I tried very hard to resist T J Klune’s best-selling feel-good Fantasy The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020) but I failed so here it is as this month’s recommendation. The novel is easy to find in paperback, with charming cover-art, or as an ebook. I think that this is a story particularly suited to being listened to and there is an unabridged audio version read by Daniel Hemming.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is set in an alternate modern world in which magical beings exist but are strictly regulated. The unassuming hero of the story is 40 year-old Linus Baker who works for a bureaucratic organization known as DICOMY (the Department in Charge of Magical Youth). His job is to inspect and write reports on the orphanages in which many children with magical gifts are raised. Shy Linus undertakes his work with scrupulous care but never gets any thanks from his bosses. He lives alone in a tiny house with only his cat Calliope for company and spends his spare time listening to records and obsessively reading DICOMY’s 947 page book of Rules and Regulations. Linus longs to get out of the wet and dreary city and visit the seaside but that seems an impossible dream.

When Linus is suddenly summoned to the offices of Extremely Upper Management he fears that he is going to be sacked. Instead he is entrusted with an unusual mission which is classified as Level Four (highly secret). Linus is to travel to an orphanage situated on remote Marsyas Island and spend a month there assessing the man who runs it, a Mr Arthur Parnassus, and the welfare of the six children who live there. Extremely Upper Management warn Linus that these children are different to anything he has seen before but he isn’t allowed to open their sealed files until he gets to the island. Linus sets out by train, taking Calliope with him.

After arriving in a seaside village Linus starts to read some of the secret files while he is waiting to be collected. He is horrified to discover that one of the children in the orphanage, a six-year old boy named Lucy, is alleged to be a son of the Devil. Linus is taken across to Marsyas Island by Zoe, a sharp-tongued sprite who calls him a `clueless lackey’. He also gets a hostile reception from the children – Lucy, the Antichrist, Talia, a bearded female gnome, Theodore, a wyvern, Phee a forest sprite, Sal, a were-Pomerian, and Chauncey, an amorphous green blob with a lot of tentacles. Only Arthur Parnassus gives him a friendly welcome but Linus senses that there is something strange about the handsome Orphanage Master.

Slowly and patiently Linus overcomes the children’s hostility and gets to know them as individuals. Arthur encourages him to observe their lessons and join in their activities. Linus tries to stay detached as he writes his weekly reports for DICOMY but he becomes fond of the children and increasingly attracted to Arthur. When Linus challenges Arthur to let the children leave their isolated island for a trip to the mainland, a dangerous sequence of events is triggered and a major secret is revealed. Can Linus summon up the courage to defy Extremely Upper Management and save this very special orphanage from closure?

I don’t know about you but when I am told that a story is going to make me feel good I stubbornly insist on continuing to feel bad. Books marketed by cynical publishers as feel-good stories are often saccharine confections with no real heart or soul to them. Some may think that The House in the Cerulean Sea falls into this category but that wasn’t how it seemed to me as I read it. This is a lovingly constructed novel and I felt that the author genuinely cared about the characters he had created. Personally, I like love stories to have a happy ending and there are many forms of love in this novel. The House in the Cerulean Sea didn’t make me feel good, it made me feel both joyful and sad, hopeful and fearful.

There is still a stack of reasons why I might not have recommended this novel. The plot is slight and the central idea of a home for magical children is hardly an original one. Some of the children aren’t given enough backstory to explain their presence in the orphanage and the forces of bureaucracy and prejudice are perhaps too easily defeated. The Orwell-Lite atmosphere of Linus’ workplace is effective but I found myself confused by the level of technology in this alternate world – there are computers but no mobile phones. The setting is similar to America in the 1960s but there are enough differences to make it seem odd that the music of real singers like Elvis and Buddy Holly plays a role in the plot. Some of the humour lacks subtlety and the central love story of Linus and Arthur isn’t given much page-time to develop. Even the title is irritating. The House on an Island in the Cerulean Sea would be more accurate. And yet I responded to this imperfect novel more deeply than I have to many perfect books.

One reason for this is that I found it very easy to sympathise with gentle Linus. Fiction is full of dashing mavericks who would probably do a lot of damage in real life. Linus follows the rules because he is always trying to do the right thing. He believes that staying detached is part of his duty but on Marsyas Island he learns to trust his instincts and forge personal connections with the children via small but thoughtful actions such as giving his buttons to wyvern Theodore for his hoard or helping timid Sal to create a space where he feels safe to write creative fiction. Linus has never plucked up the courage to attempt a personal relationship with anyone and when he falls for the magnetic Arthur he can’t allow himself to express his feelings for the man he is supposed to be investigating. It is only when Linus realizes that Arthur needs help as much as any of the abandoned children that things move forward.

Arthur isn’t just running an orphanage for difficult or dangerous children. He is trying to create a blended family from a very diverse group of beings. He lovingly overlooks differences of gender or species and refuses to accept that anyone is born bad. The children are characterized with a great deal of humour and pathos – especially pugnacious Talia, with her obsession with digging, and sweet-natured Chauncey who was brought up to believe that he is the kind of monster that people fear to find hiding under the bed. These children aren’t taught to look for role-models only among people who look and sound like themselves. Talia bonds with the Mayor of Marsyas village through a shared love of gardening and Chauncey, who loves to be helpful by carrying people’s luggage, finds a friendly bellhop to emulate. It is entertaining to meet a powerful Antichrist who isn’t allowed to be naughty but Lucy is also presented as a genuinely distressed and troubled child who needs help to drive away `the spiders in his head’. Arthur insists that whether or not Lucy has a dark and terrible destiny ahead of him, he is only six years old and must be treated as such. This is what finally convinced me to recommend The House in the Cerulean Sea.

When you think about it, dreadful things are done to children in many classic Fantasy novels – they are sent to fight in bloody battles (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), forced to endure terrifying ordeals while in animal form (The Sword in the Stone), or whirled away from home and subjected to wicked witches and fierce flying monkeys (The Wizard of Oz). Don’t get me started on the traumas Alice goes though in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. They would keep a real child in therapy for life. In this novel, when the children play at being explorers facing kidnappers, pirates or cannibals it remains a scary but enjoyable game. Linus believes that, ‘Violence against any child was wrong, no matter what they were capable of.’ and Arthur is determined to let these unusual children enjoy a carefree, old-fashioned childhood. It is Linus who points out that Arthur can’t protect them from the real world for ever. On a trip to Marsyas village, the children experience hostility and prejudice – there is a chilling scene in which a racist shopkeeper refuses to sell them ice-creams – but they also change some people’s minds about `freaks’ and make new friends. This novel ends on a happy and positive note as a unique family is created. Joy and hope is something we all need more of in these dark times. Until next month…