Bluecrowne

June 1, 2018

Gr 4-7-Cleverly pulling together Milford's earlier works, this prequel to The Greenglass House is the origin story of the house itself, and gives fans more insight into the world of Nagspeake. Twelve-year-old Lucy Bluecrowne grew up aboard the Left Handed Fate, living the life of a privateer's daughter. After a serious injury, her father has decided Lucy should live ashore with her stepmother, the beautiful Lady Xiaoming, and her stepbrother, Laio. Her father has even built a house for them atop the highest hill in Nagspeake. Lucy is furious; the sea is in her blood. On the suggestion of Laio, the pair goes to the harbor to see about procuring a barky to fix up to sail on the river. It is no accident that the two children run into roamer Foulk Trigemine and conflagrationeer Ignis Blister. Roamers use science to travel through time and conflagrationeers control fire-it just so happens that Laio has a talent with fireworks, and this is not the first time Foulk has "seen" Lucy. Both Foulk and Ignis are on missions involving the Bluecrowne family. This somewhat complicated amalgamation of story lines is resplendent with time travel, Chinese folklore, nautical explanations, and the history of Nagspeake. VERDICT This is a sophisticated tale filled with masterful world building, time travel, science, and nautical life. Ideal for confident readers looking for a challenge.-Stacy Dillon, LREI, New York

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2018
In this prequel to Milford's Nagspeake tales, a privateer's daughter takes on a ruthless time traveler who kidnaps her little brother.Having been raised at sea aboard the Left-Handed Fate, 12-year-old Lucy is feeling marooned in the house her father, Capt. Bluecrowne, has built above the otherworldly town of Nagspeake for her, her half brother, Liao, and her beloved stepmother, Xiaoming. But hardly have the three moved in than Liao--already displaying a prodigious talent for constructing bombs and magical fireworks--is spirited away by Foulk Trigemine, a cold-eyed "roamer" sent to gather the boy up as a "conflagrationeer" for a man reputed to own some of Hell's own coal. Foolishly, rather than use his kairos mechanism to return whence he came, Trigemine lingers in the town and era, scheming to snatch up other treasures. Unfortunately (for him), not only is Lucy willing to, literally, walk through fire to rescue her brother, but the lad's vengeful mother turns out to be much more than she appears. Milford tucks strange places, odd artifacts, and people with mysterious pasts into a suspenseful tale properly supplied with sinister villains, clever twists, large explosions, and heartbreaking sacrifices. Along with the interracial family at the story's center (Lucy and her father are white, while Liao and his mother are Chinese), black and Asian supporting characters add notes of diversity to the cast. Finished illustrations not seen.A tale to sweep new and confirmed fans into the author's distinctively imagined blend of history, magic, mythology, chemistry, and nautical lore. (Fantasy. 11-13)

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Starred review from August 1, 2018
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Milford returns to Nagspeake yet again in this prequel to The Left-Handed Fate? (2017). It's 1810, and Lucy is heartbroken: her father has decided she, Liao, and Liao's mother, Xiaoming, will live on land, in a house he's built for them in Nagspeake (readers of the Greenglass House stories will recognize the idiosyncratic structure immediately). Meanwhile, two powder merchants have taken a shine to Liao, but they're not what they seem: they're not quite of this world, and they've been sent to bring Liao, whose preternatural talent with fireworks suggests he isn't either, to a powerful, cruel man. Milford keeps the plot tight, which gives her vibrant, imaginative scene setting room to run wild, and she uses such lush, painterly language that it's easy to conjure up images of places, people, and objects. Characters from The Boneshaker? (2010) and Broken Lands? (2012) appear here, and while it's clear that there's a wider tale at work, readers won't need to be familiar with those books to grasp what's going on, since she keeps such keen focus on Lucy, Liao, and Xiaoming, who has formidable secrets of her own. The engrossing adventure and thoughtful depiction of a blended, multicultural family are draws enough on their own, but the glimpse of Milford's bewitching world building will leave readers eager to track down her other novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)