What a unique novel. Loved the unique storytelling, the main character and the setting of the story. Love the cover and cannot wait to see this one in person!

This was an unusual yet delightful read. Lusk’s research really shines through without slowing down the narrative. Great for fans of steampunk, queer historical fiction, or Wes Anderson movies.

I try to always be kind, but it is so hard with this novel. I won’t even bore you with my usual review format. There is not enough meat here to warrant that much time for you or me. I already wasted hours reading this drivel.

This book tried so hard to be unique and edgy by throwing in all the current trends in edgy literature. I think the author found a checklist called “things that make a book cool” and ticked them all. Clockwork creations - check. Plague doctors - check. Magic eye that sees the future - check. All the trendiest “under-represented” (though present in every book on the best sellers list) minorities - check. And let’s randomly throw in obscure, archaic words to make it sound intellectual even if we don’t use them all correctly. No one will ever know. How will they know?

On to what’s missing - plot, developed characters, basic story structure.

“He is like a clock that tells of time to come and of time past and missed, yet is driven by blood and a beating heart, not by mainsprings and ratchets and bobs of steel and brass.”

The Second Sight Of Zachary Cloudesley is the first novel by British author, Sean Lusk. Zachary Cloudesley’s birth in March 1754 ends his mother Alice’s life, plunging his father, Abel, and Alice’s Aunt Frances into grief. But Abel has his clockmaking business to keep him busy and engages a wet nurse to care for his beloved boy.

It’s quickly apparent that this quiet, observant boy is precociously intelligent and, his great aunt notes, has his mother’s ability to foresee. Twice yearly visits with Franny add an eclectic touch to his education, and he is fascinated with the clockmaker’s workroom, especially those automata skilfully by young Tom Spurrell. It’s Tom who, when six-year-old Zachary accidentally loses an eye in the workroom, crafts him one of gold and enamel and lapis lazuli.

Soon after Zachary goes to live with Franny, his father having decided that he will be safer there, Abel is unwillingly conscripted into a role that makes use of his clockwork skills, his talents with chess, and his knowledge of Turkish from a previous visit to Constantinople. A British government minister schemes to get information about what the Turks are planning by having Abel listen in on private conversations whilst concealed insides a chess-playing automaton. What could go wrong?

Eight years after Abel arrived in Constantinople, when everyone believes he has been executed, Zachary stumbles on a letter that claims his father is still alive, but captive, and makes a snap decision to rescue him. Fifteen-year-old Zachary is smart and resourceful and brave and determined, but achieving this on his own might just be a bit ambitious, even for him.

Lusk gives the reader a marvellous tale: a plot with twists and surprises that will keep the pages turning; appealing characters, some of whose actions, for all their pure intent, will leave the reader gasping; and every chapter demonstrates his meticulous research into a myriad of topics.

There are some similarities to David Mitchell’s “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” and, while most of the story is told by Abel, Frances and Zachary, the narrative strand of Zachary’s wet nurse, Grace Morley, offers a refreshingly down-to-earth perspective on characters and events.

Lusk’s descriptive prose is often gorgeous. On the crafting of automata, Tom says “he has such ideas, and for me to work at them and make them real, why it is like making life from nothing but bits of brass and silver. It is, if you will, a sort of alchemy, but not flimflammery and lies, but clockwork and movement and a different order of magic.” A brilliant debut.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Union Square & Co.

I was attracted to this story for both the steampunk and futuristic sight implications of the boy, but those were only small aspects of this character driven story. I stayed for the characters that I desperately wanted to be reunited despite cruel, calculating villains who had no empathy or conscious plus surprising betrayals. I found the story charming and at times both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

At the heart of this story is a father whose wife dies in childbirth leaving him to raise their infant son alone in the mid-1700s. Abel is plagued by fear that he is not the best one to raise the child and is surrounded by eccentric characters that at times both assist and hinder his efforts. He buries himself in his work to avoid the issues, creating fascinating clockwork machines such as a chess playing automaton that will eventually cause him even greater grief.

Thank you to NetGalley, Union Square & Co. and Dreamscape Media for a copy provided for an honest review.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. This was a well written story about love, hope, alternate reality, adventure, and figuring out who you are. Zachary has a gift that lets him get insight into anyone he touches. His happy, sweet life is upended by a nearly fatal accident and his father vanishes. In discovering the truth of his father's journey, Zachary is able to figure out who he is, and where he fits into the world. Lusk does a vivid job in building this alternate world, with enough visuals to help you build the world in your mind--I've wondered if this was a nod to the accident that Zachary had, to be able to see with your mind. It was a sweet, hopeful story that drew me in from start to finish.

