Lower Rhumbsford was once a great city – an exceptional feat of hydraulic prowess that harnessed the power of the river to power the city. Those glory days are long gone though, today the pipes are leaky, the valves are stuck and the city is steadily falling into disrepair.
Samual and Briony Locke live in a grand ancestral home, despite their family having fallen on hard times. Samual was a promising hydraulic engineer until he abandoned his studies, but now spends his time tending his vast lock collection. One night he takes five of his most precious locks to the Lock, Key and Fob meeting for a presentation, and never returns. If Bryony is to find her brother she will need all the help she can get.
Full disclosure here, I didn’t finish reading this one. I gave up at about 20%, which is why I’m giving 1 star. I thought it was a book with a lot of promise, but it was a struggle to read and at a mammoth 800+ pages it needed to have gripped me early.

I like the idea of the book, a city running on hydraulic power but needing some care and attention to restore it to glory, with a bit of magic and an eccentric family as our leads has a lot to like. There were parts that I really enjoyed reading which is probably what kept me going for so long. Unfortunately these parts were over shadowed by the more frequent sections I found frustrating and hard to read. I found a lot of it to be what I would call ‘overwritten’ – ridiculously long sentences, heavy on the purple prose and loaded with some very unusual words. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with getting out a dictionary every now and then, but it gets frustrating when it becomes a frequent occurrence.

The other problem I had was the sheer number of characters and the way the book would bounce between people and places. It was hard to keep track of who was who, and hard to know which characters were integral to the story and which were bit parts. The blurb leads you to believe that Sam is going to be our main protagonist, but he doesn’t feature heavily in the early stages of the book. From what I read I found it hard to tell who was our main focus.

All in all I do think this is a great idea, and I’m sure there will be many readers out there who will love it. The writing style is just one that I never really enjoy so it’s not the book for me.

This is a wondrous book, a large one (over 736 pages!) and whilst teen me would have been thrilled to dive deeply into this immaculately constructed world which JS Emery creates, it does require forbearance, forswearing of any other books bar this one (sorry, I am a serial multi-booker!) and fortitude.

There is so much to enjoy in your first visit to Lower Rhumbsford, the social classes, mores, behaviour is very Victorian inspired, and Katherine Addisonor Theodora Goss fans will find much to enjoy.

The fourth wall breaking narrator, speaking directly to the reader, is such a great technique, it helps pull you into the story and is so reminiscent of the joy of being read to, it brings back the indulgence of just lying back, and letting the story take over.

The fortunes of Briony and Sam, the brother/sister team on whom the book focusses, is highly gothic, and their faded fortunes, with the circling antiquarian eagerly awaiting their father's call to take the last things of value is a wonderful conceit, perfectly described within the context of Brie's wardrobe, for example. The importance of maintaining appearance relies on girls and women carefully rotating their meagre collections to ensure that their status, and therefore value is maintained. Briony (known as Brie) however, uses hers to conduct alchemical experiments. She is desperate to find a poison that she can kill herself with when her father finally has nothing left to sell but her, and I deeply adore that kind of dedication to a cause.

Her brother, Sam, is a collector of locks , all kinds of them, some with historical attachments, and between them, they create the most engaging duo who pull you into their adventures.None of the family, including servants and the house spirit, are 100% likable, which makes them more rounded and realistic.

Ambitious? Yes, the authors are taking us into entirely unknown territory whilst pulling on threads of commonality with fantasy and gothic writers, creating their own space on the shelf next to strong fantasy standards. The world building is not so exhaustive that you feel you have read a treatise, you pick it up as it trundles along, like any visitor to a foreign land would.

Appearance, misconception, falsities and ruses all combine to create misunderstood situations and errors which land our hapless family in deep water (excuse the pun).

I am unsure how long this series has been planned to run, but I am excited to visit this world again in a hurry!
Charming, whimsical and deeply different, I really enjoyed it.

This is a story about the race against time to save a city from devastation due to the control of a corrupt government and a sister who is searching for her missing brother.

