTMAN
Jacob’s mother; heiress to Florida’s second-largest drugstore chain
RICKY PICKERING
Jacob’s only normal friend
DOCTOR GOLAN
(DECEASED)
A wight who posed as a psychiatrist to deceive Jacob and his family; later killed by Jacob
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(DECEASED)
Essayist, lecturer, poet
We rowed past the old lighthouse, tranquil in the distance, which only last night had been the scene of so many traumas. It was there that, with bombs exploding around us, we had nearly drowned, nearly been torn apart by bullets; that I had taken a gun and pulled its trigger and killed a man, an act still incomprehensible to me; that we had lost Miss Peregrine and got her back again—snatched from the steel jaws of a submarine—though the Miss Peregrine who was returned to us was damaged, in need of help we didn’t know how to give. She perched now on the stern of our boat, watching the sanctuary she’d created slip away, more lost with every oar stroke.
Finally we rowed past the breakwater and into the great blank open, and the glassy surface of the harbor gave way to little waves that chopped at the sides of our boats. I heard a plane threading the clouds high above us and let my oars drag, neck craning up, arrested by a vision of our little armada from such a height: this world I had chosen, and everything I had in it, and all our precious, peculiar lives, contained in three splinters of wood adrift upon the vast, unblinking eye of the sea.
Mercy.
