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The Mapmaker's Daughter: A Steampunk Novel
A Steampunk Novel
Winner of the 2018 Realm Makers Award for YA Fiction
The Potato Famine is almost a decade behind young airship builder, Paddy O'Brien, but its effects still haunt him.
Then he finds his mother dead in the garden. But he has no time to investigate her murder, because a refugee falls from a strange airship, practically into his arms.
How did a gorgeous Asian woman ended up on the south coast of Ireland? Under usual circumstances, her company would be more than welcome. But she's being pursued by pirates, and Paddy's been drafted into a militia. These are anything but usual circumstances.
Winner of the 2018 Realm Makers Award for YA Fiction
The Potato Famine is almost a decade behind young airship builder, Paddy O'Brien, but its effects still haunt him.
Then he finds his mother dead in the garden. But he has no time to investigate her murder, because a refugee falls from a strange airship, practically into his arms.
How did a gorgeous Asian woman ended up on the south coast of Ireland? Under usual circumstances, her company would be more than welcome. But she's being pursued by pirates, and Paddy's been drafted into a militia. These are anything but usual circumstances.
- GenresSteampunk
369 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 20, 2018
Paddy O’Brien is going about his business when he discovers his mother lying in the garden with a knife in her back. He is quick to extract the knife and bury it. The only person he told was the constable. They decide not to tell anybody until they can discover who the murderer is. This scene sort of gets lost during the action of the book, but there’s a reason it happened like that.
Meanwhile, Paddy is trying to support the family. His mother is dead, his father abandoned the family years ago, he has two living siblings (others have died from sickness and starvation) and a family friend has moved in to help with his younger brothers, allowing him time to work in his shop. He has few friends because the majority of the townspeople think his father sold out his country to go fight for the queen.
This is Ireland at a time when the country is recovering from a famine and they are oppressed by the English. His father was considered a traitor and the townspeople held it against the family.
While he is out walking on the beach, he sees an airship that is in trouble and a woman parachute from it. He rushes into the water to help her. He’s never seen anything like her. She’s dressed in black with long black hair and she doesn’t speak his language. Paddy goes through the motions of introducing himself and gets her name from her. Akemi.
What he later finds out is that she is a refugee from Japan and she is being sought by a band of pirates who will stop at nothing to get her back. The emperor has promised a huge payout when she is returned. But she has to be alive.
Jun, a pirate slave, who poses as a boy, wants this treasure for herself. She’s determined to get away from the pirates and get Akemi back to Japan, no matter what the cost. She was sorely mistreated by the pirates and well, just about everybody because she wasn’t the most becoming in appearance. But she was smart. She knew several languages and served as in an interpreter for the pirate captain. She was clever enough to use that to her advantage. But she was also conniving and untrustworthy, which did not work out so well for Akemi.
I loved how all of the characters have their own part of the story and how it all came together in the end. Well done!
This is the first steampunk novel I’ve ever read. I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a really great story, packed full of emotion, political turmoil, friendship, love, and forgiveness. It’s a longer book, but I still had it read in a day. It was hard to put it down once I started it.
I so wanted to give it five stars, but it has some formatting problems at the beginning and needs another trip to the editor for some wrong word usage. However, the story is fantastic with great characters. I enjoyed this story very much.
*Reviewed for the Say What?? Book Club
Meanwhile, Paddy is trying to support the family. His mother is dead, his father abandoned the family years ago, he has two living siblings (others have died from sickness and starvation) and a family friend has moved in to help with his younger brothers, allowing him time to work in his shop. He has few friends because the majority of the townspeople think his father sold out his country to go fight for the queen.
This is Ireland at a time when the country is recovering from a famine and they are oppressed by the English. His father was considered a traitor and the townspeople held it against the family.
While he is out walking on the beach, he sees an airship that is in trouble and a woman parachute from it. He rushes into the water to help her. He’s never seen anything like her. She’s dressed in black with long black hair and she doesn’t speak his language. Paddy goes through the motions of introducing himself and gets her name from her. Akemi.
What he later finds out is that she is a refugee from Japan and she is being sought by a band of pirates who will stop at nothing to get her back. The emperor has promised a huge payout when she is returned. But she has to be alive.