Set in Lower Rhumbsford, a fictional city built on the banks of the great river Rhumb. The river is the heart of the city as it powers the city through intricate hydraulic engineering through a labyrinth of pipes, valves and sluices however the pipes are leaking. Government funding has not been going into the maintenance of this system thus resulting in an impending disaster.

Briony and Sam Locke are descendants of the prestigious and most celebrated family of engineers. They reside in the once fashionable and wealthy part of the city, but over the years the money has dwindled. They both have passions that keep them occupied; Briony spends her time experimenting with alchemy and Sam has is collection of locks that takes up his time, although he should be finishing off his engineering degree. His passion for collectable locks sees him attending events with the Lock, Key and Fob club and one particular night he leaves the house with his most prized locks and never returns.

This book is absolutely mind-bogglingly bizarre! I would categorise it as dystopian, sci-fi, fictional history Hydropunk. Yes, Hydropunk, not Steampunk and is believed to be the first book in this category. I really enjoyed the unusual setting and premise as it took me away from reality to this unusual world where houses are known to have a resident ghost and there’s a community of people who live underground in this subterranean labyrinth of pipes known as ‘Water People’. I have to say I have not read anything like this before, but I do think I will be reading it again in the future as I would like to read it at a slower pace to truly absorb the barmy world this book takes you to. It is a beast of a book at 717 pages, but worth it for a bit of fun and escapism.

3.5 stars

THE CLOCKWORK RIVER is set in such a fun world, which was the big selling point for me. Hydropunk, where a river is the source of power, rather than steam. But the river is dying, and everyone has their own theories on how to solve it. Unbeknownst to them, and quite by accident, at the heart of this squabbling are Sam and Briony Locke, who are going to find themselves tangled up with some very unscrupulous people...

It is a very big book - the graphic below for the first few days of the tour doesn't do enough justice to just how thick this book it. Double the apparent thickness and you have an idea!

The reason it's quite this big is because the narrative style is not a concise one. It's told by a narrator, who sometimes does go on a tangent (ending occasionally with a "I forget what I was talking about", and yes, Mr Narrator, I had also forgotten what the point was at the end.)

If you want a book where the story is in tight focus and it's easy to follow what's going on, then this is not a book for you. This is a book where the narrative style comes before plot, which took me a very long time to get used to, and I did get lost a few times in the many jumps and side-trips.

There are a dozen characters the book follows, meandering around them and the plot. They are very eccentric characters, to match the very eccentric world. But most of the character quirks are treated as completely normal - until a girl wants to show her ankles, and then a mother who will happily seduce footmen goes hysterical. This slightly absurdist feel helps merge the plot, world, and characters together - helped along further by the narrator's fourth-wall breaks and commentary.

It's an interesting debut, setting up a very distinctive style that should be interesting to watch develop over the coming years.

There's plenty of potential in this book, it could have been an interesting and unusual series but somehow it didn't work for me.
Even if there were some issues with the arc (in some parts the font was nearly invisible) I like the beginning and the style of writing.
It seemed to promise an entertaining story, a well developed and original world building.
Problem started after some chapters because not a lot was happening and the plot was a bit confusing at time.
I think that if I have to read such a long book (more than 700 pages) I want some actions, a plot that flows and keeps your attention alive.
After some chapters the story failed to keep my attention alive and fell flat.
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was a hard one for me to read. I stopped and started so many times and in the end, had to DNF it at about 35%. I couldn't stay invested in the characters or the plot line which I felt was too long and meandering and had very little depth or structure. It also felt entirely too long to me.

However, the world-building seemed extensive and there was clearly a lot of work put in to making this world as detailed and interesting as possible, it just wasn't enough to hold my interest.

I'm sure this book is exactly what some people are looking for, it just didn't work for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled with A Clockwork River, I made it around 45% mark before deciding it would not be for me. I found the book itself way too long and winding (like a river?!) but with little pay off. The overall sentencing structure was all a little off and I found myself taking longer and longer to get through it.

