The Clockwork Girl

About the book

'Deliciously creepy, alive with the rustling silks, rotten smells and lethal egos of a divided Paris' Sarah Hilary
'Instantly draws you in, immersing the reader in a Paris of filth and greed, money and sin' Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Paris, 1750.

In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city's celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter.

Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker's experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.

For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker's intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.

And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles...

A intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.