A review by thebooktrail88
The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

 

I immediately feel as if I want to list the ways I love this novel.

A novel set on board the Trans Siberian Express

A steampunk fantasy

An alternative, dark yet magical, Victorian world

This book has changed and altered me in ways I can’t yet tell. I feel different having read it and that might be because of the magic within. Let me explain:

Picture yourself on board this very mystical and magical train. You fly past the landscape between Bejing and Moscow so you can imagine the scenery and the distance. A wonderful journey from the start. However, this is no ordinary journey – it’s fraught with danger and strange other-worldly things. There are walls at the start and end of the track and along the way the train is protected by outside forces. Certain cities are protected by giant walls and there is a distinct difference between outsiders and insiders.

Now this is where you can read so much more into the novel than first appears – walls being built to keep people out of a country for starters. Then there’s the idea of belonging to another territory and what happens when that link breaks. What about the walls and barriers we can’t see?

Even with those serious layers, there is nothing heavy about this book. There’s nods to Agatha Christie’s Orient Express and I got Night Circus vibes too given the world building and the link between the real world and that which we cannot see.

I enjoyed every magical part of this book but the setting – oh the setting!- was out of this world. I want to go to the Wastelands and board that train. It lives on in my mind but I have been back many times in my dreams.

That’s when you know a book has you hooked!