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The Time Corps Chronicles #2
Cat's Paw
Book 2 of The Time Corps Chronicles
Time Travelers aren't born. They're made.
Determined to return a twenty-first-century woman to her own world, Professor Seamus Connor has spent six long years-since 1857-in his laboratory without success. Desperate to help her, he will do anything...even team up with his worst enemy.
In a country torn apart by the Civil War, Seamus's young ward, Hazel, tries to make a life for herself in New Orleans. She has the chance at a happy, stable life, but a promise from a man from the future proves too tempting to resist.
Long before he worked with the Time Corps, Neil Grey had another job, one that used all his cunning, strength and ingenuity. It was good work, or so he always believed. But the more he learns, the more he discovers that he might be a cat's paw: a tool used by another.
Together, they travel from a world ruled by science and reason into one of bizarre impossibilities. Inhabited by mythical ships and people who are not what they appear to be, in this world the fantastical is real and reality is never what it seems.
Time Travelers aren't born. They're made.
Determined to return a twenty-first-century woman to her own world, Professor Seamus Connor has spent six long years-since 1857-in his laboratory without success. Desperate to help her, he will do anything...even team up with his worst enemy.
In a country torn apart by the Civil War, Seamus's young ward, Hazel, tries to make a life for herself in New Orleans. She has the chance at a happy, stable life, but a promise from a man from the future proves too tempting to resist.
Long before he worked with the Time Corps, Neil Grey had another job, one that used all his cunning, strength and ingenuity. It was good work, or so he always believed. But the more he learns, the more he discovers that he might be a cat's paw: a tool used by another.
Together, they travel from a world ruled by science and reason into one of bizarre impossibilities. Inhabited by mythical ships and people who are not what they appear to be, in this world the fantastical is real and reality is never what it seems.
311 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2013
16 people are currently reading
386 people want to read
About the author
Heather Blackwood
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Heather Blackwood is an American author of urban and historical fantasy, steampunk and mystery. Her books include Hounds of Autumn and the Time Corps Chronicles.
She enjoys playing Celtic harp, writing and reading historical fiction, fantasy, mystery and science fiction. Her obsessions include historic cemeteries, cuckoo clocks, tea, nesting dolls, old books, time travel and stained glass.
She graduated with a BA in literature with a minor in history. She has worked as a high school English teacher, a marketing copy editor, technical editor and an engineering technical writer at a Fortune 500 company. She is now a full-time novelist.
www.heatherblackwood.com
Follow me on Bookbub:
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/heath...
Follow me on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Heather-Blackw...
Heather Blackwood is an American author of urban and historical fantasy, steampunk and mystery. Her books include Hounds of Autumn and the Time Corps Chronicles.
She enjoys playing Celtic harp, writing and reading historical fiction, fantasy, mystery and science fiction. Her obsessions include historic cemeteries, cuckoo clocks, tea, nesting dolls, old books, time travel and stained glass.
She graduated with a BA in literature with a minor in history. She has worked as a high school English teacher, a marketing copy editor, technical editor and an engineering technical writer at a Fortune 500 company. She is now a full-time novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 7, 2013
Like the Mysterious Cathedral of its Predecessor
Have you ever seen one of those Mechanical Theatres. The clockwork gadgets that look un-opposing but then open up to present an entire dancing/singing/whatever menagerie. Like the Cathedral of the first Time Core book. (The singing small world looking thing that welcomes you to Duloc in the first Shrek movie.)
That's what the Time Core series is turning out to be like. Clockwork Cathedral is that door, the shell. In Cat's paw it begins to open up.
Cat's paw opens with Seamus O'Conner in his lab almost a shell of a man. He has been working himself to death for six years trying to create a time/space portal so he can rescue Felicia Sanchez. Which he does in less of a "EUREKA!" and more of a "We'll explain this to you when you're older." That is he creates a portal, not so much 'rescue.'
We meet Neil grey in clockwork he is enigmatic, collected and mysterious. Not to mention totally in control.
