Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes

 Review: I am rendered speechless.

But considering this is a written review, I should probably try to put my cartwheeling thoughts into some semblance of order. I opened this book and stepped into a world as magical as the one I passed through when I ducked under the snowy branches with Lucy as she entered Narnia for the first time. This is a world where an old clockmaker weaves tales in the sky and lights passion and questioning wonder into two young souls. He paints stories in their hearts and onto their memories, that for the time being, are wonderful adventures but merely stories meant to pass the evenings by. 

Until one day, when the fires of the old clockmaker's hearth have long grown cold and his tools have gathered cobwebs, do the two souls meet again....drawn together by the stories that were merely stories... or were they? A genius of the stars and a sleuth of the deep, these two hearts from worlds apart join their hands and minds as they begin putting together the pieces of a secret long held.... A secret as magical and terrible, as exciting as it was ancient, and as healing as it is difficult. A secret in a story as truthful as it is fantastical....

This is a story that will settle deep into your mind and settle forever into your thoughts. It is a story that, long after you have flipped the last pages, your mind will return to in fond remembrance and brushes of awe, a story that will, I think....never quite finish. 

A hundred stars, Amanda Dykes. Bravo. 

Thank-you to Graf Martin Communications and to Baker Publishing House for a copy of "Set the Stars Alight"

Back Cover: In an aged brick cottage in London, the magic of the past comes alive each night for the family of a humble watchmaker. In her father's fireside stories, Lucy Claremont's fascination with the high seas begins, leading her to devote her life's work to discovering the whereabouts of a legendary lost ship. But when tragedy strikes, it's childhood friend Dashel and his knowledge of the stars that may help her solve the puzzle.

Two hundred years earlier, three young lives are altered forever when a shepherd rescues the privileged son of a powerful admiral. As the children grow, war leads to unthinkable heartbreak, deep love, and a story of betrayal, sacrifice, and redemption that fades into obscurity as centuries pass.

As Lucy and Dash explore mysterious ruins on the East Sussex coast, their search leads them to a community of souls and a long-hidden tale that may hold the answers--and the healing--they so desperately seek.