This was the book I chose to start my week of reading every evening and avoiding excessive screen time. I’ve had this on my shelf since the beginning of the year when I bought the 3 books of the series on www.thebookpeople.co.uk

Synopsis (As taken from Amazon) is as follows:

Lily’s life is in mortal peril. Her father is missing and now silver-eyed men stalk her through the shadows. What could they want from her?

With her friends – Robert, the clockmaker’s son, and Malkin, her mechanical fox – Lily is plunged into a murky and menacing world. Too soon Lily realises that those she holds dear may be the very ones to break her heart.

Murder, mayhem and mystery meet in this gripping Victorian adventure.

Ability to read – It was very easy to get into this and read it. I started it at 5:30 and finished it at 8:00. The flow of the story was simple and allowed me, as the reader, to be carried along with the flow of what was happening. There was no point where the language was too hard for me to understand and I felt like everything meshed well together and gave me a good understanding of what was happening.

Characterisation – All things considered, I’m proud of the way Lily kept everything together in the wake of her world crashing down. Equally, Robert did the same thing and together they were able to work together and solve the problems that crossed their paths. I enjoyed reading about Lily’s interaction with the other mechanicals and how there was a clear social divide between humans and mechanicals. For me, it showed the truth of Lily’s character, watching her interact with the mechanicals who, for the most part, were looked down upon by the human society. With Robert, it was a case of watching him come out of his shell and blossom. I felt like he had more of a journey than Lily and had to work out how he was going to function in the new world he found himself in. He was definitely no the same boy as he was at the beginning of the story. Malkin was the peanut butter that bound Robert and Lily together and I enjoyed his one-liners and grumpy remarks.

Visualisation – It was easy for me to visualise what I was reading. So much of my visualisation was based on the descriptions given and my ability to process and imagine what those descriptions might look like. I came up with an image that reflected the Victorian Era having a baby with Treasure Island…Through visualisation it was easy for me to glimpse the characters, what they looked like and how they acted. It all came together to offer me a complete view of what was happening.

Uniqueness – While reading this I got shades of other books. Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’, Padraig Kenny’s ‘Tin’ and Alex Bell’s ‘The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club’. So for me, the idea in itself wasn’t unique and I’ve seen variations of it throughout other books that I have read. Was it still enjoyable? Yes, absolutely, I enjoyed the characters and the mechanical, the setting, details, description and dialogue. The twists and turns was curious and only made me want to read on. The characters worked well together and Robert and Lily had a good dynamic. I wasn’t blown away but I still enjoyed the story I read and it is a story that will remain on my shelf. (4.5/5 Stars)