📖 Book Review ~ The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola

 

Orion 
2 March 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Paris, 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.

📖 My Review...

Into the festering world of eighteenth century Paris we move from the debauched atmosphere of the brothel where Madeleine Chastel lives with her mother, sister and young nephew, into the sinister world of Dr Maximilian Reinhart, an expert clock maker, with an interest in creating automaton. Reinhart employs Madeleine, not only as a chambrière, in his house where shadows lurk in every dark corner, but also as a femme de chambre to his seventeen year old daughter, Véronique. 

The story moves seamlessly between the mean and moody streets of Paris where children seem to be vanishing into the ether, to the decadent luxury of the French court of Louis XIV, where the King wiles away his time ensconced with Madame de Pompador, his maîtresse-en-titre, whose own obsession in the macabre is never far from the surface. The sinister atmosphere allows a fascinating glimpse into this shadowy world and through it all Madeleine and Véronique try to keep one step ahead of a deadly game.

Beautifully written, The Clockwork Girl is this author writing at her absolute best in a story which takes you whirling back to a long ago era where the streets were dark and the Parisian gutters reeked of sewage and bitter despair. 

📖 Best read with...a steadying cup of wine and a hot house orange

About the Author

Anna Mazzola is an award-winning and critically acclaimed novelist. Her debut novel, THE UNSEEING, won an Edgar Award in the US and was nominated for the Historical Writers’ Association’s Debut Crown in the UK. Her second novel, The Story Keeper, was longlisted for the Highland Book Prize.

Twitter @anna_mazz #TheClockworkGirl

@orionbooks

Review ~ The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola

Tinder Press

26th July 2018

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

What's it all about..

Audrey Hart is on Skye to collect the folk and fairy tales of the people around her. The crofters, facing dire poverty after the clearances, are suspicious and hostile to a stranger, claiming they no longer know their fireside stories. But then the body of a young girl is washed up on the beach, and the crofters reveal it is only a matter of weeks since another girl disappeared. They are sure the girls are the victims of the restless dead: spirits who take the form of birds.

My thoughts about it..

The folklore of our British Isles is in the fabric of our bones and in the call of the wind. And clustered around our firesides we hear, in the crackle of the wood, the whisper of the old folk and of the customs and traditions which shape our past, and which, if not for the teller of tales would have been lost a long time ago.

Audrey Hart takes up employment on the Isle of Skye, with Miss Buchanan, an enigmatic woman who is collecting the ancient folklore before the island stories are forgotten and in her search for the old tales, Audrey discovers that the islanders, whilst bound by their own sense of superstition, also hide dark secrets.

Imaginatively written, and so beautifully descriptive of nineteenth century life on the island, that the shrieking of the birds, and the drift of the copper brown dulse that litters the shoreline, comes gloriously to life. There's also a deliciously, creeping menace to the story which really draws you into this rather dark and dour place, and there is also a very strong impression that times are changing for these remote islanders. Over the 18th and 19th centuries the Scottish clearances decimated isolated communities, making the islanders who have remained on Skye, cautious and distrustful of strangers and averse to giving up their secrets easily.

The Story Keeper is a real tribute to the power of storytelling. It’s a generous nod towards the old keepers of our tales and customs who have for generations passed on cautionary tales of little men who wait in the woods and of fairies and spirits who seek retribution for our misdeeds.

Hauntingly beautiful from start to finish, The Story Keeper stays with you long after the last page of this story is turned and the book, with its beautiful cover, is gently placed down.

About the Author

Credit: Lou Abercrombie

Anna Mazzola's first novel, THE UNSEEING, was published to critical acclaim in 2016. She is a criminal justice solicitor and lives in London with her husband and two children.

Website

Twitter @Anna_Mazz #TheStoryKeeper

@TinderPress