Travel back to 1703 with Skulduggery Pleasant in this standalone novel featuring all your favorite characters. So many enemies, so little time . . .

Italy, 1703.

As the war with Mevolent rages on, the Dead Men are dispatched to a walled town in the Tuscan hills – not to assassinate the Lord of the Dark Sorcerers, but to save him. A rift has opened to a hellish dimension where a being of devastating power awaits, and only Mevolent is strong enough to seal it and save the world.

A simple mission, then, which turns ever-so-slightly trickier when Skulduggery is presented with the opportunity to finally get revenge on Nefarian Serpine, the man who murdered him and killed his family thirteen years earlier.

Return to the world of Skulduggery Pleasant in a short novel set hundreds of years before Valkyrie Cain is even born, and follow Skulduggery, Ghastly, Shudder, Ravel, Saracen, Dexter and Hopeless as they argue, bicker and battle their way through an army of their most hated enemies in order to save their oldest enemy so they can stop another, brand new, enemy…

And that's when things get complicated.

Published
March 30, 2023
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Skulduggery Pleasant

The series

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Imagine a world just beneath our own—a world where ancient magic pulses through forgotten alleyways, secret organizations wage silent wars, and the only thing standing between humanity and chaos is a trench-coated skeleton with a razor-sharp wit. That’s the stormy heart of Skulduggery Pleasant, a genre-bending fantasy series that smashes together dark magic, quickfire dialogue, and the kind of world-building that lingers long after the last page.

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At its center is an unlikely duo: Skulduggery, a fire-throwing sorcerer and detective who also happens to be very, very dead, and Valkyrie Cain, a seemingly ordinary girl whose plunge into the magical underground reveals dangerous power and a destiny she never asked for. Their partnership—equal parts banter, loyalty, and mutual exasperation—drives a story that evolves far beyond its early mystery roots.

What begins as a supernatural whodunit spirals into a sweeping, multi-arc saga about identity, corruption, and the fine line between hero and villain. The tone dances between laugh-out-loud absurdity and moments of unsettling darkness, often within the same chapter. It’s this unpredictability—this refusal to fit neatly into one genre box—that makes the series so addictive.

Over the years, the series has built a fiercely loyal readership. With each installment, the stakes rise, the world deepens, and the characters grow—sometimes into heroes, sometimes into something much darker. Beneath the spells and snark, there’s a steady undercurrent of moral complexity, asking what happens when the people saving the world start breaking it, too.

For fans of modern fantasy with a gothic twist, crackling dialogue, and characters who feel real in their flaws as much as their powers, this series doesn’t just entertain—it lingers, like smoke from a spell still hanging in the air.

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