I think this would be a book some people would enjoy, as it is by no means a BAD story - just not one that I found myself gelling with.

Due to not finishing or really enjoying this book I have not reviewed this on my socials.

This really started out so promising. Quaint and a bit odd. Nostalgic almost for something I could never quite put my finger on for what. However, about a quarter into the book, I have to admit to losing my patience. A book that length you need something more than an interesting world and quaint observations, I wanted a plot, I wanted interesting characters and I wanted to be swept away into this world. None of this happened. I ended up being bored.

I had to DNF this unfortunately. When I received a copy from Netgalley it sounded really promising but it just wasn't for me. That isn't to say the book wasn't good, it was, it just wasn't my cup of tea and I found myself bored and forcing myself to read it. I've learned that if you're having to do that then to just stop. I'm sure the right person will absolutely love this book, that person just wasn't me. I wish the author all the best

I started reading this book but struggled with the faint text at the beginning of each chapter. Also, I thought that steampunk was a nine day wonder that had ended a while ago. Obviously a lot of work has gone into this book; it’s very long for a book whose first two chapters read like it’s aimed at youngsters. Three stars as I don’t like to downgrade a review unless the book is awful. With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an e- ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did not start this (which I feel bad about - it looked interesting) mainly because I was intimidated by the length. When a book is 600+ pages long, it has to be very, very good, and interest me a lot. Unfortunately, what I saw from the blurb didn't do it for me and I didn't have time to read it because I had so many other books I wanted to read.
Beautiful cover though!
(rating it 3 stars because it is in the middle and i didn't want to rate it 1 star because i haven't read it)

The world building in this book was so in-depth and fascinating, howber as time went on a found this book dragged it heels. I drifter through this book and couldn't find it more than words. I found the MC is trying to much to be liked didn't help me.

When I read the blurb for this I thought it sounded fantastic.

When I got to about 20% of the book I was starting to get less charmed with it.

As the name says, it's a story that keeps on ticking along in an extremely long winding river like way as well as being about a world that is hydro powered travel.
The narrator goes off on tangents with addressing the reader directly as well as there being scenes that are totally irrelevant and as it seems the main character of Sam Locke's point of view being forgotten about in the last part of the book.

And how Sam Locke goes from one predicament to another as well as it turning out the whole Locke family essentially being crackers in one form or another.

It would be more fit for a comedy tv series than a novel in my opinion and could do with some serious editing to get rid of all the unnecessary waffle.

The world building in this book was so in-depth and fascinating, and for me that was the highlight of the novel. It is clear that a lot of work went into it, with every single detail being meticulously plotted and thought out. For that reason the world felt very believable, despite the fact that a place being powered by one big river is a very fantastical concept. The writing style really matched the vibe and atmosphere of the book, with a lot of the descriptions encapsulating that steampunk or hydro punk feel. That definitely helped me feel more immersed in the story. I could almost hear the river rushing past and the whirring of the clockwork. So if you like really descriptive stories that capture the atmosphere really well, you will like this one.

The main issue I had was with the plot, because like most other people have said, this is a very long book and it does tend to slow down in places. It meant that I found it hard to keep going at certain points because I couldn't see what the meaning or reason was behind what I was reading. That was where the descriptive writing hindered the story for me, because it seemed like there were descriptions and flowery writing for the sake of it. But if you like that sort of thing, where you don't necessarily need something fast-paced, then this is a great book for you.

This is a curious book. It isn't Steampunk - more Hydropunk. A world where vast stores of water pulse their way through tubes, powering a clockwork city.

I'll be honest, I struggled with it. It is ambitiously long - over twice the length of a normal novel. The sentences sometimes drift on interminably - with nary a semicolon in sight. I consider myself well read - but I felt like every other page I was calling up my eReader's dictionary to see what some archaic word meant. That's fun at first, but quickly becomes tedious. Every sentence gave the impression of being run through a thesaurus twice.