We meet him again in Cat's Paw. He is the preternaturally dismissible 'Man in black' mysterious, but having a bit of an identity crisis. He clearly shows the beginnings of that man but early on we learn that he isn't, not yet. This is a much younger grey. We are further in the timberline of Seamus, Kate, Hazel and Mrs. Washington but back in his own. As he grows over the course of the novel he proves impetuous, stubborn and hot headed but fiercely loyal.
We also begin to see into the world of the mysterious watchers who meddled a tiny bit in book one but become a full-fledged force in book two. It all starts with the mysterious Miss Wilde a black woman not only surviving in the white world of the old south but leading, something, seemingly by the power of her apple pie and commanding presence.
All that of course happens but the novel really feels more like it was called "Hazel's story." She starts the story as a confused young woman and ends it as a self-confident, commanding woman (Still pretty young.) I have a lot less specific to say about Hazel partially because so much happens to and around her. In fact even most of the stuff that doesn't have anything to do with her seems to revolve around her.
Take a solid helping of Clockwork Cathedral. Add a Void Wyrm, a mysterious cat, 'The Twelve,' and a grumpy (but exceedingly cool) Norse ship; shake well, garnish with pirates and talking monkeys and you have Cat's Paw.
Have you ever seen one of those Mechanical Theatres. The clockwork gadgets that look un-opposing but then open up to present an entire dancing/singing/whatever menagerie. Like the Cathedral of the first Time Core book. (The singing small world looking thing that welcomes you to Duloc in the first Shrek movie.)
That's what the Time Core series is turning out to be like. Clockwork Cathedral is that door, the shell. In Cat's paw it begins to open up.
Cat's paw opens with Seamus O'Conner in his lab almost a shell of a man. He has been working himself to death for six years trying to create a time/space portal so he can rescue Felicia Sanchez. Which he does in less of a "EUREKA!" and more of a "We'll explain this to you when you're older." That is he creates a portal, not so much 'rescue.'
We meet Neil grey in clockwork he is enigmatic, collected and mysterious. Not to mention totally in control.
We meet him again in Cat's Paw. He is the preternaturally dismissible 'Man in black' mysterious, but having a bit of an identity crisis. He clearly shows the beginnings of that man but early on we learn that he isn't, not yet. This is a much younger grey. We are further in the timberline of Seamus, Kate, Hazel and Mrs. Washington but back in his own. As he grows over the course of the novel he proves impetuous, stubborn and hot headed but fiercely loyal.
We also begin to see into the world of the mysterious watchers who meddled a tiny bit in book one but become a full-fledged force in book two. It all starts with the mysterious Miss Wilde a black woman not only surviving in the white world of the old south but leading, something, seemingly by the power of her apple pie and commanding presence.
All that of course happens but the novel really feels more like it was called "Hazel's story." She starts the story as a confused young woman and ends it as a self-confident, commanding woman (Still pretty young.) I have a lot less specific to say about Hazel partially because so much happens to and around her. In fact even most of the stuff that doesn't have anything to do with her seems to revolve around her.
Take a solid helping of Clockwork Cathedral. Add a Void Wyrm, a mysterious cat, 'The Twelve,' and a grumpy (but exceedingly cool) Norse ship; shake well, garnish with pirates and talking monkeys and you have Cat's Paw.
December 9, 2013
Cat's Paw continues the story from The Clockwork Cathedral and it is an excellent second book in the series.
A lot of time travels, character development, a touch of magic and an end with more open questions.
Fortunately book three - Luna Park - is available and I own a copy :-) ....
A lot of time travels, character development, a touch of magic and an end with more open questions.
Fortunately book three - Luna Park - is available and I own a copy :-) ....
December 6, 2016
Well, a drakkar... with monkeys as crewmembers... and it folds in a cloth when you don't need it... What can I say? Superb!
May 15, 2015
A Viking ship crewed with monkeys? Seriously?
August 20, 2017
I have decided to give up on this series.
It's not bad, per se- it's just complicated in the ways that time travel tends to be. My problem with time travel is that it makes plotting arbitrary; if anything can happen at any time, there's not a plot there. And unfortunately, attempts to put limits on time travel seem just as arbitrary.
