This book starts its journey with BookCrossing from Delphi, Greece
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" In uncharted Peru, the holy town of Bedlam stands at the edge of a mysterious forest. Deep within are cinchona trees, whose bark yields the only known treatment for malaria.

In 1859, across the Pacific, India is ravaged by the disease. In desperation, the India Office dispatches the injured expeditionary Merrick Tremayne to Bedlam, under orders to return with cinchona cuttings. But there he meets Raphael, an enigmatic priest who is the key to a secret which will prove more valuable than they could ever have imagined. "


~~~~~~To the person who found this book:~~~~~~

Welcome to BookCrossing.com, where we are trying to make the whole world a library!

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This book is now yours, and you can keep it if you choose, although I would love you to read and then share it. You can pass it on someone you know or release it once again in the wild, leaving it on a park bench, a phone booth, a hostel lobby...wherever you think it's suitable for the book to continue it's journey. If you pass it along, please make a release note to let others know where you left it.

I hope you enjoy the book!

I wanted to like this book, but I'm not sure if I liked or disliked it. English Imperial Empire in 1860? Peru? "Lost" civilizations? Historical facts mixed with magic realism/fantasy elements? I should have loved this. But unfortunately I didn't. My rating is a bit over 6, but the bit rounds up in favor of the author.

Prior to this I've read The Watchmaker... and I think I faced the same problems in both books. The author has some eccentric, quirky ideas that seem promising, but the pacing of the narration is awful. Her language is lyrical, but too descriptive on lesser things while it can be fuzzy on larger things and scenes. At first I thought it's me, as I'm not a native English speaker and certainly not fluent in this language, but I noticed some other people mentioning this too, whose first language English it is. This book is mostly a first person narrative on the "present" time, but there are a couple of passages back in time that didn't fit in very well. The plot features many holes and weaknesses and flaws. The story stalls very much at some point, it gets moving and gets more engaging about 75% in, but then the ending let me down somehow. What can I call it? Naive? Eye-rolling? Cliche?
I don't know.

I didn't bond much with the characters and I couldn't get how they bonded either, but they kind of grow on you towards the end. Some elements of the plot and setting were interesting and attractive, but I felt the author didn't manage to tie them so well.

I'm trying not to write spoilers here, but all in all, I have mixed feelings about the book and it didn't enthused me as much as I hoped it will...

6+/10

The book got itchy feet and is now on its way to Germany in order to fulfill a wish. And then... Who knows where it'll travel next?

Good Luck little book and Don't forget to write your news from time to time!

Thank you so much for this surprise!!!
I have also read Natasha Pulley's The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, which I enjoyed, and then added this one to my wishlist. Looking forward to reading it, but having some doubts now if I will really like it... "lost" civilizations...??? Let's see... - but thanks a lot anyway!!!

I agree with you, Delphi_Reader! I couldn't really get into it neither. Often I caught myself skimming pages, because the plot was just too meandering and the writing too descriptive at the wrong places, it just didn't grab me. Better editing could have helped here. It didn't help either that I found the main character rather dislikable, especially when he mentioned without any qualms that he used to smuggle opium into China. Another colonialist, i.e. a racist and exploiter. I wonder what Peruvian readers would think about it.
However, I read the whole book (almost, except for skimming pages occasionally), and I hope that the next reader will like it better. I'll take it with me to the UK UnCon in Newcastle in July.

Released at the Bookcrossing UK Unconvention 2022.
(Or maybe somewhere in Newcastle.)
Happy reading!

Picked up from the book buffet at the Newcastle Unconvention.