Steeplejack (Steeplejack #1) in SpecFic Buddy Reads

Jun 05, 2016 Lindsay rated it really liked it

Anglet is a third daughter from a family of the Lani people, poor immigrants who live in shanties at the edge of the industrial city of Bar-Selehm. A third daughter to the Lani is a curse, but Ang spends her life defying that label. She's a seventeen-year old steeplejack, older than they usually get, and a woman besides. When the boy who was supposed to be her new apprentice is found dead, she can't help but feel responsible because the boy has literally no-one else that cares about what happene Anglet is a third daughter from a family of the Lani people, poor immigrants who live in shanties at the edge of the industrial city of Bar-Selehm. A third daughter to the Lani is a curse, but Ang spends her life defying that label. She's a seventeen-year old steeplejack, older than they usually get, and a woman besides. When the boy who was supposed to be her new apprentice is found dead, she can't help but feel responsible because the boy has literally no-one else that cares about what happened to him. So she tries to find out, at first tentatively, but then she gets a job offer from a mysterious young politician to do a paid investigation.

This is against the backdrop of Bar-Selehm, a city that's very much a fantasy analogue of South Africa, with the Feldish, a white colonist population with most of the power and money, and the indigenous black people, the Mahweni, undergoing some extreme cultural shifts between city-living Mahweni and "unassimilated" tribesmen. The Lani are a third people, also dark-skinned, and a minority descended from indentured servants of the Feldish. Although the city is increasingly egalitarian, racial tensions abound. The racial tensions are critical to the book with the theft of an important artifact being the key to escalating problems, and it appears that the death of Ang's boy is linked to that theft.

The world-building here is excellent and an interesting alternative to actual South African history. Ang's character flows through all of this with the invincibility of youth, but at the same time she has a vulnerability because she worries that she really does have no place in the world and that she really is a curse on her friends and family. That latter issue gives her an incredible drive to protect them, both in terms of her immediate family and anyone she claims as her own. And that lends the latter parts of the book even more poignancy.

The mystery is also well done, or at least as well done as a non-mystery reader finds it. There are times where it's not entirely clear to me why Ang has chosen a line of investigation only to later find that line of investigation was critical. That feels a little like the character being led by the plot rather than the other way around. But that's a minor nitpick. Ang is brilliant, and that comes across well in the text, although her brilliance gets her into several situations of peril where perhaps she hadn't thought everything through. She is seventeen after all.

This seems like it's going to be an ongoing series, and I would be quite interested in following more, particularly with following the secondary characters like the newspaper girl, the tribal boy who might be Ang's love interest in latter books and also the politician's sister who made for a fun character in this one.

Highly recommended. ...more

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May 08, 2016 Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller rated it really liked it

[Dual Review - Both 4/5 stars]

Steeplejack and Firebrand [click here for a US & Canada GIVEAWAY of both titles] were two of the most unique books I’ve ever read – the type of stories that continue to resonate long after you finish them!

The books were successful on several accounts. The “whodunit” detective mystery was engaging, made all the more compelling by Anglet’s (the main character) personal stake in solving the crime. Her involvement felt more organic than not, and the passages dedicated t ...more

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Jul 29, 2016 Robyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016

This was a slow-starter for me, but once it got moving, it was wonderful. Set in a lightly fictionalised 19th-century/early 20th century South Africa, it features a wonderful heroine, and an engaging mystery.

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Jun 02, 2016 Helen rated it really liked it

This was a pleasant surprise; I started it on impulse and it was nothing like any expectations that I may have had.

Ang is a steeplejack, she works for a shady gang repairing steeples, cleaning chimneys and other, more illegal, activities. Ang is unusual in that not only is she a girl but she's older than most of her 'colleagues', so far surviving the daily danger of working at such heights. The job is dangerous but as Ang says climbing up an extra fifty feet becomes irrelevant after a certain h ...more

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