Silver finds herself caught up in the exciting adventures to stop time vanishing. Helped by her friend Gabriel, she must find the Timekeeper – the only thing that will keep time regular - and so prevent either the wicked Regalia Mason or the sinister Abel Drinkwater from getting to it first. Full of imagination and fun, this is memorable and thought provoking.
Lovereading comment:A remarkable and compelling quest fantasy adventure, full of brilliance and wit, as is befitting an author with the imagination and style of award winning Jeanette Winterson. This is the author’s first foray into a full length novel for children and is full of a wonderful cast of characters, fabulous adventure and brilliantly written.
In a house called Tanglewreck lives a girl called Silver and her guardian Mrs Rokabye. Unbeknown to Silver there is a family treasure in the form of a 17th-century watch called the Timekeeper, and this treasure holds the key to the mysterious changes in time. When Silver goes on the run to protect herself and the Timekeeper, an adventure unfolds.
Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England, and adopted by Pentecostal parents who brought her up in the nearby mill-town of Accrington. As a Northern working class girl she was not encouraged to be clever. Her adopted father was a factory worker, her mother stayed at home. There were only six books in the house, including the Bible and Cruden's Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments. Strangely, one of the other books was Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and it was this that started her life quest of reading and writing. The house had no bathroom either, which was fortunate because it meant that Jeanette could read her books by flashlight in the outside toilet. Reading was not much approved unless it was the Bible. Her parents intended her for the missionary field. Schooling was erratic but Jeanette had got herself into a girl's grammar school and later she read English at Oxford University. This was not an easy transition. Jeanette had left home at 16 after falling in love with another girl. While she took her A levels she lived in various places, supporting herself by evening and weekend work. In a year off to earn money, she worked as a domestic in a lunatic asylum.