Brick Dust and Bones (M. R. Fournet)

Brick Dust and Bones
The Marius Grey series, Book 1
M. R. Fournet
Dreamscape
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Marius Grey is a cemetery boy, part of a long line who maintain the graveyards of New Orleans and protect the ghosts who linger among the mausoleums. For two years, he's also been an orphan - but hopefully not for much longer. He knows of a resurrection spell that can, in theory, bring his mother back from death, which will require many mystic coins to attempt. In addition to his duties and his schooling - at a special school where "fringe" kids like him learn to navigate both the ordinary world and the hidden culture of magic - he has started hunting monsters on the side, collecting bounties for each poltergeist, candy woman, bogeyman, and other creatures he captures in his magical monster hunter book... but they aren't earning him nearly enough, and the window for the spell is rapidly closing. To get a bigger payout, he's going to need to hunt down bigger monsters - but the one he sets his sights on is so dangerous that even experienced, adult hunters rarely survive an encounter. Is this the way to save his mother, or is Marius Grey about to join her in an early grave?

REVIEW: Brick Dust and Bones starts with the boy Marius Gray hiding in a child's closet waiting for a bogeyman to appear, talking to the ghost of his dead mother, in a scene that quickly establishes the basic "rules" of the world, the stakes, and the desperation of the main character. It's a solid start to what becomes a fairly solid story, steeped in New Orleans magic and with chiller overtones.
Orphaned Marius was always an outsider, even among other "fringe" folk, but only grew more isolated after his mother was killed by a demon. Aside from her ghost (who may or may not be his own imagination; he wonders, more than once, if he's just talking to himself), his only friends are a young ghost at his family's graveyard and the mermaid Rhiannon - who is technically a monster, as her kind traditionally feed on humans, but this one has spent more time among people than her own kin and has developed a bond of sorts with the cemetery boy, even if her words and actions often remind Marius (and the reader) that she is not and will never be a human. Marius can be stubborn and reckless, but he generally has a good heart beneath it all and never intentionally hurts people. He's just used to being alone and so completely focused on the slim possibility of rescuing his mother from Hell that he doesn't always think through the consequences of his actions. The story moves fairly well, slowing down now and again to fill out Marius's world, but it never feels dull or repetitive, and even the slower bits are full of sensory details like tastes and smells and textures. The monsters he faces are suitably scary creatures, and the fights have real stakes and tension to keep them interesting. When things reach the climax, Marius has earned his way there, and hasn't just stumbled into it by accident.
There are a few threads and characters who feel underexplored or forgotten by the end, though this is just the first book in a series, so it's possible they were deliberately left dangling. Overall, though, it's a good story with a nice New Orleans flavor to it, establishing a main character and a setting that can easily carry more adventures.

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