A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones

Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist-30 million kruge!-Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. In all, a spirited, funny, and entertaining story.Īdolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age. Meanwhile, the book bounces merrily along, gathering momentum and generating dramatic tension. While time-twisters never bear much scrutiny, Jones manages to resolve paradoxes and scattered clues without leaving the reader feeling cheated. As in earlier books such as Howl's Moving Castle, there is never a dull moment, with a new crisis or a new twist at every turn.

Aided by grouchy Tutor Wilander, android Elio, and a mysterious woman who saves Jonathan's life, they unmask Vivian Lee and her parents as the villians, reunite the pieces of Faber John and the pieces of the polarity, and save the city. The three bounce back and forth in time, trying to discover who is stealing the polarities, hidden by mysterious creator Faber John, that keep Time City whole. Convinced of their mistake, they pass Vivian off as cousin Vivian Lee. Jonathan and his friend Sam explain that they had mistaken Vivian for the Time Lady, a mythical heroine or destroyer-their eavesdropping got muddled-who may be the cause of the deterioration of Time City.

Vivian Smith has gone to the West Country to escape the bombing of London at the beginning of WW II when she is unexpectedly met by imperious Jonathan Lee and whisked to Time City, which stands on its own piece of recycled time. Eleven-year-old Vivian, kidnapped to far-distant future Time City by mistake, proves to be one of the City's saviors.

A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones