A review by botanyandbookends
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry

adventurous lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

'We've been married
for four years now and I'm constantly
amazed at how long she can think over her
own feelings, working at them patiently,
until she's straightened out the knots and
tangles and can lay them out in words.'

I wish I could remember who
recommended this book. It was one of
those if-you-liked-this-book-then-try-this-
book type of posts. I can't remember who it was but I'd love to thank them. THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP by H.G. Parry, is a wildly clever book with a myriad of characters to cheer on (and worry about.)

Charley Sutherland has had the secret
magical ability to bring to life the
characters he is reading about in books.
Trying to keep this unusual skill under
wraps has always been a challenge, but
one day, while teaching English at the
university, the appearance of Charles
Dickens' character, Uriah Heep, brings a
series of events that threaten to change
the real world around Charley. It soon
becomes evident that there is someone
else in the real world with Charley's same skills - but are they using those skills for
good or destruction? To a book lover's
delight, literary characters come to life and
join forces to conquer foes from centuries
past while Charley struggles to find his
place in these colliding worlds.

Charley's journal entry at age 12: 'I don't
want to write about what happened today.
I'm sick of words. I'm sick of their
allusiveness and their sharpness and their
beauty and their heart. But if I don't write it
down then it will still be there in my head
and that would be worse. So I will set it
down in the plainest words possible and
rob it of its power.’

Reading this book brought back the
absolute thrill of delving deep into a work
of fiction as a kid. The pure entertainment,
wild imagination, and utter escape from
reality. If you are a lover of books and
literature, grab this tale and lean back into
the pure enjoyment of reading.