Jun, a pirate slave, who poses as a boy, wants this treasure for herself. She’s determined to get away from the pirates and get Akemi back to Japan, no matter what the cost. She was sorely mistreated by the pirates and well, just about everybody because she wasn’t the most becoming in appearance. But she was smart. She knew several languages and served as in an interpreter for the pirate captain. She was clever enough to use that to her advantage. But she was also conniving and untrustworthy, which did not work out so well for Akemi.
I loved how all of the characters have their own part of the story and how it all came together in the end. Well done!
This is the first steampunk novel I’ve ever read. I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a really great story, packed full of emotion, political turmoil, friendship, love, and forgiveness. It’s a longer book, but I still had it read in a day. It was hard to put it down once I started it.
I so wanted to give it five stars, but it has some formatting problems at the beginning and needs another trip to the editor for some wrong word usage. However, the story is fantastic with great characters. I enjoyed this story very much.
*Reviewed for the Say What?? Book Club
June 30, 2019
This was an interesting concept with some good characters, but I feel like the plot could have been tightened up a bit. I don't know why there was so much focus on who killed Paddy's mother since he never really did much but wonder about it until almost the very end. It was set up like it was supposed to be one of the driving mysteries of the book, but I kept forgetting it was even a thing that happened until it was randomly brought up again. Akemi and Jun were both great characters though and I wish more of the focus had been on them because Paddy didn't really bring much at all to the plot in my opinion. Oh well, the worldbuilding with the map makers was interesting and it was nice to see a genderfluid character in Jun so there were some interesting bits.
March 5, 2021
Wow! This powerful novel took me by surprise at every turn. Paddy was such a sweetheart, and I was so fascinated by Akemi's powers as a mapmaker! I loved the steampunk elements wrapped in with Irish and Asian cultures, and the writing was absolutely beautiful. Highly recommended!
April 5, 2017
The Mapmaker's Daughter
This an amazing book. Is it possible to be in love with a story? If so, then I have fallen in love and can't get this story out of my heart. This book romance is pure bliss. Paddy, Akemi and Jun make me want to dance, take a trip to Ireland and wish I had extraordinary abilities. This is a story every boy and girl should read. We all need stories that help us escape our problems and transport us into a different time and place. Stories that let us know it is okay to dream and have hopes and stories where magic abounds and villians are slayed.
Yes, those magnificent stories that leap off the page and capture your heart. The Mapmaker's Daughter is that story. I didn't want to leave this story. I wanted it to keep going on and on. Joanna Emerson you are right, Jun needs her own story.
I'm in awe. This book was superb and made me happy that I am a reader. I feel like I just had my favorite piece of pie and all I can say is it was good, very good.
This an amazing book. Is it possible to be in love with a story? If so, then I have fallen in love and can't get this story out of my heart. This book romance is pure bliss. Paddy, Akemi and Jun make me want to dance, take a trip to Ireland and wish I had extraordinary abilities. This is a story every boy and girl should read. We all need stories that help us escape our problems and transport us into a different time and place. Stories that let us know it is okay to dream and have hopes and stories where magic abounds and villians are slayed.
Yes, those magnificent stories that leap off the page and capture your heart. The Mapmaker's Daughter is that story. I didn't want to leave this story. I wanted it to keep going on and on. Joanna Emerson you are right, Jun needs her own story.
I'm in awe. This book was superb and made me happy that I am a reader. I feel like I just had my favorite piece of pie and all I can say is it was good, very good.
September 22, 2020
First off, major kudos to the author for meshing together Irish and Asian themes into a comprehensive world. It works just as beautifully as the fusion of the American West with China in Firefly. This book is a delight for fans of steampunk because there's an airship, which gives the world a slightly mechanical feel even though parts remain antiquated. Also, there's not only adventure but also murder. It took me a few chapters to get anchored in the plot, but once the book grabbed me, it didn't let go.
March 24, 2017
What does FEAR smell like? How about FORGIVENESS?
The Mapmaker's Daughter is fantastic! A masterpiece and instant classic! This is one of those stories that has it all. Adventure, magic, romance, betrayal, action, and surprises! It needs to be a movie! Seriously, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, please pick this up and turn it into an awesome anime!
Joanna Emerson has a way with words for sure. She's poetic and descriptive, which is what I want when I read fantasy and/or steampunk. Five big stars for The Mapmaker's Daughter!
The Mapmaker's Daughter is fantastic! A masterpiece and instant classic! This is one of those stories that has it all. Adventure, magic, romance, betrayal, action, and surprises! It needs to be a movie! Seriously, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, please pick this up and turn it into an awesome anime!
Joanna Emerson has a way with words for sure. She's poetic and descriptive, which is what I want when I read fantasy and/or steampunk. Five big stars for The Mapmaker's Daughter!
March 23, 2018
The Mapmakers Daughter By Joanna Emerson
Paddy O’Brien is going about his business when he discovers his mother lying in the garden with a knife in her back. He is quick to extract the knife and bury it. The only person he told was the constable. They decide not to tell anybody until they can discover who the murderer is. This scene sort of gets lost during the action of the book, but there’s a reason it happened like that.
Meanwhile, Paddy is trying to support the family. His mother is dead, his father abandoned the family years ago, he has two living siblings (others have died from sickness and starvation) and a family friend has moved in to help with his younger brothers, allowing him time to work in his shop. He has few friends because the majority of the townspeople think his father sold out his country to go fight for the queen.
This is Ireland at a time when the country is recovering from a famine and they are oppressed by the English. His father was considered a traitor and the townspeople held it against the family.
While he is out walking on the beach, he sees an airship that is in trouble and a woman parachute from it. He rushes into the water to help her. He’s never seen anything like her. She’s dressed in black with long black hair and she doesn’t speak his language. Paddy goes through the motions of introducing himself and gets her name from her. Akemi.
What he later finds out is that she is a refugee from Japan and she is being sought by a band of pirates who will stop at nothing to get her back. The emperor has promised a huge payout when she is returned. But she has to be alive.
Jun, a pirate slave, who poses as a boy, wants this treasure for herself. She’s determined to get away from the pirates and get Akemi back to Japan, no matter what the cost. She was sorely mistreated by the pirates and well, just about everybody because she wasn’t the most becoming in appearance. But she was smart. She knew several languages and served as in an interpreter for the pirate captain. She was clever enough to use that to her advantage. But she was also conniving and untrustworthy, which did not work out so well for Akemi.
I loved how all of the characters have their own part of the story and how it all came together in the end. Well done.
This is the first steampunk novel I’ve ever read. I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a really great story, packed full of emotion, political turmoil, friendship, love, and forgiveness. It’s a longer book, but I still had it read in a day. It was hard to put it down once I started it.
I so wanted to give it five stars, but it has some formatting problems at the beginning and needs another trip to the editor for some wrong word usage. However, the story is fantastic with great characters. I enjoyed this story very much.
_____
Reviewed by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill
Paddy O’Brien is going about his business when he discovers his mother lying in the garden with a knife in her back. He is quick to extract the knife and bury it. The only person he told was the constable. They decide not to tell anybody until they can discover who the murderer is. This scene sort of gets lost during the action of the book, but there’s a reason it happened like that.
Meanwhile, Paddy is trying to support the family. His mother is dead, his father abandoned the family years ago, he has two living siblings (others have died from sickness and starvation) and a family friend has moved in to help with his younger brothers, allowing him time to work in his shop. He has few friends because the majority of the townspeople think his father sold out his country to go fight for the queen.
This is Ireland at a time when the country is recovering from a famine and they are oppressed by the English. His father was considered a traitor and the townspeople held it against the family.
While he is out walking on the beach, he sees an airship that is in trouble and a woman parachute from it. He rushes into the water to help her. He’s never seen anything like her. She’s dressed in black with long black hair and she doesn’t speak his language. Paddy goes through the motions of introducing himself and gets her name from her. Akemi.
What he later finds out is that she is a refugee from Japan and she is being sought by a band of pirates who will stop at nothing to get her back. The emperor has promised a huge payout when she is returned. But she has to be alive.
Jun, a pirate slave, who poses as a boy, wants this treasure for herself. She’s determined to get away from the pirates and get Akemi back to Japan, no matter what the cost. She was sorely mistreated by the pirates and well, just about everybody because she wasn’t the most becoming in appearance. But she was smart. She knew several languages and served as in an interpreter for the pirate captain. She was clever enough to use that to her advantage. But she was also conniving and untrustworthy, which did not work out so well for Akemi.
I loved how all of the characters have their own part of the story and how it all came together in the end. Well done.
