Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2017
Format:  Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
Genre:  Historical Fantasy, Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “The Bedlam Stacks” by Natasha Pulley

I got the book from my local library. I read the premise and was intrigued enough to borrow it.

I loved this book from the first chapter, and the main reason was the writing. I was in tune with the writing from the beginning. The writing was elegant, funny, relaxed, smart, curious, intriguing, and captivating. The main character, Merrick Treymen, was smart, sympathetic, and likable from the very beginning.

I am a fan of magical realism, and this book was all I wanted to read. It was historical fantasy at best. It was full of magical elements that I was captivated and intrigued by. The characters were secretive but approachable, and the storyline was a long stretch and became easily acceptable. It was fantastic.

The writing was so smart and detailed. The main storyline happens in a small town in the deep forest of Peru by the Andean mountains. The description of the place, the magical occurrences, and the characters were all so well described.

I was not able to put down the book for the last 35% of the book. The speed at which everything evolved was fascinating. And the end was absolutely brilliant.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

In 1859, ex–East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall with an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits him for an expedition to fetch quinine–essential for the treatment of malaria–from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea; nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is eager to escape the strange events plaguing his family’s crumbling estate, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for the edge of the Amazon.

There he meets Raphael, a priest around whom the villagers spin unsettling stories of impossible disappearances, cursed woods, and living stone. Merrick must separate truth from fairy tale, and gradually he realizes that Raphael is the key to a legacy left by generations of Tremayne explorers before him, one which will prove more valuable than quinine, and far more dangerous.

MY RATING: 4.7

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bibliography:

• The Marsh House: a Novel
• The Hymn to Dionysus
• The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
• The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
• The Half Life of Valery X
• The Kingdoms