The Clockwork Girl – Anna Mazzola
My ReviewThe new book from the author of the Unseeing.A hugely atmospheric, imaginative historical drama/mystery. Set in 18th century Paris, this made a refreshing change from the locations I am more used to reading about, and what a Paris! A stinking, festering wound of a city plastered over with perfume and lace. As well as the sewage, the corruption runs deep. Madeleine is desperate to escape from the clutches of her unscrupulous Mother, cruel and uncaring she is the owner of a seedy brothel., where Madou lives and has worked. She is coerced by a shady police officer to do some spying, taking up a position as a servant in the household of a clockwork designer who is suspected of being up to something shady . Working partly as a maid of all work, she is also asked to be a maid/companion to his daughter who has until recently been closeted away in a nunnery. In this household strange and fantastical mechanical clockwork objects are created which seem to have a life of their own, outside in the suppurating streets, children are disappearing and Madeleine fears for her young nephew Emile, who is the one person she really cares about. When the household become unwittingly embroiled in Court life, things get even more fraught and increasingly dangerous. I was captivated by the story and characters and there is quite a delicious twist, which surprised and gripped me. I really cared about Madeleine yet found many of the despicable characters utterly loathsome. Eerie and mysterious this is a great read.The BlurbParis, 1750.
In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city's celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter.
Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker's experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.
For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker's intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.
And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles...
A intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.
