Philip Reeve’s Fever Crumb is a novel about a 14 year-old girl, Fever Crumb, and follows her and her life living with the smart, intelligent, Dr Crumb after being abandoned.

“There, among the bramble bushes, he found a baby in a basket, with an old blanket laid over her and a label around her wrist upon which someone had written just four words:

HER NAME IS FEVER

I think this is a great line for introducing Fever to the novel, so you feel throughout the novel that you have an understanding of her past.

When the Scriven are wiped out by the Skinners – a horrible group of Londoners who decide they want London back to themselves so they want to slaughter every Scriven left – Dr Crumb finds a girl who has different coloured eyes and a scar on the back of her head and saves her from the Skinners who could mistake her for one of the Scriven.

“She lay there watching the city and waiting for the paper boys to dry and idly tracing the raised line of that old scar that she could feel but never see; a slender silvery thread which curved along the base of her skull.”

I really like the way that Reeve combines parts of the plot that really are important and bits that are ‘just in there’ to bring some reality to the novel. In a fantasy story I think that is the key to keep the reader interested and to make sure they don’t put it down because it's too unrealistic.

Overall I enjoyed the novel and I think it is a must-have for any fantasy fans.