The Crown Phoenix Series, Alison DeLuca

Today we enter the wild, wonderful world of Edwardian England, as we examine Alison DeLuca's magical, steampunk Crown Phoenix Series.

Alison DeLuca hits the ground running in the opening chapters of 'The Night Watchman Express', and the story never stops moving until the last page.This tale combines everything that makes for a good story: well crafted characters, good plot and great adventures.

Orphaned, and angry, Miriam is forced to accept her life has been given over to her new guardians, her father's business partners, the Marchpanes. The Marchpanes immediately move into Miriam's house, and take over her father's rooms. (Mrs. Marchpane is deliciously evil.) They make their attempt to gain full control of Miriam's money and her father's company.

Gradually, Miriam begins to find common ground with the Marchpane's son, Simon, and their other young `guest' Neil. A nanny who is both wise and skilled in certain magics is hired, and she saves the day, sort of. Mana is a woman who is of a race of people, who are considered to be second-class citizens, and contrary to the Marchpane's hopes, she turns out to be exactly what both Miriam and the two boys needed.

There is a reluctant camaraderie that develops between Miriam and the two boys. The three of them do a certain amount of exploring the grounds of the estate, and discover a strange machine that her father has constructed. Another interesting thread is also Miriam's strange emotional attachment to her father's typewriter-like machine, the Crown Phoenix, which she has claimed for her own since his death, and keeps hidden in her room.

The Marchpanes are not pleased by Mana's good influence on Miriam, and they fear her. They fire Mana and get rid of Miriam.

Nightly Miriam has heard the mournful Night Watchman Express, a mysterious train that passes close to her home, on its way to a sinister place called Devil's Kitchen where children are enslaved, and become subjects of evil experiments. Though she has never known where the train actually went, the sound of it has always terrified her.

In the course of her experiences, Miriam becomes a strong young woman, and her resourcefulness and courage make for a great adventure. Mana proves to be not just a governess, and the two boys have parts to play in the story.

 

 

In book two, The Devil's Kitchen we see just what those horrors are.

 

The book opens with Miriam and Simon on the terrifying train known as the Night Watchman Express. She is immediately thrown into a prison, the infamous `Devil's Kitchen' and forced to labor in horrible conditions. Simon is also held captive, in a prison of a very different sort, but one that is a prison nonetheless.

Miriam strength and courage make both friends and enemies for her in the frightening underworld of the Devil's Kitchen. She grows into a much more likeable, resourceful girl, while trying to maintain her sense of self and keeping her dignity while being forced to labor and live in the most the appalling conditions. Simon also is forced to find his courage and his strength and use his wits to survive the situation that he finds himself in.

Neil has found himself in a more comfortable but still extremely dangerous position in his effort to rescue Miriam, but has found support in Mana’s secret return and in an unexpected friend.

 

The 3rd book in the series, Lamplighter's Special is a wild journey to the islands, featuring Neil's sisters, Ninna and Lizzie. They too are caught-up in the dark world of those who search for the Crown Phoenix. While they are searching for their brother, they are forced into servitude, forming close friendships with the young men of the manor, Priam and Toby, despite the restrictions on such fraternization.  Everyone wants the Crown Phoenix which Miriam's father invented, and they will stop at nothing to gain it.

Lizzie's and Ninna's stories are told almost as if they were in a fairy tale, but it is a tale with a gritty steampunk quality that makes it a perfect rainy weekend read. There is danger, there is darkness, and suspense; there is a serious good vs. evil plot. I found that I was thinking about the characters at the end, and wondering what was going to happen next.

I LOVE this series!  I am buying this series in BOOK FORM (!) for my nieces and nephews.  They will love it as much as I do. You can also read Alison DeLuca's wonderful post on her characters Neil, Kyoge and Riki at my other blog, Life in the Realm of Fantasy.



A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

 A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens is one of the first modern paranormal fantasies.  First published by Chapman & Hall on December 17, 1847, this tale has remained as one of the great classics and has never been out of print.

Dickens divides ‘A Christmas Carol’ into five chapters, which he calls ‘staves’, or in old English terms, ‘song stanzas’, in reference to the title of the book. The book is short, in modern terms it is a novella.  However, this tale is a showcase of Charles Dickens’ amazing ability to completely draw the mood of a scene and the set of qualities that make a character unique in only a few sentences.   1840s London IS grim; Bob Cratchit IS a good and noble man, and despite his cold heart Ebenezer Scrooge IS worth saving.

The tale begins on Christmas Eve in the 1840's, exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first stave as a greedy and stingy businessman who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence.  His shabby treatment of Bob Cratchit and his rudeness to his nephew Fred are examined in the opening paragraphs. That night, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost and warned that he must change his ways in order to avoid coming to a miserable end like him. Scrooge is visited by three additional ghosts, each in its turn and each visit detailed in a separate stave, who go with him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his personal transformation and redemption.

The first of the spirits is the Ghost of Christmas Past.  This ghost takes Scrooge to scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir the old miser's gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. We see the school where he had spent his youth, and meet his sister Fan, whom he dearly loved. We are also introduced to the root cause of his cold, miserly behavior:  the events which had caused him the most pain had always occurred around Christmas, and his own father had never forgiven him for the death of his mother, although we are not told the reason for that.  Now Ebenezer holds a grudge against his own nephew, Fred, for the death of Fan in childbirth. 

Dickens also shows us that Scrooge’s own fear of poverty and a subconscious desire to gain his father’s approval has caused him to care more about money than about people. One of the reasons for his miserly ways is the pain he feels for losing his love, Belle. Engaged to be married to her, he keeps pushing back the wedding until his finances are as healthy as he would like them to be; something that, given his insatiable lust for money, he will never happen. Realizing this, Belle calls off the engagement and eventually marries someone else, giving Scrooge more reason to further withdraw from society and relationships.

The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several radically differing scenes (a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the family feast of Scrooge's near-impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, is an amazing window into 19^th century London.  Tiny Tim is a sweet boy, filled with innocence and love despite his illness and his poverty. Scrooge finds himself quite drawn to him.  A miner's cottage  is visited, and also a lighthouse, among other sites in order to instill in Scrooge a sense of responsibility for his fellow man.   Finally, this ghost warns him of the evils of Ignorance and Want. As the spirit's robe is drawn back Scrooge is shocked to see these two aspects of the human condition suddenly made real before him as hateful, terrifying little children who are more animal than human in appearance.

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, makes his case to Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed. Tiny Tim has died, and there is so much sorrow surrounding his passing. In another scene ‘a man has died’, one whose passing has brought only joy, profit and relief to everyone who knew him. Finally Scrooge's own neglected and untended grave is revealed, prompting him to swear that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these "shadows of what may be."

I read this tale every year.  I watch every movie version of this story, and love and appreciate each and every version that is made for the unique qualities that they bring to the story.  I know that I am not the only person whose life has been touched by this story; touched by the annual affirmation that charity begins at home and spreads to the world.  I am comforted in the knowledge that I am not the only person who ‘binges’ on Dickens in December!