The Lazarus Machine

The Lazarus Machine (A Tweed & Nightingale Adventure, 1) by Paul Crilley, November 6, 2012. 280 pages. Published by PYR. Source: publisher.

An alternate 1895... a world where Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace perfected the Difference engine. Where steam and tesla-powered computers are everywhere. Where automatons powered by human souls venture out into the sprawling London streets. Where the Ministry, a secretive government agency, seeks to control everything in the name of the Queen.
It is in this claustrophobic, paranoid city that seventeen-year-old Sebastian Tweed and his conman father struggle to eke out a living.
But all is not well...
A murderous, masked gang has moved into London, spreading terror through the criminal ranks as they take over the underworld. as the gang carves up more and more of the city, a single name comes to be uttered in fearful whispers.
Professor Moriarty.
When Tweed’s father is kidnapped by Moriarty, he is forced to team up with information broker Octavia Nightingale to track him down. But he soon realizes that his father’s disappearance is just a tiny piece of a political conspiracy that could destroy the British Empire and plunge the world into a horrific war.

First Sentence:

Tonight, seventeen-year-old Sebastian Tweed was going to be the voice of a fifty-year-old woman.

Have you ever just come across the right book at the right time? Well that is what happened to me when I read The Lazarus Machine, which blew me away.

Y'all know there are few books that I'll go all gushy over (even if I give them 5 pineapples), but when I cannot stop thinking of all the plot twists and turns and how much I loved the characters, now that is when you know I've found a great read.

After taking a few days to mull over what I was going to say in my review Paul Crilley's The Lazarus Machine, I have determined that there are just not enough words and ways to describe how much I loved this book without repeating those words over and over again.
One of the reasons I really enjoyed this one is that the story and plot were fresh and original and Paul Crilley's writing was top notch. He did such a fantastic job of creating a world and characters that could standout from all the books I have read over the year, and believe me that is saying something since I have read over 150 books with a lot of them being really, really good.

Just thinking about what happened in The Lazarus Machine has my mind reeling. While I may have guessed one or two of the plot twists it was still shocking when they actually came to fruition because they completely changed the plot and took it in a wild new direction. This has also been one read were I just want to tell everyone what happened yet I want to keep all the twists secret so that future readers will be just as surprised as I was while reading it.

What I enjoyed most about Paul Crilley's The Lazarus Machine would have to be that it was original and the story line was fresh.I admittedly don't read many books that would be considered steampunk, but if I could find more like this one I would because this book had just the right amount to make the setting standout, yet not so much or so little that it skewed the focus of the story and what was happening to the characters. It was in short perfect.

Tweet and Nightingale, I have not love two YA characters as much as I loved them since Saba and Jack from Blood Red Road. What really makes the two of them so fascinating is the dynamic of their friendship and how teaming up with each other to catch Moriarty and his gang changes they way they see and deal with things. It also does not hurt that Paul Crilley does a wonderful job of creating a book with a male and female characters that does not get bogged down in romantic feelings. It was just so nice to read a book with two characters of the opposite sex that have some chemistry, yet not have the story be all about whether or not they "like" each other. I am doing a horrible job explaining this...you'll just have to read about them to understand.

Even though I absolutely loved this book, so much so that I forcibly insisted that my sister(s) read it, there was one drawback for me as a reader. That drawback wold be that the first two chapters are a little on the slow side as the author sets the scene for the world in the book. While The Lazarus Machine is a little slow out the gate the rest of the book more than makes up for that because it is intense.

Final Verdict: The Lazarus Machine was an intensely unique read with two characters that I simply
adored.

My question to you is, have you read this amazing book? I want to heard your thoughts tell me if you have or why you now want to read it.

The Lazarus Machine earns 5 out of 5 pineapples.