Thank you Netgalley and Union Square for access to this arc.

It really is the characters who make this book but the characters are backed by enough of the (extensive) research the author did that they are firmly grounded in the mid eighteenth century they inhabit. I will slightly alter the blurb by saying that it isn’t the false eye that is fashioned for him that gives Zachary Cloudesley his visions and second sight. No, he’s born with that and more which all appear to be inherited from the mother who died giving birth to him.

Mrs. Morely and her daughter Leonora arrive in the lives of the Cloudesley men when Abel needs a wetnurse for his newborn son and that wetnurse is unwilling to farm out her own daughter. Honestly I would have loved to have spent an entire book with Grace Morely instead of the few chapters told from her first person POV. Leonora finds love but I never quite got a good sense of her beyond maybe chafing at life in general before she seems to settle for the conventional by the end of the story.

Tom Spurrell begins as a shy young man in Abel’s workshop before one look from Aunt Franny reveals that Tom is actually a woman. Or is he? When Zachary arrives looking for his father, it is to find that Tom has built a new life for himself; one that he vigorously and emphatically defends to Aunt Fanny. No, this is who he is and he won’t stand for being identified otherwise.

Abel and Zachary are at the heart of the story and though, at times, they have reasons to question whether or not the other truly loves them, the reader knows that all along each would give his life for the other. Still the fact that these two aren’t immediately reconciled seems realistic. The scene which sets it all right is emotional and tender.

For a long while I worried about one particular relationship. We are given hints of Zachary’s relationship preferences which, given the laws in England at the time, seemed impossible. Then there is a moment of hope which seems to also be dashed. It takes Zachary’s Aunt Franny’s bizarre will to set a possible solution in motion. Aunt Fanny is … a bit of a pill to be honest. I’ll give her credit for being complex and generally running her life as she wants in a time when most women couldn’t do that.

I feel that I need to emphasize that this is a very, very character driven novel. There are lots of descriptions and lots more characters than I’ve discussed. Then there are a few things that led to my earlier statement that I enjoyed it “for the most part.” Frankly I feel that I would have liked to have seen more of Zachary’s “gift” plus the middle of the story suffers from a feeling that its mechanism wound down a bit, leading to a little bit of a drag in the pace. The whole slots together with bits and pieces finally fitting and locking into place but it’s a book that rewards patience. B

This book is simultaneously one of the most adorable books I’ve ever read and one of the saddest. It’s precocious and it’s discomforting. It made me cry several times.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is a book about family, for good or for ill. Family isn’t always pretty and it isn’t always kind. They make mistakes and they are sometimes disagreeable indeed. For all their trespasses though, they are family, and sometimes family is worth fighting for. Sometimes they’re worth crossing oceans for.

I have a huge spot for magical realism. It’s probably my favorite genre to read. This book mixes magical realism with historical fiction set in the latter half of the 18th century, as America is forming and the Ottoman Empire is ruling Constantinople. In London, Abel Cloudesley is a renowned clock and automata maker. His son, Zachary, is a genius with an unquenchable appetite for knowledge. He also seems to have inherited his mother’s gift of second sight, which Abel tries to wave away due to Zachary’s almost preternatural intellectual abilities because he doesn’t want his son to be seen as any more different than he already is. Just as Zachary is suffused with love for his father and desperately clamors for his attention, Abel only wants Zachary to be safe and he’s steeped in guilt that he may not have been the best father and doesn’t think he can give Zachary everything he needs. So he sends Zachary to live with his Great Aunt in the country on her estate where she can use her resources to indulge and educate Zachary’s mind away from the filth and dangers of London.

From this point, this book explores themes on gender identity, found family, education, religion, gender equality, politics, war, conservation, LGBTQ issues, adolescent rebellion, and socioeconomics. Our characters age and travel. Some get sick and some inevitably die (this is before germ theory, people).

Every character in this book learns more than one lesson, and most of them are hard ones. There is love in these pages, though, and that makes it worth the read. If there were not love this book would be too sad. It’s a great read if you like books about automata and historical fiction set during the Ottoman Empire.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without compensation. Thank you.

