#BlogTour ‘A Clockwork River’ by J.S Emery

About the book…

Lower Rhumbsford is a city far removed from its glory days. On the banks of the great river Rhumb, its founding fathers channelled the river’s mighty flow into a subterranean labyrinth of pipes, valves and sluices, a feat of hydraulic prowess that would come to power an empire. But a thousand years have passed since then, and something is wrong. The pipes are leaking, the valves stuck, the sluices silted. The erstwhile mighty Rhumb is sluggish and about to freeze over for the first time in memory.

In a once fashionable quarter of the once great city, in the once grand ancestral home of a family once wealthy and well-known, live the last descendants of the city’s most distinguished engineer, siblings Samuel and Briony Locke.

Having abandoned his programme in hydraulic engineering, Samuel Locke tends to his vast lock collection, while his sister Briony distracts herself from the prospect of marriage to a rich old man with her alchemical experiments. One night Sam leaves the house carrying five of his most precious locks and doesn’t come back…

As she searches for her brother, Bryony will be drawn into a web of ancestral secrets and imperial intrigues as a ruthless new power arises. If brother and sister are to be reunited, they will need the help of a tight-lipped house spirit, a convict gang, a club of antiques enthusiasts, a tribe of troglodytes, the Ladies Whist Club, the deep state, a traveling theatrical troupe and a lovesick mouse.

Epic, rollicking and in love with language, Jacob and Sara Emery’s sprawling debut novel of humble kitchen magics and awe-inspiring civil engineering is a rare and delicious commodity – the world’s first hydropunk novel

Published by Head Of Zeus on 14th October, ‘A Clockwork River’ is the debut novel from brother and sister writing duo, J.S Emery! I am so grateful to Paige from Head Of Zeus for the tour invite and gifted e-arc of this incredible book.

This is a wondrous book, a large one (over 736 pages!) and whilst teen me would have been thrilled to dive deeply into this immaculately constructed world which JS Emery creates, it does require forbearance, forswearing of any other books bar this one (sorry, I am a serial multi-booker!) and fortitude.

There is so much to enjoy in your first visit to Lower Rhumbsford, the social classes, mores, behaviour is very Victorian inspired, and Katherine Addisonor Theodora Goss fans will find much to enjoy.

The fourth wall breaking narrator, speaking directly to the reader, is such a great technique, it helps pull you into the story and is so reminiscent of the joy of being read to, it brings back the indulgence of just lying back, and letting the story take over.

The fortunes of Briony and Sam, the brother/sister team on whom the book focusses, is highly gothic, and their faded fortunes, with the circling antiquarian eagerly awaiting their father’s call to take the last things of value is a wonderful conceit, perfectly described within the context of Brie’s wardrobe, for example. The importance of maintaining appearance relies on girls and women carefully rotating their meagre collections to ensure that their status, and therefore value is maintained. Briony (known as Brie) however, uses hers to conduct alchemical experiments. She is desperate to find a poison that she can kill herself with when her father finally has nothing left to sell but her, and I deeply adore that kind of dedication to a cause.

Her brother, Sam, is a collector of locks , all kinds of them, some with historical attachments, and between them, they create the most engaging duo who pull you into their adventures.None of the family, including servants and the house spirit, are 100% likable, which makes them more rounded and realistic.

Ambitious? Yes, the authors are taking us into entirely unknown territory whilst pulling on threads of commonality with fantasy and gothic writers, creating their own space on the shelf next to strong fantasy standards. The world building is not so exhaustive that you feel you have read a treatise, you pick it up as it trundles along, like any visitor to a foreign land would.

Appearance, misconception, falsities and ruses all combine to create misunderstood situations and errors which land our hapless family in deep water (excuse the pun).

I am unsure how long this series has been planned to run, but I am excited to visit this world again in a hurry!
Charming, whimsical and deeply different, I really enjoyed it.

About the author…

J.S. Emery is a brother-sister writing team, born in North Idaho into a homeschooling family of seven children, each of whom received an air rifle and a copy of The Odyssey by way of a fifth birthday present.

This background prepared them wonderfully for writing fantasy novels but very poorly for formal education.

After dropping out of secondary school, they worked jobs including ballet dancer, emergency room janitor, and map librarian in various parts of Europe and North America.

They now live in the United States, where they are godparents (and, increasingly, dungeon masters) to one another’s children

Twitter @HoZBooks