Pilgrims by Will Elliott

Two friends of mine introduced me to this Brisbane author and insisted I read his first book, The Pilo Family Circus. A sucker for horror fiction I started it straight away. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting and took me some time to get into; however by halfway I was hooked. Pilgrims is no different, although I’m not a fantasy fiction reader, the story was not so fantastical as to keep someone like me from continuing on to the end. Probably a good thing since it’s the start of a trilogy.

A mysterious door appears below a train bridge where our lead character, Eric, passes it every day on his way to and from work. One day the door opens and they discover there’s another world beyond the door along with some other world characters who have popped in and quickly disappear.

You can probably guess where this is going, right? Yes, the protagonist, Eric and his friend, the bum who lives under the train bridge open the door and go through to the other side. Where they discover they’re suddenly on a journey with some interesting and varied characters from the other world.

I liked this book because it takes you on a journey with it’s characters, always picking up and discarding people along the way and in the background a war is brewing. Hugely funny in places, much to Will Elliott’s style, and terrifying in others I really can’t wait to break the spine of book two: Shadow.