There's an awful lot of world building going on. Clockwork, and locks, and ghosts, and "regency" debutantes falling in love, and impoverished nobility, and politics, and magic... it just goes on and on. I found it quite exhausting to keep up with all the different sub-plots, minor characters, and humorous asides from the narrator.

But is it any good...?

Big books like this need a big sweeping plot to drive things along. And this, sadly, doesn't. A quarter of the way through I felt like the plot wasn't really going anywhere. There were so many diversions and tributaries that it was hard to sustain the momentum of the plot. For all the talk about it being "hydropunk" there was very little discussion about what that meant and how it had shaped the world. I wasn't expecting a thesis on how a hydraulic city could work - but there's little more than "things run on a water and some people can do magic" and that was it!

I think this may have worked better as several different books - each following a character along the Clockwork River. A book just focused on the inept magical learning of a debutante, for example, would have been a smashing read. Instead it's muddled in with half a dozen other stories.

It's rare that I don't finish a book. But by the time I got a third of the way through, I was tired from keeping every plot straight in my head and, frankly, a little bored. So I've set it aside in the vague expectation of finishing it once I've read every other book on my list.

If you enjoy long and convoluted books filled with protracted and labyrinthine sentences, and are prepared to muster up the courage to look up old-fashioned words - be they ever-so frequent - then you may (if the stars align) find this a worthwhile endeavour for your librocubicularist tendencies.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book is released in October 2021.

This book is a really fun interesting read! It's really witty and the characters are flawed but the world building is pretty cool and unique.

Funny, quirky and charming, and not at all what I was expecting. I was nice to read a fantasy novel that leaned on humour and absurdity rather world ending events for a change. I found the MC a little trying at time – I like competent MCs ok – but overall his bumbling suited the overall tone of the book. He was a less prepared Arthur Dent, out of his depth. This really was a lot of fun.

I really want to give this a good review because the writing is good, the characters are good the plot…hem well. The world is powered by a big river but the engineering is all starting to fail, there’s and evil (or is he?!)doctor dude, a young man who is good with locks, a young woman who is of marriageable age, their father who is quietly giving into his own demons, a startling amount of hot redheads and A LOT of other minor plots. An editor needed to give it a good slash and burn. It was soooooo long. I can understand why they would be reluctant to do so the prose is delightful but a lot of it didn’t add anything. It needed to be sharper, the plot got lost in amongst all the detail it needed tightened up and there were too many characters who were good but unnecessary. It meandered, towards the end I found myself speed reading just to get to the point and I didn’t feel I had missed out. Also one dude took out another dudes eye for no good reason and by the end of the book we were all ok with that ?!? Hmmmm ok.

A soft fantasy in the style of a whimsy classic novel. I liked the style and plot but I struggled to connect to the main characters and some sentences were too long which made it a chore to read at times.

Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quirky, adorably pompous fantasy novel set in a decaying 1800s-like plumbing extravaganza world. There is something lavish about the setting, extremely funny, that reminded me of the Monty Python and Terry Pratchett. and is very well crafted. It hints so much to classic comedy plays, where people keep crossing by each other on stage mistaking each other's identity and meaning. The narrator is exterior to the novel and yet has a huge amount of personality and ego, judging everything and giving so much colour to this novel.
The writing style is a real pleasure to read, and the way everything is built up into a culminating point, all the vastly extended threads drawn together like a net, all interlinked is extremely satisfying.
We follow the adventure of the very impoverished Locke family, from the lock and key obsessed son, to the beautiful daughter who fears marriage so much she spends her time cooking up poisons and love potions, to the terribly narcistic father who only lives for his appearance. They each find themselves upturned into escalating dangers from which you can't even guess how they will escape.... and I will give no hints as to where this goes because that is the best part of this book.
I have never read anything quite like it and really enjoyed this smart confident new voice. I will recommend it to people who are not afraid of large books and enjoy both classics and fantasy. There is something of Jules Vernes and Shakespeare in this. If you loved the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde this might be just the clever fun book for you.