UNDER THE PENDULUM SUN

Author: Jeannette Ng

Publisher: Angry Robot Press, 416 pages

This is a complex book, dense with meaning and allusions that I feel I won’t fully grasp until I read it again, more closely. I admit I rushed through it because I was anxious to know the fates of everyone involved. The way events unfold, I felt that it must all end badly, very badly and painfully. Well, they do and they don’t (no spoilers).

The premise is irresistible and strange, and Ng’s crisp and luminous prose is ideal for navigating faeland, a gloomy world, full of secrets and mysteries, and casual cruelty.

Laon Helstone is a missionary who has travelled to Arcadia to convert its natives. Having not heard from him for some time, his sister, Catherine, obtains permission from his sponsors to follow and find out what is going on.

When she arrives in faeland, Catherine finds that Laon has gone to meet with Mab, queen of the fae and although he is expected to return to Gethsemane, the castle allocated to him and, before him, the Reverend Roche, no one can say when she should expect him.Read More »