Egan Bagley is a talented clockmaker who is about to create one of the most magnificent clocks the country has ever set eyes on, but after a visit from a gypsy selling him a bewitched bead, things are about to turn peculiar. With the magical powers of the four faced clock, the little gnome of a man plays havoc with time and is about to become one of the richest men in the city with upsetting consequences.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of the New York Times bestseller Homecoming—“An ambitious, compelling historical mystery with a fabulous cast of characters…Kate Morton at her very best.” —Kristin Hannah “An elaborate tapestry…Morton doesn’t disappoint.” —The Washington Post "Classic English country-house Goth at its finest." —New York Post In the depths of a 19th-century winter, a little girl is abandoned on the streets of Victorian London. She grows up to become in turn a thief, an artist’s muse, and a lover. In the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she travels with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a bend of the Upper Thames. Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. It is not until over a century later, when another young woman is drawn to Birchwood Manor, that its secrets are finally revealed. Told by multiple voices across time, this is an intricately layered, richly atmospheric novel about art and passion, forgiveness and loss, that shows us that sometimes the way forward is through the past.

The serial publication of The Clockmaker in 1835-36 launched Canadian judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton to literary fame. A broad satire with a garrulous, deceitful American clock-seller, Sam Slick, as its central character, the book was embraced by reviewers and readers internationally. Some Canadian reviewers were often less enthusiastic, however, with one calling Slick’s comical American slang “low, mean, miserable, and witless.” Almost two centuries later The Clockmaker is still central to Canadian literary history—and still highly controversial, particularly for its treatment of women and black Canadians. Richard A. Davies provides a nuanced and illuminating discussion of the controversies about The Clockmaker from 1835 to the present, and of the complex historical and political factors that led to its mixed reception. Historical documents include other writings and speeches by Haliburton, earlier satires of Canadian and American culture, and contemporary reviews.

The world is at war. And time is running out...