Oddity

The daughter of a murdered physician vows to protect the magical Oddity he left behindif only she knew what it wasin an alternate nineteenth century where the United States is at war with France. Its the early 1800s, and Clover travels the impoverished borderlands of the Unified States with her father, a physician. See to the body before you, he teaches her, but Clover cant help becoming distracted by bigger things, including the coming war between the US and France, ignited by a failed Louisiana Purchase, and the terrifying vermin, cobbled together from dead animals and spare parts, who patrol the woods. Most of all, she is consumed with interest for Oddities, ordinary objects with extraordinary abilities, such as a Teapot that makes endless amounts of tea and an Ice Hook that freezes everything it touches. Clovers father has always disapproved of Oddities, but when he is murdered, Clover embarks on a perilous mission to protect the one secret Oddity he left behind. And as she uncovers the truth about her parents and her past, Clover emerges as a powerful agent of history. Here is an action-filled American fantasy of alternate history to rival the great British fantasies in ideas and scope.

Despite Clover's victory over the destructive Seamstress, war continues to rage between the fledgling Unified States and Napoléon Bonaparte. Clover and Nessa, former snake-oil salesgirl, join the Women's Service League expecting to dole out soup and socks to invalids and orphans. Instead, under the direction of the wealthy and mysterious Miss Yamada, they're tasked with rooting out the last of the pestilential Vermin, vicious creatures animated by magic, such as squirrel skins stuffed with nails, who have been terrorizing the countryside. But when the group is attacked by a new kind of monster, a sharp-toothed harehound with bloodshot eyes, they discover a much greater threat lurks: the grotesque Underking and his army of twisted creatures. With the help of a Paper-Doll Witch, an elegantly dressed skeleton, a girl bearing a Quilt with threatening properties, and Susanna the bad-tempered Doll, Clover and Nessa must defeat the Underking before he conquers the whole land. This follow-up to “Oddity” is a wildly imaginative and engrossing dark fantasy set in an alternate American past.