OF CONSTELLATIONS AND CLOCKWORK

A talented clockmaker undertakes a quest to restore her family’s lost nobility in Wendt’s fantastical novel of betrayal, gears, and murder.

It has been 20 years since Clemenza Giudice’s family was violently dispossessed of their aristocratic position during the “Raids,” violent uprisings led by Ludovico Guerra in his denunciation of the holy nobility. Working under the shadow of Ludovico’s Accademia, Clemenza’s remarkable talent as a clockmaker now only earns her a pittance to send back to her impoverished family. She hopes one day to restore their lost status even as she openly loathes the nobility of this new order, which is bereft of faith and propped up only with money. In a world that turns on the intertwined gears of fantastical automa and the mystical, toxic substance called “aether,” opportunities do exist for a skilled clockworker to change her fortunes—if she can harden herself to work for the same man who ruined her life. Ludovico now pursues an experimental aether weapon kept in Ptolomea, a region in the Caina Republic. To get it, he’s formed a team of expendables led by architect and nobleman Gianpaolo Velia, whose position and melancholic morality immediately turn Clem’s stomach, no matter how handsome he is. Wendt’s “clockpunk” (an offshoot of the steampunk genre) novel introduces a world of whirling gears, mechanical owls, and political intrigue where the Renaissance never ended; an Italian-to-English dictionary might be needed to catch some of the slyer references. (“The building was a marvel, made of clockwork, the wheels rotating around each other to create the illusion the building itself was shifting like a cluster of bees in a hive.”) Clemenza’s hatred of the nobility and desperation to restore her family’s status makes for a deeply conflicted and compelling hero. The book’s pacing will be vexing for some, but the gradual development of Clem and Gianpaolo’s romance, along with conversations and asides that tease out this world’s mythology, will be welcome to those looking to fully immerse themselves within the novel—which ends on a promising cliffhanger.

An enemies-to-lovers fantasy adventure etched onto an Italian pocket watch running just a little slow.