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

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Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you to the publishers!] To write more detail of the story may spoil it for a first-time reader. Everything in this finely crafted world makes its own perfect sense. There’s magic in this place, and mystery. There is also the brief appearance of one character from ‘The Watchmaker of Filigree Street’. I was smitten when I read Natasha Pulley’s first book, ‘The Watchmaker of Filigree Street’ a year or two ago, and so when I saw that a second book was being sent out into the world I knew that I had to rush out and buy a copy. Definitely recommended for anyone to whom a queer platonic historical fantasy set in Peru sounds interesting. :) I will likely read this and Watchmaker again before Pulley's next book comes out. The past ahead. Time is like a river and you float with the current. Your ancestors set off before you did, so they're far ahead. Your descendants will sail it after.”

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.The best character in this story full of amazing characters, is Rafael, a Peruvian Catholic priest. He is also the preserver of Andean spiritual traditions and cares for the markayuq: wooden statues which are considered to be actual people turned to stone, can move around in mysterious ways, and are guardians of sacred spaces. This expedition isn’t really about the trees at all, is it? It’s about getting a decent map, for if – when – the army has to go?’

He protested that his leg wasn’t up to the trip; he suspected – correctly – that there was more to the trip than he was being told; he knew that others had tried do the same thing and lost their lives in the process; but he was intrigued and he remembered that his father had told him stories about his own travels to that part of the world, and hinted that there were more stories that he couldn’t tell. At this point I should explain that this isn’t a sequel or part of a series, that there is a character who appears in both books, but that this is a different story set at a different time in that same world.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. 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: 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. This book is a historical yet spellbinding journey about a group of smugglers sent on a journey to obtain the purest form of malaria antidote-medicine from the 18th century Peruvian quinine trees found deep within the mountains. 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

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.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. 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! OK, so in the two volumes I've read so far of N K Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy, The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, there are creatures called Stone Eaters, humans who turn to stone! Is this a thing? I have not come across this in any book before.) 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.’

If that sounds a bit much, that is because it is. In the end it did not surprise me, but did disappoint me, when we have a “giant eagle” style save by a Inca community floating in the clouds. 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. If you read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street then you may already know this, but first time readers need to understand going into this book: it requires some patience. I wouldn't describe it as slow because changing the pace would be changing the feeling of the book itself, I would much rather describe it as peaceful and lovingly written.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. That however is not my real problem with the ending. My disappointment is more with the relationship status at the end, but the identities of the characters in fact might not leave any possible non-problematic relationship options, I'll discuss that more in the spoiler tags below though. Hart called this a queerplatonic romance, which fits well, but I would have liked something more solid at the end, be it sexual or not.