The Bedlam Stacks: From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

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The novel is also historical fiction because the East India Company did send expeditions to Peru to obtain quinine from the bark of cinchona trees, desperately needed to treat its workers in the East who suffered from malaria. So there is another whole plot concerning the dastardly practices of people trying to bring cuttings of the tree out of Peru and the natives who seek to prevent this First World rip-off of their natural resources. I must say that in terms of imaginative concepts and world building I thoroughly did like this book, if a bit overcrowded at times.

He understood well what grief meant to a markayuq. In the same way that they learnt languages, gathering knowledge carved into stone at the first mention and never forgetting, never lessening, they held sadness just as permanently. Language: English Words: 4,177 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 4 Kudos: 8 Bookmarks: 1 Hits: 74 The history of quinine and the East India Company was fascinating, as were the stone statues which moved. A hint here - do not read this book if you dislike magical realism. There is a whole lot of fantastical stuff going on which you may not be able to swallow if you like your fiction real. As a reader, it felt like Pulley’s research into Peru - not just the country and the layout/scenery, but also the history and language - was very extensive and it really showed throughout her writing. Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you to the publishers!] I received an ARC of this novel from Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange for an honest review – all thoughts are my own.The cover alone made me desperate to get hold of this book, not to mention the description. Exploding trees? Strange events in Peru? Sign me up now, please! I was drawn into this story from the very beginning – I loved the way that the fictional Tremaynes were insinuated into the family history of the real Tremayne family that used to live at Heligan – but even if I hadn’t known that very real place, where the lost gardens are open to visitors, I still would have been captivated. My edition to the HMC au that I would like very much to write more for. Language: English Words: 2,502 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 4 Kudos: 5 Bookmarks: 1 Hits: 50

You could read this book that asks questions about life and faith; or you simply enjoy a lovely journey through a world that is both real and fantastical. The whole pointlessness of the plot did bother me, as there seemed to be no real goal. There was obstacles as they appeared, but no real drive behind the story to hold the interest.Spoiler Warning: This article or section may contain spoilers. If this bothers you, proceed with caution. I can’t really review this book without keeping the The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley’s debut, in mind and I apologies in advance for multiple comparisons between both books which I will be making. Conflicted in almost every way. Its pace, its subject matter, its characters--all of these facets have both lots of positive points in their favor but yet almost as many strikes against them. The writing is very good; descriptive without being exhausting, beautiful without turning purple. I enjoyed the writing on its own very much. But the story. The world he travelled through was so well realised, and the Peruvian jungle and the town of Bedlam felt wonderfully real and alive. The imaginative elements worked well because they came out of the natural world and old traditions, and they spoke of what makes up human. I particularly liked that way that those things sat against practical concerns, particularly the importance of a good cup of coffee.

Bedlam is a village, also called New Bethlehem. The author's imagination and world-building skills make it one the most astonishing creations I have ever found in fantasy. This is a difficult book for me to review. In many ways it's excellent, and I enjoyed it a great deal, but I feel like I only understand its flaws and am at a loss with regards to how Pulley makes the successful parts succeed. I nodded. He could have. But it felt good to have stood in front of him without flinching and, however stupid it was, I wanted to do it again. The eagerly anticipated new novel from the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - a treacherous quest in the magical landscape of nineteenth-century Peru.If you need an example of the cruelty of man and empire you have to look no farther than the slaughter and slavery of the Congo rubber trade. It's hard to root for a guy who is super chill about the Congo. And for a book which tosses that in there as an aside. More 'blink and you miss it' but with massacres. steal a plant whose exact location nobody knows, in territory now defended by quinine barons under the protection of the government, and inhabited by tribal Indians who also hate foreigners and have killed everyone who’s got close in the last ten years.’ Thus begins a slow-paced epic journey. Others have undertaken this journey before and few have survived it. And they were able-bodied men, whereas Tremayne can barely walk. Tremayne and his companion, his former naval colleague, Clements Markham. They are being sent to: The Marqayuk' was whispered by the gardeners whenever the fog passed in the distance as they worked in the greenhouses. Tools of the enemy state. The relationships in the book are very...unsatisfying. Nothing comes of much of them, or they're handled almost superficially. I'm all for slow burns but not if they fizzle into nothing, not if you build up a sort of almost super-human devotion and allow it to go absolutely nowhere.

I’m so glad that I did. It was a lovely mixture of the familiar from the first book and the completely different and utterly right for this book; and it was set in the same slightly fanciful but utterly natural past that I wished could have been but that I know probably wasn’t.But you are supposed to root for him, I think, he is so damned affable (a flaw - if he'd been less affable at key moments the book would have been more interesting!) and yet at one late point he agrees to go off to the Congo rubber plantations should he survive Peru, and, well.