The Clockwork Crow

By: Catherine Fisher

Narrated by: Deryn Edwards

Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Evoking the classic fantasy adventures of Joan Aiken and Eva Ibbotson, this darkly delightful new novel from New York Times best-selling author Catherine Fisher glimmers with winter magic.

Orphan Seren Rhys is on her way to a new life at the remote country mansion of Plas-y Fran when she is given a package by a stranger late at night in an empty train station. The package contains a crotchety, mechanical talking crow, which Seren reluctantly brings to her new home. But when she gets there, the happy Christmas she had hoped for turns out to be an illusion the young son of the house, Tomos, has been missing for almost a year, rumored to have been taken by the fairies.

With the Crows reluctant help and a little winter magic, Seren sets off on a perilous journey to bring Tomos home. An enthralling story of family and belonging set in frost-bound Victorian Wales.

©2020 Catherine Fisher (P)2020 Recorded Books, Inc.

Delightful

For younger readers than most of Fisher's books that I have read, but no less entertaining. As the story opened, I was reminded of the Pevansie children and Mary Lennox (Secret Garden) arriving at their new homes. Not passive like Dorothy in the original Oz book, she is a competent little girl, perhaps not as hyperactive as Anne of Green Gables fame or optimistic as Heidi or Pollyanna, but brave. Her journey and reception would be daunting for most of us. Not knowing that Gothic themes of remote mansions, ghosts, faeries, attics, basements, family secrets/tragedies and even worlds within worlds (think snow globes) are supposed to frighten us, Seren Rhys boldly sets out on a quest to give this tragedy a happy ending. Oh, and her mechanical skills are the salvation of her clockwork and magical assistant crow. A turn-of-the-century story with a century's upgrade.