Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20678 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-25
• Binding: Hardcover
• 768 pages

Stella Magazine
'A gripping gothic adventure'

thelondonpaper
`Think of `The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' . . . apply the
production values of `Buffy the Vampire Slayer' . . . Literally a ripping
yarn'

Daily Mail
`An erotically charged, rip-roaring adventure . . . which defies
its great length to keep the reader on the edge of his seat'

Customer Reviews

Absorbing adventure story
In short this is an adventure story, following three main characters, the period and country that the story is set in is recognisable and yet different. I found this aspect appealing and enjoyed following the characters on their adventures. For me the book started a little slowly and felt overly detailed but then I started to enjoy the detail, and found the world in which the adventures are set very absorbing. The story teases you throughout, as you realise you are over halfway though and still don't really have clue what is going on. It was very different to anything else I have read and made a pleasant change. I look forward to the sequel.

Strange but seductive
Pastiche or just mindless wanderings? Creative brilliance or rehashed rubbish? This book changes my mind from chapter to chapter but yet has curiously kept me keen to learn more. The characters deepen and strengthen through the book, in particular as Chang rediscovers his own humanity. The plot is also complex but leaves enough clues not to utterly frustrate.

A previous reviewer's comparison to Jonathan Norrell and Mr Strange was spot on. The book is highly unusual, sometimes annoying but overall offers the reader something different when so many other books do not.

An entertaining adventure
I greatly enjoyed reading this - I found most of it to be fast-paced and entertaining, and on the whole certainly not boring. The three main protagonists, Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Doctor Svenson are well-rounded characters, all flawed in their individual ways, and when they get thrown together as initially reluctant heroes to defeat the sinister 'Cabal', it's interesting to see the personality changes Miss Temple and Doctor Svenson go through. Many of the other characters are admittedly either two-dimensional or just plain annoying, and I agree with other reviewers that the book would have benefited from editing in places, but overall I think it's a really enjoyable adventure, and I'd definitely like to read the second volume when it's published.