3rd in the Chronoptika Quartet
It’s Midsummer Night, it’s hot, and everyone in Wintercombe Abbey is dreaming strange and disturbing dreams. But what wakes Jake is the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed to his forehead. Who is the mysterious thief waiting for him beyond the Obsidian Mirror? And where will he find his father in the lost ages of the past?
In the third volume of the Chronoptika Quartet Jake and Sarah are swept into a nightmare world of revolution and murder, while Oberon Venn has to face the choice between staying mortal or losing his soul in the tangled green wildwood of the Shee.
With a masked ball, priceless emeralds, an enchanted monk and a desperate struggle at the very foot of the guillotine, Catherine Fisher continues her breathtaking series of sorcery and amazing worlds with this adventure of magic and the dangerous search for those who Time has snatched away.
“The lush prose highlights precise, sensory details to portray worlds from the overripe fecundity of the Summerland to the fetid prisons of revolutionary Paris to the stark beauty of an illusory moonscape. None of the characters are “nice,” exactly; but with their wry humor and plucky audacity, their complex motivations and conflicting agendas, every one engages readers’ sympathies.” Kirkus
“This is a densely packed sequence, and this instalment is no exception. Indeed, for some, it may be too rich in its multi-layered narrative. Central to the action is a preoccupation with time – past, present, future, or even in the case of the Fay, no time – and the perennial desire or temptation to manipulate and change it. However, weaving in and out are stories and relationships that reference other sources – A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one. We see the action from different viewpoints and learn how each character has a personal involvement. This is … for those committed young readers who want more than the usual fantasy, they will discover it is a rewarding experience. I look forward with interest to the closing of the circle.” Books for Keeps
