COVER CHARACTERISTIC (#15): CLOCKS

"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting." 

Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

*Cover Characteristic is a book meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. Check it out and participate!

1. The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz

Summary:

When the music stops, the dance begins.

Seventeen-year-old Penny is a lead dancer at the Grande Teatro, a finishing school where she and eleven other young women are training to become the finest ballerinas in Italy. Tucked deep into the woods, the school is overseen by the mysterious and handsome young Master who keeps the girls ensconced in the estate – and in the only life Penny has never known.

But when flashes of memories, memories of a life very different from the one she thinks she’s been leading, start to appear, Penny begins to question the Grand Teatro and the motivations of the Master. 

With a kind and attractive kitchen boy, Cricket, at her side, Penny vows to escape the confines of her school and the strict rules that dictate every step she takes. But at every turn, the Master finds a way to stop her, and Penny must find a way to escape the school and uncover the secrets of her past before it’s too late.

2. The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu, Sarah Ardizzone (Translator)

Summary:

FIRSTLY: don’t touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. SECONDLY: master your anger. THIRDLY: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.

Edinburgh, 1874. Born with a frozen heart, Jack is near death when his mother abandons him to the care of Dr. Madeleine—witch doctor, midwife, protector of orphans—who saves Jack by placing a cuckoo clock in his chest. And it is in her orphanage that Jack grows up among tear-filled flasks, eggs containing memories, and a man with a musical spine.

As Jack gets older, Dr. Madeleine warns him that his heart is too fragile for strong emotions: he must never, ever fall in love. And, of course, this is exactly what he does: on his tenth birthday and with head-over-heels abandon. The object of his ardor is Miss Acacia—a bespectacled young street performer with a soul-stirring voice. But now Jack’s life is doubly at risk—his heart is in danger and so is his safety after he injures the school bully in a fight for the affections of the beautiful singer.

Now begins a journey of escape and pursuit, from Edinburgh to Paris to Miss Acacia’s home in Andalusia. Mathias Malzieu’s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical, wildly inventive tale of love and heartbreak—by turns poignant and funny—in which Jack finally learns the great joys, and ultimately the greater costs, of owning a fully formed heart.

3. A Book of English Clocks by R. Symonds

Summary:

This early work on English clocks is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of all horologists. 

Contents Include: The Beginnings of the English School of Clock-making, The Weight-driven Clock, The Spring-driven Clock, Clock-making in Sixteenth-Century England, The English School of Clock-making from 1600 to 1660, The Pendulum, The Charles II School of Clock-making, 1660-1700, Clock Cases of the Seventeenth Century, English Clock-making in the Eighteenth Century, and Clock Cases of the Eighteenth Century.

4. Waiting For The Beast by T. Hayden

Summary:

What if the Bible has it all wrong about the Anti-Christ?

What if this person is female and what if she actually has a choice?

Meet A.C. a.k.a Angelica Cunningham

Angelica is drop dead gorgeous, lives in a sprawling mansion with her two aunts, attends a prestigious private school, is an A student and excels at everything she does effortlessly. She has a great life.

That's until her 16th birthday and it all goes banana's. One of her aunt's fall mysteriously ill on the brink of death. Angelica is suddenly telepathic, has a heightened sense of smell and is seeing supernatural beings, that only exists in fairy tales.

Angelica's family is forced to tell her the truth. Her aunts are actually supernatural beings that have been charged with protecting Angelica from her father, Lucifer. He has put a bounty on Angelica's head and every creature from the Abyssal Realm a.k.a Hell is looking for her. In addition she has a hot guardian angel that has been assigned to her since birth that she can now see.

She is suddenly thrust into a dangerous, magical world. Between dealing with her new identity, a love triangle, hiding from her father, and just trying to be a teenager she has to make a decision to run, fight or wait for the darkness to consume her.

5. The Chronos Clock (Aetheric Artifacts #1) by Wendy L. Callahan

Summary:

In 1892 Victorian London, Demetra Ashdown is a half-daemon with the ability to locate and draw Aetheric artifacts to her. When her former fiancé’s valet is held hostage and will only be released in exchange for a device with the power to control time, she must act quickly to save a man’s life. Armed with only her razor-edged fan and equally sharp wit, she feels it is her duty to ensure that the potentially-devastating device does not fall into the wrong hands.

In addition to this dilemma, she must determine if she both trusts and loves the man to whom she was once betrothed. Lord Francis Winterton not only broke her heart, but also appears to have betrayed her to the ruthless people in search of this powerful artifact. With close friend and inventor Simon Warom at her side, Demetra begins her adventure: the hunt for the clock that will save the life of the valet, and thus prevent Francis from transgressing the limits of fashionable good taste.

6. A Betrayal of Time by Lucia Ashta

Summary:

A Betrayal of Time is a story about Vivienne and Ray, who loved each other even before they knew what love was. They belonged together. They knew it, and everyone who knew them knew it.

But time didn't. Or maybe time just didn't care.

It ripped them apart. Vivienne was left alone, without the one thing -- the one person -- she needed. Worse, she was the sole survivor of an unexplained cosmic event that folded time, transporting her 20 years into the future, when she was supposed to be long dead along with everyone else the event claimed. She didn't know anything about time, except that it was her great betrayer. Still, no one else knew how to reunite her with Ray or with 1959. It was up to her to decipher the quandary no one had been able to resolve before: to bring predictability to the time space continuum, the one thing that could not be more unpredictable.