Colleen Mondor Reviews Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson and The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk
Midnight at the Houdini, Delilah S. Dawson (Delacorte 978-0593486795, $18.99, hc, 357pp) September 2023. Cover by Aurelie Maron.
Initially, Delilah S. Dawson’s Midnight at the Houdini is all about 16-year-old Anna Alonso’s very stressed-out day. Her beloved older sister is getting married, and because no one else in her family seems to worry about details to the degree that Anna does, she has organized the whole thing. While checking the clock, the caterers, the music, and her endlessly feuding parents, Anna finds out that her sister will not be settling down at home in Las Vegas after her honeymoon, but rather moving to New York City into a new apartment bought by their wealthy hotelier father and thus thousands of miles from Anna. She is losing her best friend and no one, especially her father, seems to understand why this is so tragic. Then, as she is leaving the wedding, a tornado hits the city and with debris flying, Anna, her father, and his two loathsome business partners must take refuge in their least appealing property: the Houdini. For those familiar with Alice in Wonderland, this would be the moment that Anna falls down the rabbit hole.
Anna runs into the hotel first and is immediately separated from the others. She can’t find any employees inside, the elevator appears to have a mind of its own and the hallway is, as Dawson puts it, ‘‘like something out of a horror movie.’’ Fortunately, she stumbles into fantastic library and finds Max, who lives in the Houdini and proceeds to tell her an outrageous tale about how it is a magic place which provides everything you need (like food and clothing), unless it thinks you need something else (it has a bit of a mind of its own), or if Max’s controlling mother demands that you should be treated in a certain way (ominous music would play at this moment if we were watching a movie). But just like Alice had to survive the Queen of Hearts’s murderous fury, the Houdini also has a terrifying downside. Checkout is at midnight – and at that moment, Anna will turn into one of the ghostly figures that populate the background of the hotel’s bar, restaurant, and ballroom. She will forever be trapped there but also, in every way that matters, not there. It’s a grim future awaiting her unless Anna can figure out the source of the Houdini’s magic and break free.
The journey through the halls and rooms of the Houdini is very Wonderland-esque with meetings with odd individuals, rooms that hold a multitude of secrets, sudden trapdoors and passageways, and clues that never mean what they seem. But Dawson has also introduced a bit of noir into the narrative, with the business partners plotting against Anna’s father and the slow unspooling of the mystery that connects the men to the Houdini. Max has his own intriguing backstory (which holds secrets even he is not privy to) and as for his mother….well, you need to read all about Phoebe on your own to truly appreciate what is going on with her. (If you are a fan of Succession, you will appreciate Phoebe’s story.) Taking place over one long, wild, very nearly impossible day, Midnight at the Houdini has action and romance and plenty of magic, but what makes it work is the intricacy of a plot which just does not quit. I was also quite pleased to read something that, for all its nods to Lewis Carroll, stands out as a very unusual YA title. Dawson has crafted a trip into the surreal that will satisfy readers as Anna saves herself and finds the way to what matters most.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, Sean Lusk (Doubleday UK 978-0-8575-2805-6, £14.99, 353pp, hc) June 2022. (Union Square 978-0857528056, $17.99, tp, 368pp) December 2023.
Set in the mid-18th century, Sean Lusk’s The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is a sweeping novel about a London father and son separated by the shady world of international spies and political machinations. The fantasy twist comes in with young Zachary’s ability, which permits him, at the touch of a hand, to see through a person’s lies and also, sometimes, what will happen to them. There is plenty of story to be found in that ability, but Lusk accomplishes much more here, including a major plot point centered around the sale of automata to the Ottoman court in Constantinople.
The novel begins with Zachary’s difficult birth and the almost immediate death of his mother, the much-beloved wife of clockmaker and inventor Abel. Distraught over Alice’s death, Abel can barely imagine a life with his infant son. Zachary is thus initially cared for by a wet nurse with a baby of her own, and that is how Grace Morley and Leonora enter the narrative. Alice’s aunt, the wealthy Frances, is also devastated by the death of her niece and determined to take Zachary in and raise him as her own. Thus the book’s early chapters are full of people who love the baby and think they can best care for him. None of this will seem like a fantasy, but there are hints of something magical in Abel’s shop with the apprentices he employs to assist in creating his impressive machines. Then Zachary, as a young boy, loses an eye in a terrible accident. The replacement, fashioned by Tom, a talented female apprentice passing as male to maintain her independence, gives readers early glimpses of Zachary’s ‘‘gift.’’ As he ages, it becomes more powerful, and when his father is manipulated into creating a machine to spy on the Ottoman sultan for the British government, it is the gift that persuades him that a rescue is possible and sends Zachary on a grand adventure to save his father.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is a novel to sink into, a big story steeped in the atmosphere of London and Constantinople that includes details on the automata, which were a bit of a craze in the mid-1700s. The shifting family dynamics of the extended Cloudesley family, from the love between father and son, to the polite power struggles between Abel and Frances, and many complications of Frances and the Morleys, make for a warm balance to the rather terrifying world of clandestine spying that Abel is dragged into. Abel’s shop is a wonder, and Tom’s insistence on making her way as her own person, judged by the merits of her astonishing abilities, is also quite welcome. Lusk includes an author’s note on his historical research and also some bibliographic references, a short glossary, and historic maps, which all make for a richer understanding of the text. The compelling story will carry readers along with ease, however, as the characters move from London to the English countryside, across Europe and into Turkey and even the island of Lundy, in the Bristol Channel, where Grace and Leonora end up for a while. The details sparkle, the characters shine, and the settings are lush. Lusk has crafted a novel that will take you away to another place and time and also, yes, has a sweet happy ending (in Egypt!).
This review and more like it in the December and January 2023 issue of Locus.
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