The Left-Handed Fate

Written by Kate Milford

Narrated by Liz Pearce

From Kate Milford, the bestselling author of National Book Award nominee Greenglass House, comes another magical, middle-grade adventure, The Left-Handed Fate. Lucy Bluecrowne and Maxwell Ault are on a mission: find the three pieces of a strange and arcane engine. They're not exactly sure what this machine does, but they have it on good authority that it will stop the war that's raging between their home country of England and Napoleon Bonaparte's France. Despite being followed by mysterious men dressed all in black, they're well on their way to finding everything they need when their ship, the famous Left-Handed Fate, is taken by the Americans. And not just any Americans. The Fate (and with it, Lucy and Max) are put under the command of Oliver Dexter, who's only just turned twelve. But Lucy and Max aren't the only ones trying to put the engine together, and if the pieces fall into the wrong hands, it could prove disastrous. Oliver is faced with a choice: help Lucy and Max and become a traitor to his country? Or follow orders and risk endangering that same country and many others at the same time?not to mention his friends?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781980040866

Kate Milford

Kate Milford is the New York Times best-selling author of the Edgar Award–winning, National Book Award nominee Greenglass House, as well as Ghosts of Greenglass House, Bluecrowne, The Thief Knot, and many more. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. www.greenglasshousebooks.com and www.katemilfordwritesbooks.com, Twitter: @KateMilford

Reviews for The Left-Handed Fate

[khaddox-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was provided to me as an uncorrected digital review copy by the publisher, via Edelweiss.

The Left-Handed Fate is a ship like no other; rumored to be faster than any other ship on the seas, and carrying a crew of the best seamen on the planet. Captain Bluecrowne, his crew, and his ship have been hired by Max Ault to help him locate the pieces of an ancient weapon; a weapon to end all wars. Unfortunately, Max isn’t the only one on the hunt for the artifact, and some of his competition seems to have the ability to appear out of nowhere. How does one evade an opponent who can show up without warning?

The Left-Handed Fate started out a little slow, and a little confusing, but the longer I read, the more I appreciated the story’s creativity and complex characters. At first, it appeared that maybe I had missed reading another book in the series, but it turns out this is not the case. In order to keep the book from being prohibitively long, Ms. Milford has chosen to condense certain events from the past and presents the beginning of the quest as something that occurred several years previous. The reader is caught up through memory flashes and dialogue between Lucy Bluecrowne, her father, and Max Ault. The book’s main characters are all children who have been pressed into situations that their ages should have dictated were impossible. However, the author has created characters who are not only capable of handling situations far outside what children their age should have been able to withstand, but she does it in such a way that it doesn’t seem strange or out of place. It is very obvious that Ms. Milford did her due diligence when it came to researching the customs and rules of seafaring folk from the Revolutionary War period. The sense of honor and duty she expresses through Lucy Bluecrowne and Oliver Dexter doesn’t come across as contrived, but rather seems like exactly what one would expect from children with their backgrounds and circumstances. I enjoyed this book, and would consider reading other books set in Ms. Milford’s Nagspeake (she has written a number of books with this setting, however this book is intended to be read as a standalone). I would recommend this book for kiddos 11 and older who enjoy historical fiction set on a boat with a steampunk vibe.