quippe | Entries tagged with catherine johnson

The Blurb On The Back:

Can Ezra escape the terror of the revolution?

Young surgeon Ezra McAdam must hasten to France to find his missing friends – but Revolutionary Paris is a dangerous place to be if you’re English.

Citizen Renaud is keen to enlist Ezra’s help experimenting with reanimation. The regular beheadings are providing useful fodder for his research.

But Ezra mustn’t be distracted from his search. He needs to find Loveday and rescue the young prince Mahmoud – at all costs.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Catherine Johnson’s historical YA sequel is a breakneck paced affair rich in historical detail and strong at dealing with racial prejudice but at times the pacing is too brisk and for me some of the characterisation (especially Loveday) suffered as a result, which is a shame as it’s a strong book that tackles a fascinating time. Ezra really develops in this book – I particularly enjoyed his moral and physical queasiness at assisting in Renaud’s experiments and I enjoyed his interactions with the dashing General Dumas (a real person from the period). Luc is also a welcome addition – smart but vulnerable I wished that there had been more interaction between him and Ezra and Mahmoud really gets downgraded as a side character thanks to his arrival. Likewise some of Loveday’s behaviour seemed out of character given the events in SAWBONES and existed to serve the plot more than her and Ezra’s history (I particularly disliked her impetuousness, which only showed to prove how little she’d learned). Johnson’s got a strong feel for the period – conveying a sense of what Paris was like as the Terror starts to gear up and Ezra behaves like a young man of the time but the plot does jump at times (notably the tacked on postscript) and I wished there’d been more room to breathe. With the duology completed, I would definitely check out Johnson’s next book.

Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Medical science is flourishing, and in London the illegal trade in corpses has never been more … alive.

At the dissection table of his master, apprentice Ezra McAdam has learnt that each body tells a tale.

Magician’s daughter Loveday Finch, meanwhile, is suspicious of her father’s death – and looking for answers.

When the pair cross paths they unearth a tangled web of intrigue. And still the bodies are building up …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Catherine Johnson’s historical YA novel combines 18th century anatomists with international conspiracy in a story with an Afro-Caribbean protagonist. However, while Johnson has a real feel for period and I always look for books that have non-white lead characters, the story itself never really popped for me and I couldn’t take to the reckless and at times silly Loveday. Part of the issue is in the relationship between Ezra and Anna, which doesn’t have enough page time to convince and therefore didn’t work for me as a motivation, but in the main it’s because the plot is fairly predictable – not helped by an opening chapter that gives away a large part of the conspiracy up front. Ultimately, it’s a perfectly okay read but it just didn’t grip me enough to want to check out the sequel.

Thanks to Walker Books for the free copy of this book.