The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley: The spellbinding BBC Between the Covers book club pick

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I really enjoyed this one, perfect for fans of eccentrically flavoured historical fiction with a just a touch of magic. This is a beautifully written story about a boy born with the ability to see into the minds of the people he meets and that spans 18th-century Europe, from London to Constantinople. Take a Look at Our Summary of November Highlights, Whether You're Looking for the Latest Releases or Gift Inspiration But then a near-fatal accident will take Zachary away from the workshop and his family. His father will have to make a journey to Constantinople that he will never return from. And, years later, only Zachary can find out what happened.

Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma Complex I was drawn to The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by the setting – 18th century Constantinople – but I wasn’t sure that it would really be my sort of book. From the blurb, I was expecting a strong magical realism element, something I don’t always get on with. However, I was pleased to find that this aspect of the novel was actually much more subtle than I’d expected. She and Abel spend the next few days in an awkward dance, the one advancing a step and the other retreating. They are polite, without ever seeming to quite see one another as they did on that first day. Zachary] is also the bearer of an extraordinary gift; at the touch of a hand, Zachary can see into the hearts and minds of the people he meets." This plays actually less of a role than you'd think given it is mentioned in the short description. The actual time in the book this would have been useful to him its not working and that's sort of briefly hummed over and then not again.I think the characterisation was good as regards Zachary, Aunt Francis, Mrs Morley and Tom, but throughout it all, the idea of Zachary displaying powers of second sight seemed to be lost along the way. Yes, there were really good descriptions of Turkey, the landscape, political structures and warring factions along the way. However, underneath it all seemed to run a story of same sex love and commitment which, honestly, I wonder for its inclusion. At that moment, we know something is unusual. Newborns aren’t known for fixing anything or anybody with a penetrating gaze. Abel is so overcome with grief, that it falls to Alice’s maid, Kate, to locate a wet nurse who has a tiny daughter of her own. Mrs Morley and Leonora become major characters and remain in Zachary’s life for many years. I was mesmerised by this whole story, Zachary and his second sight and the inventions that were part of his life. There are so many personal stories going on in the book. Yet because each of these characters is so unique, it never became overpowering or confused.

Perhaps,’ said Abel, reluctant to believe that Zachary suffered from such an outlandish affliction. But then a near-fatal accident will take Zachary away from the workshop and his family. His father will have to make a journey that he will never return from. And, years later, only Zachary can find out what happened.And so the makers of automata found themselves urged to make ever more human androids, leading to Von Kempelen’s chess playing automaton, ‘The Turk,’ seemingly able to think through the complexities of a chess game and play the world’s grand masters. That this automaton turned out to be a fraud is perhaps less surprising than that for almost 80 years many of the world’s cleverest people believed in its remarkable abilities. Why did they do so? The answer, I think, is because they wanted to believe that an automaton was capable of rivalling, even exceeding human intelligence. Since his accident, Zachary is plagued by visions that reveal the hearts and minds of those around him. A gift at times and a curse at others, it is nonetheless these visions that will help him complete a journey that he was always destined to make—to travel across Europe to Constantinople and find out what happened to his father all those years ago. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures

It’s great appeal lies in the fact that while there are elements of the fantastical – the title speaks to the eponymous young protagonist’s ability to divine the soul and future life course of a person simply by touching them – and the expansively imaginative, it is also content to spend much time as needed with its characters, allowing them to tell their story without hurry or interruption and with full emotional effect. His gradual realisation that he is not only gifted with the abilities beyond those of normal people – not only can he sense inner thoughts and future events but he’s prodigiously intelligent – but that he is different too in those to whom he is sexually attracted to is handled as poetically and intimately as everything else in The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudsley which even in its darkest moments sings with prose full to bursting with a love of words and the mellifluous sound they make as much as the beautifully enrapturing stories they set in train. This gathering together of disparate souls, which also includes Abel’s aunt-in-law, Frances, who’s a rich, feisty independently minded woman who delights in challenging convention, is what gives The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudsley its sizably moving beating heart. A beautifully crafted historical mystery of love and hope, and the adventure of finding your place in the world.I cannot believe I am telling you of it now, but to convince you that Zachary is remarkable, gifted in ways even the child himself cannot perceive.’ The prose is very well written, and it is genuinely funny, but the plot wasn't strong enough to hold attention. The father-son relationship is one of the book's strongest features, and I very much felt for Abel's plight. Growing up amongst the cogs and springs of his father's workshop, Zachary is intensely curious, ferociously intelligent, unwittingly funny and always honest - perhaps too honest. But when a fateful accident leaves six-year-old Zachary nearly blinded, Abel is convinced that the safest place for his son is in the care of his eccentric Aunt Frances and her menagerie of weird and wonderful animals. A dashing, magical debut . . . intricately plotted, and peopled with intriguing characters' - Daily Mail

I’d assumed that these automata were mere luxuries for the very rich but in researching my novel I discovered that they were about much more than adornment or entertainment. They were manifestations of technical prowess, projections of national power, celebrations of Enlightenment science and, most surprisingly, regarded by some as experiments in the search for eternal life. So when a precarious job in Constantinople is offered to him, Abel has no reason to say no. A job presented to him by a politician with dubious intentions, Abel leaves his son, his workshop and London behind. The decision will change the course of his life forever. The mid-18th century was the zenith of Enlightenment thinking. Science was racing ahead in every direction, largely freed from the constraints placed upon it in previous centuries by the cold hand of church authority, political turmoil and widely held superstition. Discovery and innovation flourished in the fields of astronomy, anatomy, philosophy, botany, zoology, agriculture, commerce, navigation and literature. The pace of change must have seemed breathtakingly fast to those in the midst of it, though many were, of course, still eking out the barest of livings much as they had for generations - and in those lands newly colonised by European powers the brutality of slavery was often accompanied by grotesque genocidal acts on indigenous populations.It is unusual yet totally captivating with an interesting plot and good pacing. All the characters were intriguing and although the main focus is on Zachary Cloudesley and his father Abel the side characters also had such intetesting and different tales to tell and yet their lives were inextricably linked. Not every novel gets this right – some read so gorgeously that the story and any emotional impact is lost in it, while others prioritise storytelling with a utilitarian ferocity – but The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudsley is flawless in telling a beguilingly unusual but intrinsically human story that reads like a siren song of lusciously poetic construction. Whatever it may be, it changes his world considerably, being the reason why he is able to escape terrible misfortune on more than occasion and leading him to the greatest discovery of his life – that men, not women, are the spark that lights the fuse of his nascent sexuality. Zachary is a gifted, brilliant little boy, the kind of child who will read anything he can find and probably remember most of it. The publicity for the story reveals that Zachary later loses the sight in one eye and develops a kind of clairvoyance, although he never seems quite certain what is true or not.