The
Bullet Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan
Elizabeth
Barnabus lives with her brother on a barge in the Republic having fled a life
of servitude in the Kingdom – or does she?
The
Bullet Catcher’s Daughter is a riveting tale which moves swiftly and the reader
will be gripped from the first page when Elizabeth has taken the persona of her
brother, Edward Barnabus, a private intelligence gatherer. Disguised as a man
for her work, Elizabeth meets with the Duchess of Bletchley who hires her, as
Edward, to find her brother who has fled with an arcane machine, sought after
by The Patent Office.
Set
just after the British Revolutionary War and the Luddite Revolution, when Britain
is divided into two nations - the Kingdom of England and Southern Wales and the
Anglo-Scottish Republic, The Bullet
Catcher’s Daughter enthralls and there is no point at which I wanted to
skip to the next point of interest as every sentence is compelling and so well
written, that each is the next point of interest.
Elizabeth
encounters agents from the Patent Office, a travelling circus of curious, and
frightening, characters, allies and tricksters. An exile in the Republic, she
needs to cross the Boarder to The Kingdom in the knowledge that she could be
caught and returned to a life of enslavement.
The
chapter headings are in themselves, intriguing and this first volume of The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire really is
unputdownable.
Rod
Duncan has successfully written an absorbing tale from the perspective of a
woman in the early nineteenth century.
This is science-fiction with the sub genre of Steampunk, so technology
is unorthodox and fascinating.
A
cracking read, but I would advise starting with The Glossary at the end of the book
before settling down to enjoy The Bullet
Catcher’s Daughter and your reading experience will be further enriched.
Publisher: Angry
Robot (26 Aug 2014)
Date: 26th August 2014
ISBN: 9780857665294
ISBN: 9780857665294
Karen Ette
