The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Zachary Cloudsley (Penguin Random House, 2022)
Historical Fiction
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (ISBN: 9780857528056) Set in the 1750-70s, this is a story of wonderment: from the exquisite craftmanship and imagination of the period’s automaton-makers to the strange visionary powers of the child prodigy Zachary, and the intrigues of an emperor’s palace in Turkey. Our story is told with a cast worthy of Dickens (more of which later): an eccentric aunt has more than a little of the Miss Havisham about her, though my favourites remain the redoubtable Mrs Morley (one of life’s wise survivors) and the eminent fixer Samuels. It is a story of adventure, misguided intentions, peril and disaster, but always outweighed by hope and love and the story of finding ourselves.