This post contains affiliate links - using affiliate links from Just A Second helps supply books and coffee.
Ticker by Lisa Mantchev - It took me awhile to get moving on this one again, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed this YA steampunk novel. Penny Farthing is a girl with a clockwork heart - her damaged heart has been replaced with a Ticker, but it's showing signs of failing too. The brilliant surgeon who invented it wants to give her an upgrade, but he's on trial for murder, and it's discovered that there is a very dark side to his experiments and wishes to "augment" people who have injuries or physical defects.
As the doctor's trial is wrapping up, the Farthings' factory is bombed and Penny's parents disappear, and Penny teams up with her brother Nic and a couple of friends to find them - and find the doctor who escaped from the courthouse in the chaos. What is really going on and is Dr Warwick behind it all?
Finally, Penny reluctantly accepts help from Marcus Kingsley, a young military commander, to find her missing family and the research that has gone missing with them. And while the story is full of action at breakneck speed, there's also a rather sweet romance slowly developing in the background.
This is an action-packed race through the fictional city of Bazalgate, with interesting world-building and shifting loyalties. I occasionally got lost in the descriptions of imaginative mechanical devices and then realized that a relationship shift or motive hadn't been clear. There are places where it feels like the logic or plot details might have a few holes, but they seem to be small ones, and I enjoyed the story almost as much this time as I did the first.
A girl with a clockwork heart must make every second count.
When Penny Farthing nearly dies, brilliant surgeon Calvin Warwick manages to implant a brass "Ticker" in her chest, transforming her into the first of the Augmented. But soon it's discovered that Warwick killed dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for Penny, and he's put on trial for mass murder.
On the last day of Warwick's trial, the Farthings' factory is bombed, Penny's parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings . . . or is the motive more sinister?
Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart.
This is a book featuring a grieving character (#14) for The 52 Book Club's 2024 Reading Challenge.
#the52bookclub #the52bookclub2024
©2008-2024 Just A Second. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://justasecondblog.blogspot.com/
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
by Lisa Mantchev - Penny Farthing has a clockwork heart. The doctor who invented it saved her life, but at what cost to others? Dr Warwick is awaiting trial for murder, because his testing of improvements to the Ticker and other Augmentations have killed dozens of people. On the last day of his trial, there are protests throughout Bazalgate, and an explosion at the Farthings' factory that nearly kills Penny's brother Nic. When Penny and Nic finally make it home, they discover that their parents have been kidnapped, and they receive a ransom note demanding all the research for Augmentation.
by Julie Klassen, page 70