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Published Aug 2017
352 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
The eagerly anticipated new novel from the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - a treacherous quest in the magical landscape of nineteenth-century Peru.
In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. On the sprawling, crumbling grounds of the old house, something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather's pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.
When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine - essential for the treatment of malaria - from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.
Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick's grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.
"Starred Review. Where Pulley's first novel sparkled with the ingenuity of spinning gears, her second offers a slower, sadder meditation on love, trust, and the passage of time." - Kirkus
"Fans of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (who will be pleased that a character from that novel makes a cameo appearance) know that Pulley has a way with damaged characters who are looking for a new purpose in life. While there are steampunk elements, including clockwork lamps, there's also a subtle inexplicable magic running throughout the unusual, remote setting." - Library Journal
This information about The Bedlam Stacks was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Natasha Pulley is the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Bedlam Stacks. An international bestseller, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award, the Locus Awards, and remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for much of summer 2016. The Bedlam Stacks was longlisted for the Walter Scott Award and shortlisted for the Encore Award.
Natasha has lived in Japan as a Daiwa Scholar, as well as China and Peru. She was a 2016 Glastone Writer in Residence, and she teaches on Bath Spa University's Creative Writing BA, alongside short courses at the Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.
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Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone
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