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The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

Historical fiction

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Natasha Pulley, on your first book!

by Natasha Pulley

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Quick take

Combines speculative fantasy and historical fiction with a generous helping of Sherlockian detective work.

Why I love it

What could be better than a tale of adventure that is also a historical novel, a love story, a mystery, and a fantasy? Natasha Pulley delivers it all in her stunning debut novel. Magical mechanical inventions—like an octopus who steals socks, tiny golden birds that spray the sky with fireworks, and vines that turn dead trees into living things—help to weave magic and fantasy through a story that's set in a real place at a real time.

Thaniel Steepleton is working at the Home Office of the British Government, lamenting his lost dreams of being a concert pianist. He had to give it all up when his sister's husband died, making him the sole breadwinner for her and her two children. Thaniel works long hours, lives in a colorless flat, has few friends, and not much to brighten his daily life.

One day he comes home to find a mysterious and beautiful gold watch in his room. Has his sister left it for him as a birthday gift? Or is there something more sinister about this magical gift that seems to have appeared from nowhere? As his uneasiness over its origins increase, he sets off to discover the truth behind the enigmatic watch and find its creator. His investigations take him from Victorian London to the crumbling cities of post-civil war Japan, where the mysteries of his watch seem only to deepen.

Pulley takes elements of speculative fantasy and historical fiction with a generous helping of Sherlockian detective work and combines them all together in a story that is stunningly graceful, deeply moving, and absolutely entertaining. In the end, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is about the power of love, the twists of fate, the inequities of destiny, and the necessity of being true to one's self. I loved this novel of adventure and intrigue and, for me, the extra lashings of mystery and fantasy sent it flying into the stratosphere of a great read.

Member ratings (120)

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View all
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
The Women
The Lion Women of Tehran
Husbands & Lovers
Shelterwood
A Thousand Times Before
All We Were Promised
Spitting Gold
The Seventh Veil of Salome
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Great Divide
The Storm We Made
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
Lessons in Chemistry
The Frozen River
What We Kept to Ourselves
Take My Hand
The Last Russian Doll
The First Ladies
The House Is On Fire
River Sing Me Home
The Attic Child
Malibu Rising
The Book of Longings
Hester
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
The Nightingale
Daisy Jones & The Six
The Lincoln Highway
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
The Circus Train
Peach Blossom Spring
Hang the Moon
Booth
The Good Left Undone
The Perishing
The Postmistress of Paris
The Family
Things We Lost to the Water
The Spectacular
Still Life
Send for Me
The Magnolia Palace
The Bookbinder
China Room
This Tender Land
Atomic Love
All the Light We Cannot See
The Vanishing Half
Outlawed
The Four Winds
Independence
The Fountains of Silence
Libertie
Queen of Thieves
The Great Believers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Great Alone
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Rules of Civility
Circling the Sun
The Moor's Account
Jacqueline in Paris
Don't Cry for Me
The Christie Affair
Bloomsbury Girls
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Bronze Drum