This is the first steampunk novel I’ve ever read. I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a really great story, packed full of emotion, political turmoil, friendship, love, and forgiveness. It’s a longer book, but I still had it read in a day. It was hard to put it down once I started it.
I so wanted to give it five stars, but it has some formatting problems at the beginning and needs another trip to the editor for some wrong word usage. However, the story is fantastic with great characters. I enjoyed this story very much.
_____
Reviewed by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill
July 23, 2021
I think my favorite part of this book is the combining of two cultures so completely different that it would never even occur to me to compare them. A noble girl from Japan; a struggling family in Scotland. The combination, along with the steampunk alternate history element, makes the story startlingly original.
Two plotlines intertwine through the book: Paddy and his quest to keep his family safe and free, Akemi and her need to escape what is essentially slavery to the Japanese emperor, and Jun and her need to escape her own slavery. Jun was especially fascinated; nuanced, not entirely a villain nor entirely a hero; not your typical character who holds her own plotline. Her character development made me squeee and I’m super excited at the prospect of her getting her own story.
It’s a story of freedom in many ways; the writing is often beautiful and evocative; and the worldbuilding and story concepts are some of the most original I’ve encountered lately. My only plot-related criticism would be that things wrap up a bit quickly and easily at the end, but even that worked well enough, providing moments of character development that made me cheer.
The idea of “mapmaking” is a super fascinating one and I honestly wish the author had expanded on it a bit more. The origin of it and the particulars of it are all left in a bit of mystery, which works for the most part—but then, I’ve a magic systems person. I want to know how things work. And this magic system falls a bit more on the magic side rather than the system side.
Overall, The Mapmaker’s Daughter is a super original and absorbing story—I couldn’t stop reading!
Two plotlines intertwine through the book: Paddy and his quest to keep his family safe and free, Akemi and her need to escape what is essentially slavery to the Japanese emperor, and Jun and her need to escape her own slavery. Jun was especially fascinated; nuanced, not entirely a villain nor entirely a hero; not your typical character who holds her own plotline. Her character development made me squeee and I’m super excited at the prospect of her getting her own story.
It’s a story of freedom in many ways; the writing is often beautiful and evocative; and the worldbuilding and story concepts are some of the most original I’ve encountered lately. My only plot-related criticism would be that things wrap up a bit quickly and easily at the end, but even that worked well enough, providing moments of character development that made me cheer.
The idea of “mapmaking” is a super fascinating one and I honestly wish the author had expanded on it a bit more. The origin of it and the particulars of it are all left in a bit of mystery, which works for the most part—but then, I’ve a magic systems person. I want to know how things work. And this magic system falls a bit more on the magic side rather than the system side.
Overall, The Mapmaker’s Daughter is a super original and absorbing story—I couldn’t stop reading!
August 21, 2018
The Mapmaker’s Daughter was nothing like anything I’d ever read before. Granted, it was my first steampunk novel. I’d be interested to read more to compare. But this story transcends genre. It’s a human story. Emerson gets to the hearts of the main characters, weaving their stories in such a way as to bring them to life.
Emerson tells this story from three different perspectives: Paddy; a young man in Ireland, Akemi; a young woman from Japan, and Jun; a greedy pirate slave who can smell emotions. Akemi has a unique ability in which, when she draws maps, she changes the landscape. But using her ability causes pain and exhaustion. So, she escapes captivity from those who force her to use her ability and lands in Paddy’s world, Ireland. There they face extreme poverty and political turmoil, and Akemi doesn’t know the language. Meanwhile, Jun desperately wants the financial reward offered to her owners and plots to capture Akemi herself.
The author does a wonderful job of incorporating these different cultures and language barriers to create a story that rings true. And her ability to pull you in and get the reader to care for these main characters is a skill. So, whether you like steampunk doesn’t matter. If you like a good story that will pull on your heartstrings and keep you turning the pages, this one’s for you.
Emerson tells this story from three different perspectives: Paddy; a young man in Ireland, Akemi; a young woman from Japan, and Jun; a greedy pirate slave who can smell emotions. Akemi has a unique ability in which, when she draws maps, she changes the landscape. But using her ability causes pain and exhaustion. So, she escapes captivity from those who force her to use her ability and lands in Paddy’s world, Ireland. There they face extreme poverty and political turmoil, and Akemi doesn’t know the language. Meanwhile, Jun desperately wants the financial reward offered to her owners and plots to capture Akemi herself.
