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todayiamadaisy ([personal profile] todayiamadaisy) wrote2017-08-01 09:22 pm
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Yet She Follows (A Heart is Broken)

Another slow book month, tied up as I was with academic articles about learning organisations.

July book read

* Twilight Robbery - Frances Hardinge (2011) ★ ★ ★ ★
This is a book that has been on my shelf for ages and I don't know why. I don't remember buying it. I only realised it was part of a series when I added it to my Currently Reading list on Goodreads and saw the series number after the title. It certainly doesn't mention that on the cover, or I wouldn't have bothered as I haven't read the first book. So it was an unpromising start. It turned out all right in the end, though.

This is a YA novel set in a sort of Alternative Dickensian realm with a complicated system of house gods that governs everyday life. It's the story of a pleasingly obstreperous twelve-year-old orphan girl called Mosca Mye, who has a cranky pet goose and who works for a travelling poet/spy/conman called Eponymous Clent. On the run from the sinister Guild of Locksmiths, they find themselves stuck in a strange little town called Toll-by-Day, which has a hidden shadow town called Toll-by-Night. What follows is a series of kidnappings, thefts, false identities, double-crosses, political intrigue, illegal chocolate, and a strange episode in which four gangs hidden mechanical pantomime horses travel the streets looking for jewel hidden in a radish. It was an entertaining diversion.