With a watchful eye, Robert realized the fox was a mechanimal and impulsively sought him out to see if he could be of assistance. The teen-aged boy living above Townsend’s Horologist’s was having trouble sleeping and he spied the fox from his window. Slinking and thinking, Malkin has no idea he has been spotted. He must get a message to John’s daughter, Lily, but even a creature as clever as he cannot make that journey alone. Professor John’s airship was attacked and it seems the sole survivor is Malkin, the mechanimal fox that serves as family pet and pseudo-protector. It has to be hard for a young reader to step away from this fast-paced, perilous plot because as an adult, I found myself hurrying through a chore or four so that I could get back to the search for the oh-so-secret cogheart.
‘Vivid and gripping…a beautifully-drawn world and delicate detailing, as finely wrought as a watch’s workings.Set in the skies above and the streets running through London, this scintillating story of clockworks, mechanimals, hybrids and humans is the book that will keep kids reading well past bed-times. But shadowy figures are closing in and treachery lurks among the smoky spires of London - along with a life-changing secret.īe swept away by airships and flabbergasted by dastardly plots in this extraordinary and wildly imaginative debut, bursting with invention and adventure. Helped by Robert, the local clockmaker's son, and her wily mechanical fox Malkin she finds herself deep in a mystery she could never have forseen. Lily would far rather be reading the Penny Dreadful’s her father sends her in his monthly care packages, learning piracy and air combat but when Lily's inventor father vanishes after a Zeppelin crash, Lily is determined to hunt down the truth behind his disappearance. Having exhausted any number of governesses, Lily has been sent to the crumbling red-brick institution of Miss Octavia Scrimshaw’s Finshing Academy for young ladies, under the tutelage of The Kraken, a formidable witch of a woman who thinks young ladies should concentrate on learning to stand up straight and deport themselves properly. See that she gets it.”ġ3 year-old Lily has no idea why her father has worked so hard to keep her identity a secret. Crouching down, he stuffed it into a leather pouch around Malkin’s neck. ‘He gave a half-hearted laugh and withdrew a battered envelope from his pocket. Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize
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