In this series in particular, I did not see a coherent system in which the various time- and alternate-world traveling could go on. Why some things worked and some did not seemed to be driven entirely by the requirements of the plot, and not by any underlying structure of the universe.
...And this made aspects of the plot arbitrary instead of coherent to the plot(s).
This being said, this book- #2 in the series- is more coherent than #1 was... but not enough so to make me finish #2 or read #3.
Not recommended.
It's not bad, per se- it's just complicated in the ways that time travel tends to be. My problem with time travel is that it makes plotting arbitrary; if anything can happen at any time, there's not a plot there. And unfortunately, attempts to put limits on time travel seem just as arbitrary.
In this series in particular, I did not see a coherent system in which the various time- and alternate-world traveling could go on. Why some things worked and some did not seemed to be driven entirely by the requirements of the plot, and not by any underlying structure of the universe.
...And this made aspects of the plot arbitrary instead of coherent to the plot(s).
This being said, this book- #2 in the series- is more coherent than #1 was... but not enough so to make me finish #2 or read #3.
Not recommended.
May 3, 2024
The professor and his friends discover lots more about the time machine, and the multiverse that it lives in while trying to get two of them back to their original times and universes. Good stuff - enjoyed reading.
August 3, 2018
I liked this book.
The writing was beautiful and you fell for the characters right away. The story ends, but does leave the door open for more books. I would recommend this book.
The writing was beautiful and you fell for the characters right away. The story ends, but does leave the door open for more books. I would recommend this book.
April 5, 2020
Fun
What a new way to view time travel and such fun characters to get to know. Good action and story line to puzzle out in the book.
What a new way to view time travel and such fun characters to get to know. Good action and story line to puzzle out in the book.
September 7, 2014
Im ersten Teil ging es mehr um den Professor und Felicia - im zweiten stehen Hazel und Mr. Neil Grey im Vordergrund.
Sechs Jahre nachdem Felicia in die falsche Zukunft geschickt wurde, kommen die Dinge wieder in Gang. Neil Grey arbeitet als angeheuerter Mörder für einen mr. March. Er reist durch Zeiten und Universen und bringt Menschen um, die ansonsten vom Gesetz verschont blieben - zum Beispiel Hazels Onkel, den Kinderschänder. Aber nachdem Neil einige Fragen zu viel gestellt hat, bemerkt er, dass nicht alle Menschen so schlecht sind, wie Mr. March behauptet und er versucht seinem Arbeitgeber zu entkommen.
Dabei lernt er Hazel kennen.
Die Geschichte ist ein Kaleidoskop an unterschiedlichen Strängen - ähnlich der vielen Paralleluniversen. Zu dem typischen Steam-Punk Merkmalen kommen dieses Mal noch magische Elemente, von denen ich nicht weiß, ob ich sie mag oder albern finde. Aber letztendlich ist das Buch spannend.
Es ist eine andere Art von Geschichte, wie ich sie sonst mag, aber man soll ja öfter mal über sein Universum hinausschauen.
Sechs Jahre nachdem Felicia in die falsche Zukunft geschickt wurde, kommen die Dinge wieder in Gang. Neil Grey arbeitet als angeheuerter Mörder für einen mr. March. Er reist durch Zeiten und Universen und bringt Menschen um, die ansonsten vom Gesetz verschont blieben - zum Beispiel Hazels Onkel, den Kinderschänder. Aber nachdem Neil einige Fragen zu viel gestellt hat, bemerkt er, dass nicht alle Menschen so schlecht sind, wie Mr. March behauptet und er versucht seinem Arbeitgeber zu entkommen.
Dabei lernt er Hazel kennen.
Die Geschichte ist ein Kaleidoskop an unterschiedlichen Strängen - ähnlich der vielen Paralleluniversen. Zu dem typischen Steam-Punk Merkmalen kommen dieses Mal noch magische Elemente, von denen ich nicht weiß, ob ich sie mag oder albern finde. Aber letztendlich ist das Buch spannend.
Es ist eine andere Art von Geschichte, wie ich sie sonst mag, aber man soll ja öfter mal über sein Universum hinausschauen.
