#BookReview | The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

Title: The Bedlam Stacks
By: Natasha Pulley
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 336
Release Date: August 1st, 2017
Publisher:  Bloomsbury USA
Audience: Adult

Summary from Goodreads: In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg and something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.

When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.

Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.
 


Review: My first impression of this book was that it was slow, almost like walking through mud, but it quickly turned around. Natasha Pulley pulls you into a into an old world full of adventure and wonder. I loved how Peru became so real to me. Absolutely loved it.


Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.


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