File Under: Historical Fiction/LGBTQ Fiction/Magical Realism

Special thanks to Union Square & Company and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

While some people will really like this book, I was a little disappointed and bored with it. I did appreciate that Sean Musk is a debut author though that really did his homework on history of London and the world-building was certainly there. However, the amount of magic was not there and also with all the POVs thrown in there, we don't meet Zachary well into the book.

It wasn't bad, just wasn't for me. I'd give it 3 stars. I know there are people who will really like this book.

I received this advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. This novel was enchanting and delightful, with fascinating human characters and the usual flaws that are our own burden in this world. Although slow, the book is well crafted, the characters are well developed and fully realized, and I found it most interesting! I strongly recommend this novel to anyone interested in historical fiction, even though it has a slight fantasy element to it. Perhaps one of the most well-crafted novels I've read this year!

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (Releases TOMORROW Dec 5th!)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Union Sq for the ARC!

I’ll be honest - I had kind of forgotten about this ARC. I was even considering letting it expire without reading it. I tend to do my ARC requests in bursts and by the time I work my way through the ones that really piqued my interest at the beginning, the ones relegated to the end usually don’t resonate with me as much as they did when I first requested them. I’m glad that I ended up reading this though, and not just because it gave me something to do during quarantine.

On paper, this book seemed like something I would quickly be obsessed with. Automata in a multinational epic across London and Constantinople in the 18th century is a quick way to garner my attention. I did request this ARC for a reason, after all.

My critique lies in two key elements.
First - In his acknowledgments Lusk notes that earlier drafts of this book read far more like a textbook of Ottoman court politics and English trade policy than an engaging historical fiction epic spanning multiple generations. Granted, I can hardly blame him. If I had done as much research as Lusk had, I too would want to put it to good use. Even if there was some killing of darlings, I don’t think this book was edited nearly enough to stray far from those earlier drafts. Unlike, for example, RF Kuang who also clearly does a plethora of research but never overburdens the plot with exposition in a way that feels irrelevant, Lusk’s characters felt like thinly veiled (but decently developed) excuses to infodump about a handful of special interests.
Second - There was clearly an active choice made at some point to insert the perspectives of other characters in brief vignettes. I can understand the reasoning of doing this - it gave readers more context and information to follow the main plot. Some of the characters are enjoyable to stay with. But this lead to drastic changes in writing style every couple of chapters that ended up being quite jarring.

I wouldn’t say this is a bad book at all. There’s multiple instances of queer representation, which did bring me some joy. But overall, it felt like I was being tugged between plot points rather than being told a cohesive story.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is a richly imaginative historical fantasy, centered on Abel, an inventor, and his son Zachary, who shows unique and incredible abilities from childhood. The story covers their outlandish — but gently, subtly portrayed — trials and travels across Europe in the late 18th century.

It’s written in old-fashioned language, with a wide cast of eccentric characters and a sense of wit. Its style is a little reminiscent of Dickens or Austen!

(One note for other potential readers: this style also means that the book isn’t particularly “emotional” in the way that some more modern works have prioritized, with first person narration and plenty of descriptors into characters’ feelings — so if you’re someone who looks for super strong emotional connections with their characters, or emotionally charged scenarios and decision points, just be aware this may not be quite what you’re used to!)

I definitely found it to be an interesting and enjoyable read — intriguing, transportive, colorful, and very different from much of what I read regularly. Would definitely recommend for lovers of that classic literature feel, with several modern twists!

Thanks to Union Square, Sean Lusk, and NetGalley for my digital copy. Out in the US on 12/5!

This DNF came completely out of the blue to be honest. I'm still not sure what happened... I mean, I absolutely LOVED the sound of the blurb of The Second Sight Of Zachary Cloudesley, and I was already penciling it in as a new all time favorite. I have a weak spot for historical fantasies with magical angle, and the steampunk elements and Constantinople setting sounded like heaven. This should have been the perfect book on paper, and I think this is where it went wrong for me. Why? Let's just say that I don't think this book delivered the story that was promised in the blurb.

What do I mean with the statement above? Well, from the title and blurb, you would expect a whole lot of magic and steampunk elements incorporated into the plot, so imagine my surprise to find this mostly absent during the first 32% I did read. The main character this story is named after, Zachary, is also notably absent in this first third... I've seen reviews and I know he will become more present later on, but still this is too little too late for me. I mean, I get that characters have to be introduced and background has to be given, but is it really necessary to use more than a third of the book to do so?

