Mordew

GOD LIES DEFEATED, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew. On the surface, the streets of this the sea-battered city are slick with the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns - creatures that die and are swept down from the Merchant Quarter by the brooms of the workers and relentless rains, where they rot in the slums. There, a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud - until one day his mother, desperate and starving, sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew. The Master derives his power from feeding on the corpse of God. But Nathan, despite his fear and lowly station, has his own strength - and it is greater than the Master has ever known. Great enough to destroy everything the Master has built. If only Nathan can discover how to use it. So it is that the Master begins to scheme against him - and Nathan has to fight his way through the betrayals, secrets, and vendettas of the city where God was murdered, and darkness reigns... WELCOME TO MORDEW - THE FIRST IN A FANTASTIC NEW TRILOGY FROM THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE-SHORTLISTED WRITER, ALEX PHEBY.

ALEX PHEBY lives with his wife and two children in Norwich, and teaches at the University of Greenwich. His second novel, Playthings, was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize and was described in the New York Times as a "potent... eerie... and skillfully rich novel." His third novel, Lucia, about James Joyce's daughter, was published by Galley Beggar Press in June 2018 and was joint winner of the Republic Of Consciousness Prize.