In 1883, Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a gold pocketwatch on his
pillow. But he has worse fears than generous burglars; he is a telegraphist at the Home
Office, which has just received a threat for what could be the largest-scale Fenian
bombing in history.
When the watch saves Thaniel’s life in a blast that destroys Scotland Yard, he goes in
search of its maker, Keita Mori – a kind, lonely immigrant who sweeps him into a new
world of clockwork and music. Although Mori seems harmless at first, a chain of
unexpected slips soon proves that he must be hiding something.
Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into an Oxford library dressed as a man. A
theoretical physicist, she is desperate to prove the existence of the luminiferous ether
before her mother can force her to marry.
As the lives of these three characters become entwined, events spiral out of control until
Thaniel is torn between loyalties, futures and opposing geniuses.
Utterly beguiling, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street blends historical events with
dazzling flights of fancy to plunge readers into a strange and magical past, where time,
destiny, genius – and a clockwork octopus – collide.
Sales and Marketing Highlights
Utterly beguiling and magnificently realised, The Watchmaker of Filigree
Street is a charming and inventive debut literary fantasy that blends historical
events with dazzling flights of fancy to plunge readers into a magical past,
where time, destiny, genius – and a clockwork octopus – collide.
A must-read for fans of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, The Miniaturist,
Robin Hobb, as well as Phillip Pullman, David Mitchell and the offbeat magic
of Neil Gaiman
Twenty-six-year-old Pulley features real nineteenth-century events (the
bombing of Scotland Yard, the Japanese show village in Kensington,
tensions in civil war Japan), and real scientific ideas of the time, and weaves
them around her own magic

About the Author

Natasha Pulley studied English Literature at Oxford University. After stints working at Waterstones as a bookseller, then at Cambridge University Press as a publishing assistant in the astronomy and maths departments, she did the Creative Writing MA at UEA. She has recently returned from Tokyo, where she lived for nineteen months on a scholarship from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is her first novel.