Published By: Fig Tree
Pages: 256
Released On: 14/01/2027
Growing up in the Squares, Dre Archer was always told human history was over. Until the day she is plucked from all she knows, and recruited as governess to an enigmatic five-year-old boy. Albie is rash, emotionally obtuse, and possibly a genius. He also believes the year is 1884—two centuries before Dre was born. Everyone working at his family’s grand Victorian manor strives to maintain the illusion, keeping the modern world safely outside their doors. Dre is expected to follow along and not ask questions.
At first, Dre works hard to embody her role as ‘Miss Archer’, with comportment lessons and corsets. But somewhere along the way, the performance begins to feel real—as does her bond with this singular boy. Slowly she is overwhelmed by questions: Why the weird adherence to the 19th century, when it’s the dawn of the 22nd? Why has she never met Albie’s elusive parents? Who are her shadowy employers? And what is her job, really?
In her mounting determination to unlock these mysteries, Dre finds herself flouting the draconian rules of the house. As a series of Russian doll-like revelations brings her closer to the truth, Dre must go to dangerous lengths to protect her young charge, who she has, without quite meaning to, come to love as her own.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Fig Tree for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I had absolutely no idea what to expect with this. It’s a mashup of fantasy and sci-fi and historical, which doesn’t sound like it would work but it did. There’s also this gothic dystopian mystery type thing going on.
The story was unpredictable and at no point did I ever consider what was happening next because I was still trying to work out what just happened. And I didn’t mind that so much. It reminded me of Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt in that I understood what was happening on the page I was writing, but had no idea where the whole story fit.
It’s Jordan’s debut novel and it’s such a promising one that I can easily understand why it’s on so many watch-out-for lists.
There is a big reveal – I won’t say what, obviously – quite early on in the book which turned the whole story on its head and it became even more bizarre (in a good way).
It does take an adult turn which I wasn’t expecting and if I’m honest, felt a bit out of place and unnecessary.
It’s hard to go into detail about the characters without spoilers so I’m not going to. Instead I will say that, whilst they do all have flaws and some are nicer than others, they all have their place, are all needed in the story, all written well, and they have this dry wit about them and dark humour which I liked.
It’s a relatively short book and I think that’s wise because the plot itself is quite thin, it only has a handful of characters and only really one setting. So if it was much longer it might have felt drawn out, but as it is, it’s nicely paced and goes by quite quick.
I mean, I still don’t understand it and I couldn’t really tell you what it was about, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
