London, 1812 | Yount, Year of the Owl
What would you give to make good on the sins of your past? For merchant Barnabas McDoon, the answer is: everything.
When emissaries from a world called Yount offer Barnabas a chance to redeem himself, he accepts their price -- to voyage to Yount with the key that only he can use to unlock the door to their prison. But bleak forces seek to stop him: Yount's jailer, a once-human wizard who craves his own salvation, kidnaps Barnabas's nephew. A fallen angel -- a monstrous owl with eyes of fire -- will unleash Hell if Yount is freed. And, meanwhile, Barnabas's niece, Sally, and a mysterious pauper named Maggie seek with dream-songs to wake the sleeping goddess who may be the only hope for Yount and Earth alike.
DANIEL A. RABUZZI
author of
The Choir Boats & The Indigo Pheasant
London, 1817
Maggie Collins, born into slavery in Maryland, whose mathematical genius and strength of mind can match those of a goddess, must build the world's most powerful and sophisticated machine -- to free the lost land of Yount from the fallen angel Strix Tender Wurm. Sally, of the merchant house McDoon, must choose either to help Maggie or to hinder her.
Together -- or not -- Maggie and Sally drive to conclusion the story started in The Choir Boat, a story of blood-soaked song, family secrets, sins new and old in search of expiation, forbidden love, high policy and acts of state, financial ruin, betrayals intimate and grand, sorcery from the origins of time, and battle in the streets of London and on the arcane seas of Yount.
