We’re pleased to announce that Cherie Priest has returned to the Clockwork Century setting of her breakout novel, Boneshaker, with her most riveting novella yet.
The Ranger
On the island of Galveston, off the coast of southeast Texas, lies a hotel called the Jacaranda. In its single year of operation, two dozen people have died there. The locals say it’s cursed. The Rangers say that’s nonsense, but they know a man who might be willing to investigate. Horatio Korman crosses the water from the mainland, and hopes for the best.
The Nun
But the bodies pile up, and a hurricane is brewing up fast. One of the Jacaranda’s guests sees time running out, so she seeks an authority of a different sort: a priest from El Huizache who is good at solving problems and keeping secrets. Eileen Callahan has a problem to solve, and a secret to keep. She crosses her fingers, and sends a message that could save them all.
The Padre
Juan Miguel Quintero Rios broke a promise to the Virgin, and so he was punished…but his intentions were pure, so he was also blessed. Now he walks the southwest with second sight and a tattoo across his back: Deo, non Fortuna—By God, not chance. The former gunslinger crosses himself, and makes for the Jacaranda Hotel.
From Publishers Weekly:
“This gripping postscript to Priest’s Clockwork Century series (which officially concluded with Fiddlehead) takes readers to the titular Galveston, Tex., haunted hotel, in an alternate 1895 seasoned with ghosts and gears. Father Rios is a former gunslinger cursed with second sight and a dark past. When Sister Eileen contacts him about the dozens who have died in the hotel, he visits ahead of an impending hurricane and soon witnesses the horrors firsthand. Rios is a great protagonist, full of conflicts and doubts, and he drives the tale well. While the story stands on its own, it also provides some melancholy closure for fans of Priest’s earlier books.”
From Locus:
“In Jacaranda, set in Cherie Priest’s alternate version of late 1800s America – the one she set up in Boneshaker and has dipped back into successfully several times since – there is a hotel on Galveston Island that seems to be murdering its guests. What then unspools is a locked room horror mystery that has a little bit of The Shining and a little more Tarantino mixed in... Those who love a short spook or are Clockwork Century completists (or both, which might be a pretty big intersection on the Venn diagram) will love what Priest has done here.”
From RT Book Reviews:
"...The characters here are vivid and interesting enough that hopefully this particular adventure isn't the last we hear of them, or of the survivors at least."
From October Country:
“What you get…is a steady, insistent pulse-beat of dread. Priest does a good job of keeping the tension tight and the outcome in doubt, right up to the very end.”
From SanFrancisco Book Review:
“While other novels in Priest’s Clockwork Century series have dabbled in supernatural elements, Jacaranda is the first to go full bore and embrace the supernatural. It leaves behind much of the steampunk and pseudoscientific trappings that characterize the series, offering a cursed hotel and perils less tangible than sap-poisoned rotters and Civil War profiteers… A welcome new wrinkle in an established series, Jacaranda shows there’s plenty of life left in the Clockwork Century universe.”
- artists_list:
- Jon Foster
- authors_list:
- Cherie Priest
- book_edition:
- ebook
- book_type:
- Novella
- is_subpress:
- Yes
- print_status:
- In Print
- badge:
- eBook Edition
