Cameron, Sharon. The Dark Unwinding.

Cameron, Sharon.  The Dark Unwinding.  

Scholastic Press  318p  $17.99     978-0-545-32786-2     2012       VG          Historical Fiction

Beholden to a beastly aunt, Katharine has no choice but to go to Stranwyne Keep to send her supposedly mad uncle to an asylum, so that his wealth will pass to her greedy aunt.  But once she arrives, Katharine learns that there is more at stake than her aunt’s bank accounts, and she must decide whether her own future is more important than the future of thousands of workers.  The title and the cover give a reader every reason to suppose that this will be a steampunk novel; however, a mentally challenged inventor and pre-electric inventions do not necessarily steampunk make.  The story has more of the feel of a historical novel that happens to have windup toys, than an actual steam punk novel.  So readers expecting steampunk based on the gears in the cover art will be disappointed, but that doesn’t make it a poor novel by any stretch of the imagination.  

The novel tells the story of young Katharine Tulman, who is trapped by her lack of fortune and forced to serve as the executor of a detestable aunt’s estates in order to remain fed and clothed, and in that capacity she is often sent to perform unpalatable tasks.  At the beginning she is sent by her vicious, vapid relative to declare one of her uncles insane so that his estate and money will pass to the aunt who controls Katharine’s strings.  Upon her arrival, Katharine is treated with sullen hostility by the staff and tenants of the Keep, who know her purpose, and yet she is charmed by her uncle, whose understanding of the world is childlike except when it comes to clockwork and mathematics.  The decision Katharine must make will determine the futures of thousands of people dependent on her uncle, and if she does as her aunt wishes, they will be sent to workhouses or orphanages; but if she defies her aunt, she will be turned out on the streets.  She agrees to give the place a month’s trial before reporting back to her aunt and declaring her uncle incompetent, during which time she learns that there is more to the situation than she had initially supposed.  One of the topics this book deals with is civil rights, notably the rights of women and of people possessing exceptional and abnormal mentalities.  It also touches on the historical tensions between France and Britain at the time, and introduces a lifelike cast of characters who are more than two-dimensional placeholders in a gothic tale.

           

Inventions–Fiction, Inheritance and succession–Fiction, Great Britain-History-Victoria, 1837-1901-Fiction               --Bethany Geleskie