Related to this is the fact that what I did read was considerably tiring and repetitive, and mostly an account of both the life of Zachary's father and a lot of other seemingly unimportant and dull characters. There is again a lot of repetition going on, and I just couldn't get over the feeling that I wanted things to hurry up and get to the good part. This might have been me expecting a completely different story, and I probably wouldn't have picked up The Second Sight Of Zachary Cloudesley if the story had shown its true colors from the beginning... But the fact is that I started to resent my time with this story almost straight away.

One of my main issues, and the one that was probably the hardest to overcome, was the writing style itself though. The tone was rather pompous and old-fashioned, and I simply couldn't warm up to it nor appreciate its potential beauty. I suppose the author wanted the style to match the 18th century setting, but it completely failed to hit the mark for me. Then again, these feelings are highly subjective and what doesn't work for me might work wonders for other readers. There is no doubt that Sean Lusk's writing isn't my cup of tea though.

I tried the hardest to convince myself to keep reading, but after 32% and starting yet another dull account of the nursemaid, I decided I was done waiting for things to improve. Especially since I've read some reviews and the lack of magic won't be compensated in the second half... I'm SO sad and disappointed I ended up having this reaction though! Like I said, after reading the blurb I had this pegged as a new favorite. I guess you can't always trust the shiny package a book comes wrapped up in...

What an epic tale! I will be choosing this title for my April Book Club pick at the bookstore.. Gorgeous cover to boot!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this arc. I feel that the title and overview do not represent what the story is actually about. It promises a story about Zackary and his special gift. In reality is was about his father, Abel, his wacky aunt, and his nanny. The story seemed to go off in weird tangents and only skirt around what could have been a fun read about Zackary. I was disappointed and won't be posting about it on social media.

Was a mixed book for me. It took a little effort getting into it, the first few paragraphs alone were a bit of a turn-off. After pushing through, however, there was quite a bit about this book that I did enjoy. Namely, the setting and descriptions of place are what made parts feel quite immersive. I also really enjoyed the classic writing style.

Victorian settings and the almost steam-punk aspect of clockmaking are one of my favorite finds in fantasy books. The ties between characters and connections to each were pleasant, without being overly confusing. The travel aspect wasn't as much a part of the story as I was hoping, but overall a solid read.

My favorite thing about this book is the atmosphere. A fantastical, steampunk Victorian London? Yes please. The story itself didn't feel quite as magical. I thought it was a unique concept and I liked the characters well enough, but it starting to dwindle out about halfway through. This is a debut author, though, and I do think there was enough here to make me pick up whatever the author decides to do next.

Set in 1750's a London watchmaker grieves the lose of his wife. After losing his wife, Abel is left with his son. The son< Zachary experiences a workshop accident and losses his eye. After a creative replacement for his eye, he is gifted a second sight. This was such a fun page turner! I couldn't get enough of this book!

The description of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudsley ultimately doesn’t match the overall story.

Zachary has been an odd child since birth, able to see the future and past with a touch. He is well-loved by his father, his aunt, and his nurse. Abel loves his son dearly, but after a terrible accident, he sends Zachary to live with his aunt. During this time, Abel is forced to spy in Constantinople and is captured. Zachary spends years not knowing what happened to his father until he finds a mysterious letter on his aunt’s desk. Determined to save his father, Zachary sets off for Constantinople and learns the duality of man along the way.

I loved the touch of magical realism, even though it wasn’t as present as expected. I wish Zachary’s powers had a strong presence in the story, but that wasn’t the only thing I found magical. The descriptions of the automatons and clocks Abel made brought inanimate objects to life. Lusk did a great job of building a fascinating world with descriptions that invoked the unknown.

The father-and-son relationship was done well. There was miscommunication and hurt, but more than that, there was love. Despite the trials both Abel and Zachary went through, their bond was unbreakable, even in the worst circumstances.

It takes over half of the book to get to the main plot. The first 50% was spent building backstories for characters that weren’t necessary. Some character’s personalities could have been built from just one or two POVs. While the first half wasn’t bad, I was eager to get to the actual meat of the story.

The description was misleading since you know what happens from the beginning. Zachary saw a vision of his father as an old man before he was captured. So even when Abel was taken hostage, I knew he would be seen again. It took urgency out of Zachary’s journey to find his father.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad book. I liked the historical and magical elements. It was just too many POVs and not a sturdy enough plot for my taste.

Thank you, NetGalley and Union Square & Co., for the advance copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.