The author does a wonderful job of incorporating these different cultures and language barriers to create a story that rings true. And her ability to pull you in and get the reader to care for these main characters is a skill. So, whether you like steampunk doesn’t matter. If you like a good story that will pull on your heartstrings and keep you turning the pages, this one’s for you.
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February 2, 2022This steampunk fantasy is set mainly in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, giving it an interesting historical flavour. Not being familiar with the period, I can't comment on accuracy, although some details made me raise my eyebrows (such as spending a few pounds on a meal).
The three point of view characters are distinct individuals, and I liked that they came from different backgrounds and so brought different attitudes to life.
The prose was easy to read, and the very occasional typos weren't distracting.
The book's tagged as young adult/teen, and it certainly has that feel to it. The main characters are very focussed on their immediate concerns. This made the plot straightforward to follow, but it felt like the rest of the world (even the Big Bad) wasn't getting on with their own lives around the characters. The internal conflicts and emotional processing were somewhat spelled out/up front for my tastes, but again, this seems appropriate for younger readers.
Overall, an enjoyable lightweight read in an interesting historical setting.
The three point of view characters are distinct individuals, and I liked that they came from different backgrounds and so brought different attitudes to life.
The prose was easy to read, and the very occasional typos weren't distracting.
The book's tagged as young adult/teen, and it certainly has that feel to it. The main characters are very focussed on their immediate concerns. This made the plot straightforward to follow, but it felt like the rest of the world (even the Big Bad) wasn't getting on with their own lives around the characters. The internal conflicts and emotional processing were somewhat spelled out/up front for my tastes, but again, this seems appropriate for younger readers.
Overall, an enjoyable lightweight read in an interesting historical setting.
May 4, 2018
A drawn map becomes a story
This book is kind of like walking a favorite path in an old forest. At first the trees and the ground underfoot is familiar. Then, without warning, the path that once went left now goes right and drops you off a short cliff that wasn't there yesterday. At the bottom of the cliff is a cave that leads you to an underground place you didn't know existed, but now that you know it's there, you don't know if you want to leave. It is familiar, but not. Emerson just didn't write a steampunk novel. She wove in might-have-beens in history, combined them with synesthesia, and told a story that is hard to put down. It is easy to read, and suitable for upper grade-school readers and older.
This book is kind of like walking a favorite path in an old forest. At first the trees and the ground underfoot is familiar. Then, without warning, the path that once went left now goes right and drops you off a short cliff that wasn't there yesterday. At the bottom of the cliff is a cave that leads you to an underground place you didn't know existed, but now that you know it's there, you don't know if you want to leave. It is familiar, but not. Emerson just didn't write a steampunk novel. She wove in might-have-beens in history, combined them with synesthesia, and told a story that is hard to put down. It is easy to read, and suitable for upper grade-school readers and older.
June 5, 2018
The Mapmaker's Daughter
It took me a few chapters to get hooked but I eventually did and thoroughly enjoyed the book. The story moved along at a good pace and kept me interested. I really liked the goodness in the characters. Not everyone we meet is a "bad guy". I am finding Steampunk books to be fun books to read.
It took me a few chapters to get hooked but I eventually did and thoroughly enjoyed the book. The story moved along at a good pace and kept me interested. I really liked the goodness in the characters. Not everyone we meet is a "bad guy". I am finding Steampunk books to be fun books to read.
January 20, 2019
Did not finish
I got to 30% on my kindle and still had no idea where this book was going. Thought it was supposed to be about the map makers daughter and all they kept talking about was Paddys mom was murdered. This did not keep my interest enough to find out about why the map maker even ran away.
I got to 30% on my kindle and still had no idea where this book was going. Thought it was supposed to be about the map makers daughter and all they kept talking about was Paddys mom was murdered. This did not keep my interest enough to find out about why the map maker even ran away.
July 30, 2019
There was a lot I liked about this story, but it's definitely a YA romance-adventure and as an adult reader it got sappy. But that's my fault, reading out of my age bracket, so I still gave it a good rating.
June 18, 2018
WHOA! This is an amazing story of true friendship, forgiveness and courage. I was immediately engaged in the story. It's an exciting adventure.
April 19, 2017
First Steampunk Novel, enjoyed it. Looking forward to our book discussion.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews