CBRBingo: Fauna – moths and Katsu, who somehow survived.
In her sequel to The Watchmaker of Filligree Street Natash Pulley takes the story to Japan. Thaniel has been sent by the Foreign Office to investigate stories of ghosts at the British legation. His boss Fanshaw thinks that someone at the legation might be abusing their power over the local staff and an outsider who speaks the language and knows something of the culture might be able to get to the bottom of what’s really going on. And without an overseas posting, Thaniel will never overcome the class barriers that are holding his career back.
Mori is returning to Japan for reasons of his own, that are somehow linked to the Russian fleet that is threatening invasion. Thaniel’s insecurity about the nature of their relationship is magnified when he is confronted with the reality of Mori’s ancestral estate and aristocratic connections, even before he meets Mori’s wife, Takiko Pepperharrow. As the gulf between them widens, and the ghostly happenings intensify, Mori mysteriously disappears.
To say much more about the plot would be to say too much. It’s as intricate and complicated as one of Mori’s watches. But this story is all about the characters and the impact of events, political and paranormal, on their lives, their outer circumstances, and their innermost desires.
Even more than in The Watchmaker, Pulley poses so many questions about Mori, his motivations, his character and the damage his abilities wreak on his life and the people who love him. And yet again, she delivers on the answers with a resolution that fits the internal workings of Mori’s ability to remember the future while also feeling emotionally true.
This is a book I will be rereading, to wring even more from. And sign me up for any more sequels.