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I started this book with great expectation having heard so much about Pullman and his His Dark Materials books. Besides it is set in Victorian London and I love those stories.Have you ever heard the phrase The Seven Blessings? That question causes a man to die of shock, and propels Sally Lockhart into a desperate adventure that will expose the deepest secrets of the corrupt and murderous opium trade. Sally is sixteen when the story begins, orphaned and alone. She's had an unconventional educatio...
Actual rating 3.5/5 stars.This is the first instalment in the Sally Lockhart quartet, which is a Victorian-era series following amateur sleuth, Sally Lockhart, as she attempts to solve the mysteries of London's dark underbelly, as well as those muddying her own past.I really enjoyed putting my observation skills to the test, along with protagonist Sally, and getting an introduction to the other memorable characters that joined in with her detecting. This novel provided a pretty vast cast, but al...
You know this smart and swiftly paced Victorian mystery is written for young adults, right? You know that doesn't mean dumbed down or raw, but rather that it should not be cluttered up with obtrusive literariness or head-scratching ephemera. You say that Pullman struggles with figurative language and that he doesn't find his own voice and I have to say... what exactly do you mean by 'figurative language' and how is he struggling with it? I saw no such struggle and I read a very specific voice. P...
Sally Lockhart is an orphan during the 1879s in London. She begins to discover the truth about her father, while being menaced by some very creepy characters.I enjoyed this far more than the Golden Compass books, as the narrative wasn't marred by the high whine of Pullman's anti-Narnia axe being ground. The narrative voice dips into condescension here and there, but that actually fits period literature for younger readers, and the atmosphere of London's darker reaches was vivid and evocative.It
DNF 58%I had a really hard time trying to get into this book. What makes it more disappointing is that Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series is one of my all-time favourites. The book had all the right ingredients (a mystery set in Victorian London), but the end product did not add up. Plot The book follows Sally Lockhart, a sixteen year old girl, as she tries to uncover the mysteries surrounding her father's death. She also has to contend with individuals who have ulterior motives regardin...
I was supposed to review this after we'd read the entire series, but since I'm buddy reading it with boyfriend, I might go gray before we finish the series :DI suppose you could say I liked this book alright, but it doesn't hold a candle to The Big Series By The Genius That Is Pullman (you know which one I mean). The characters are written nicely, it reads fast and the intrigue is truly great. If I read this when I was a teen, I would have probably gobbled it up! But when you read something like...
I remember buying my copy of THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE at a B. Dalton bookstore in San Antonio, Texas. I liked the cover with the young girl in the cape holding something mysterious in a white handkerchief for a slightly creepy old woman to inspect. But, in the end, this was yet another example of a book I bought for the opening lines alone.On a cold, fretful afternoon in early October, 1872, a hansom cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby, Shipping Agents, in the financial heart of L...
Okay this was one of those titles I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get - and I must admit I was quite surprised and rather pleased.First of all lets get something out of the way - this is NOT His Dark Materials, this is a purely historical story set in and around London in the 1870s.That said what you have here is a historical thriller set in the sprawling city of London which would not be out of place in the pages of a Dickensian story or a tale from Arthur Conan Doyle. (Yes they represe...
I first stumbled on this as an audiobook, and decided to reread because I needed a book written by an author named "Philip" for a challenge. It was just as much fun as I remembered. Very different from Pullman's other, more famous series, this one is really a piece of Victorian pulp fiction. I will definitely be tracking down the sequels.
Truth be told, I expected something more, but it was nonetheless a truly enjoyable read.
I always find myself frustrated when authors can't seem to think of anything bad for their characters to overcome, and so they have to create some unbelievably vindictive and amoral villain just so there is some central conflict. The main character gets along with everyone and always finds satisfying solutions to any momentary setback.The only problems such super-protagonists can't solve are those which they don't yet know the details of, so Pullman gives us a faux-mystery to keep the character
I liked this book, yet, not as much as I expected. I was eager to read this book because I truly enjoyed the Shadow in the North some years ago, believing it was the first in the series and later I discovered there was a previous book.In her first adventure, Sally finds herself in the middle of a quite complicated situation involving murder, deceit, ambition and danger, but she also meets good friends and starts to develop her character and discovers that she is a strong girl who can help others...
i read this trilogy approximately 7.5 million times when i was younger. so good. and it taught me all i know about opium use. no kidding.
With a subtitle of "A Sally Lockhart Mystery," one might expect the first installment of said series to be about a girl who restores pinched puppies to their rightful dowdy owners. And you wouldn't be more wrong! The Ruby in the Smoke introduces Sally, a self-made woman already at 16 years old, with an accidental death and a call to action. Her father has died under mysterious circumstances, and it's up to her (and eventually a merry, ragtag band of comrades including an equally quickwitted youn...
I'm a big fan of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, so I thought I would give this a try. Heck, I even liked the Golden Compass movie (two words--Daniel Craig). This is what librarians call "young adult" literature i.e. "for teenagers." As such, I find it a bit disturbing. I'm a far cry from a book-burning censor but this heroine is not my idea of a role model. Set in Victorian London, Sally Lockhart is an orphan (of course)who falls in with a Dickensian cast of characters to solve her father...
Hold your horses, everyone, the twenty-something nostalgia has set in. I’m noticing a couple of good, classic books for youngsters working their way back under my fictional radar in the last few months. I read Ruby in the Smoke when I was about twelve or thirteen, probably lured by the promise of Victorians, intrigue and lady-heroes who are good at accountancy. (I was that kind of child. My private games tended to involve a pencil and paper and the question “How would I run this as a self-suppo...
I'm a big fan of 'His Dark Materials' and 'Ruby in the Smoke' is set in a similar Victorian world, but without the steampunk or magical elements. It's a murder mystery where teenage orphan Sally Lockhart searches for her father's killer and tries to discover his connection to the Ruby of the title and the significance of his last warning to her - 'Beware the seven blessings.' At around 200 pages it was a quick read. The writing is not quite as sophisticated as 'His Dark Materials', but is still
The final outstanding category in my book bingo for the year was to read the first book by a favourite author. Looking over the books I have logged on my Goodreads account, Pullman was up there. I don’t have one favourite author but loved the 'Northern Lights' trilogy. Having read 'The Ruby in the Smoke' frequently when I was growing up, I thought it was high time to revisit that feeling of youthfulness!I think this book, the start of a four-part series (reviews to be following soon), are an ide...
Philip Pullman might have the biggest pair of balls in YA Lit. In my first foray into Pullman's work, he killed God and encouraged teen sex to heal the world. In The Ruby In The Smoke: A Sally Lockhart Mystery, his teenage heroine is encouraged to use drugs to fill in the plot-holes of her life, and she shoots and kills an evil pirate, with a gun she had locked and loaded in her handbag. Lolz - love it!The setting of The Ruby... is perhaps my favorite setting ever: Victorian London. The East End...
This was well written and had impressively subtle world building and characterization. The mystery was a bit complicated, but not confusing. There was a huge tone shift from beginning, which felt almost like a cozy mystery, to the end, which felt bleak, gritty and hopeless.