June 4, 2015
This sequel feels a little more "scattered" than the first book, largely because it follows so many different plot threads. Then there's the fact that each character has their own "timeline," which jumps around a lot in time, so one character may meet another character for the first time at a completely different place their individual timelines. For example, in the first book, pre-teen Hazel met 40-year-old Neil Gray, and he already had memories of her; but when young adult Hazel meets young adult Neil in *this* book, she has memories of a much-older him, but he has none of her. It's all very wibbly wobbly timey wimey.
That said, this is still a pretty fun adventure, with a lot of character development for Neil and Hazel. And we do get more information about the shadowy time-spanning plot. But to some extent, this book has the main characters from the previous book (Felicia and Seamus) just spinning their wheels. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first book, so I'm giving it 3.75 stars.
November 7, 2014
Book 2 of the Time Corps Chronicles, “Cat’s Paw,” picks up where “The Clockwork Cathedral” ends. True, Seamus has spent the last six years working on returning Ms. Sanchez to her time. But with the back and forth of time travel, one doesn’t get the sense that any time has been edited out.
It was a fun adventure and introduces a new hub world with magical ships and talking monkeys. There is a bit more complexity in this go around and one should pay attention to the chapter dates and location as to not get lost.
Blackwood pulls the curtain back a bit on Mr. Grey and Mr. March as well as shines a spotlight on Hazel.
Grey and Hazel become travel companion and The Twelve make an important appearance. This is a fun continuation of the characters and if you liked the first book, you should enjoy this installment
Read November 2014: Kindle freebie.
Comment Comment | Permalink
It was a fun adventure and introduces a new hub world with magical ships and talking monkeys. There is a bit more complexity in this go around and one should pay attention to the chapter dates and location as to not get lost.
Blackwood pulls the curtain back a bit on Mr. Grey and Mr. March as well as shines a spotlight on Hazel.
Grey and Hazel become travel companion and The Twelve make an important appearance. This is a fun continuation of the characters and if you liked the first book, you should enjoy this installment
Read November 2014: Kindle freebie.
Comment Comment | Permalink
March 11, 2014
The first book in this series was really great. I thought this book 2 would also be great. I was disappointed because it had a lot of HOW they time traveled and that was about it. It kept going into very detailed ways of a machine- for most of the chapters. There was a little mystery added. A it did have a little about the relationships, but not much. In fact, the relationships went dry- no where. For me...it got a little carried away with talking monkeys, talking ships, & things that I, personally don't care for. Too farfetched for my taste.
January 12, 2015
This was an interesting book, taking time travel to new heights. I loved that it had not only time travel, but travel to different worlds with new explanations to how it works. The idea of "The Time Corps" who are watchers of time is interesting too. Hazel became a greater character along with Mr. Grey. They went on their own travels and adventures. I love the concept of time travel and all its possibilities. This series is fun, and has so many options for future books. Can't wait to read the next book in the series.
February 9, 2015
I really liked this second book in the Time Corps series. "Cat's Paw" continues our story where "Clockwork Cathedral" left off. The author paints a great picture of parallel worlds where things are off just enough to tell them apart. Great time traveling fun. No sexual content and no swearing, I can recommend for teens and up. You need to read the first one if you don't want to be lost in this one. I give it four stars and will be starting book three right away.
September 3, 2015
Just as good as the first book. For me, the first 2 books aren't very fast paced. Good story but it's more of a lazy read. Cat's Paw had some surprisingly fun ideas with the ship and the monkeys. I loved how it went more into Neil's story and it explained the time corps in more detail. Now with more characters introduced, it makes me want to read the next book even more! Definitely a series I will continue.
July 18, 2016
The second novel in the Time Corps Chronicles was so much more exciting than the first novel, and the pieces are beginning to fall together. I loved getting to know the characters better and learning how their lives intertwine with each other. I can't wait to read of their further adventures.
July 19, 2016
More entertaining than the first time corps book. More polished and intriguing. I have 3 more books in my library and will be reading number 3 soon
December 16, 2013
An interesting time travel story with a bit of romance and a bit of skulduggery.
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never-read
April 5, 2019Read the first book in the Time Corps Chronicles, The Clockwork Cathedral. 1 Star, therefore will not continue with the series.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews