The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
When Thaniel Steepleton, a Japanese translator, is summoned to the British Legation in Tokyo to investigate a series of hauntings, his credulity is stretched. For why would his peers send him halfway around the world simply to deal with a set of ghostly visitations? As soon as Thaniel lands in Japan and visits the estate of his lover, the clairvoyant samurai Keita Mori, he understands that something is amiss. Keita, who can predict the future, has grown unsure of his abilities and seems reluctant to employ his gifts.
After Keita vanishes, Thaniel goes in search of him, battling both his inner fears and an increasingly vicious climate, which unleashes electrical storms that burn the island’s flora and fauna and drown the countryside in ashes. While the Russian fleet sits in Yokohama Harbor, scientists are forced to do the doubtful work of politicians who are determined to hold on to their power, even though it means destroying the earth. As metaphysics clash with science, Keita’s wife, Takiko Pepperharrow, travels to a prison camp in Japan’s frozen north in the hope of locating her husband. Will she be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the man who alone can set the world to rights? Keita, the only person able to answer that question, has gone missing and cannot be found.
An intriguing amalgam of Victorian steampunk and historical fantasy, this novel brings back the trio of Keita Mori, the watchmaker of Filigree Street, his friend Thaniel, and Six, the precocious girl orphan. As the intrepid band travels from London to Meiji Japan, the fate of Keita’s homeland hangs in the balance. Combining a wondrous romp through the world of magical clockwork mechanisms and octopus automatons with an environmental thriller that fascinates and shocks in equal measure, this is an adventure not be missed.
