Book review: The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley
A wonderful sequel to the also-wonderful The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, which pulls you deeper into the characters you already know, as well as some marvellous ones you don’t.
The blurb
“For Thaniel Steepleton, an unexpected posting to Tokyo can’t come at a better moment. The London fog has made him ill and doctor’s orders are to get out.
His brief is strange: the staff at the British Legation have been seeing ghosts, and his first task is to find out what’s going on. But staying with his closest friend Keita Mori in Yokohama, Thaniel starts to experience ghostly happenings himself. For reasons he won’t say, Mori is frightened. Then he vanishes.
Meanwhile, something strange is happening in a frozen labour camp in northern Japan. Takiko Pepperharrow, an old friend of Mori’s, must investigate.
As ghosts appear across Tokyo and the weather turns bizarrely electrical, Thaniel grows convinced that it all has something to do with Mori’s disappearance — and that Mori might be in far more trouble than any of them first thought…”
My review
I’d managed to lose The Watchmaker of Filigree Street on a bookshelf, so only read it recently. I loved it, so much so that the delight at discovering a sequel was about to come out was quickly trumped by fretfulness in case my expectations were too high. Thankfully, they were not.
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow is a beautiful tale, wonderfully woven. It shifts the narrative from late-19th century London to Japan, the homeland of clairvoyant watchmaker Keita Mori, pulling his companion Thaniel Steepleton and Thaniel’s adopted daughter Six with him.
It’s often very tense: there’s a sense of foreboding carefully created with the electricity that’s building in the air around Tokyo, as well as some big challenges to Mori’s customary ability to control the events and people around him. There are ghosts, too, and a couple of moments where I had to drop my e-reader and clap my hands to my mouth in shock.
The book adds new layers to most of the characters from the previous book, as well as introducing Takiko Pepperharrow (of the title) who is a marvellous addition for lots of plot-spoilery reasons I can’t write here.
Thaniel and Mori’s respective fragilities really affected me, as did Six — whose turn of phrase I enjoyed as much as Thaniel does. I thought the relationship between the three was beautifully crafted. It’s a book with plenty of genuinely kind characters.
(Plus my favourite literary clockwork octopus returns with some short but lovely cameos. I want my own Katsu! Many readers will, I think…)
I’d definitely advise people to read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street before starting this — and if you have, this fills in Mori’s backstory considerably.
But yes, I loved the writing, the plot and pacing, and the little touches where Natasha’s research shines through: from the earthy dialogue of the Japanese characters (which she explains in a note at the end of the book) to the electromagnetism science — all in service of the story rather than overwhelming it.
It really was just wonderful: if you loved the first book, you have a treat in store. And if you haven’t read the first book, you have two :)
Other info
- Bloomsbury’s page about The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
- Natasha Pulley’s official website
- Amazon (UK) link to The Lost Future of Pepperharrow
- This review on NetGalley and on Goodreads
- Disclosure: I was sent an advanced reading copy (ARC) of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review
