Snippet: The Chimes, by Anna Smaill

 

In the absence of both memory and writing is music. In a world where the past is a mystery, each new day feels the same as the last, and before is blasphemy, all appears lost. But Simon Wythern, a young man who arrives in London seeking the truth about what really happened to his parents, discovers he has a gift that could change all of this forever.

“Some memories tell us about who we are.”

Anna Smaill's The Chimes is a dystopian YA set in an imagined London where the written word has been forbidden and destroyed and memories don't survive the night. It's a very atmospheric piece of writing, a bit longer than a novella, a love letter to the power of music and the importance of memories. The beautiful first half gives way to a more fast-paced second half as the revolution strikes and young orphan Simon falls in love with a freedom fighter. It's a lovely queer tale from a time (merely a decade ago) when it was still difficult to find anything like it for queer youth.

✨ 4 stars

Review: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley

1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties.

"Being solitary isn't a disease that needs a cure".

Natasha Pulley's The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a delightful debut. I'm slowly but surely reading every book by this author and bemoaning the fact that she slipped under my radar for so long. This book is a breath of fresh air, a whimsical historical novel with touches of magical realism and a fantastic cast. The author isn't afraid to write complex characters, people of dubious morality, even unlikable.

The main narrator, Thaniel, is thrown into a mystery; in the course of trying to solve it, he finds the elusive watchmaker who could be more sinister than one sees at first glance. Thaniel is fascinated, and strikes up a deep friendship that might evolve into something more, with striking moments of tenderness and references to the homophobic laws of the time. Thaniel is fiercely loyal, and his synesthesia makes for a lovely excuse to really delve into some gorgeous prose, while also being a plot point that helps him.

The watchmaker Mori, as we get to know him, especially thanks to a few flashbacks to his past (never through his eyes, always through someone else's POV) is an intriguing figure that slowly reveals itself, and still at the end of the novel we're left with so many questions about him.His gift is terrifying, not only for those around him (and I had to understand the female character's fears, Grace with her scientific mind, trapped in the role the times force her to take if she wants to still follow her studies), but also for himself, as it makes him remember and forget to a frightening degree.

The glimpses of history, the focus on Japan, and the mechanical wonders created by Mori, made for a gorgeous story. The resolution was a bit rushed, especially a chapter that explained things going on behind the scenes, and the aether seems more of a gimmick than a plot point, but the mystery was solved like clockwork.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a quiet marvel.

✨ 4 stars

📚📚📚 IF YOU LOVE THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:

* A Marvellous Light, by Freya Marske

for: visions, magical England

Snippet: The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson

 

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They'll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she'll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.
In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.

This is a violent book. Seth Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a hard book, not for the faint of heart. First book of a trilogy turned quadrilogy, of which only the final volume isn't out yet (and how spasmodically are we waiting for it!), this is a novel that ruthlessly analyzes how far you're willing to go in order to do what needs to be done. This is not a love story, not in the sense one might expect; but it is a story about love. It's a story that doesn't shy away from the horrors of colonialism and eugenetics, that isn't afraid to make you dislike its protagonist and yet love her to pieces. It is not, and I cannot emphasize it enough, a happy story. But it's an exceedingly well written story, set in a world painted with vivid strokes; a real masterpiece.

✨ 5 stars