This all made for a fiery debut in which the three found themselves in enmeshed in a conspiracy to decide the fate of the Fractured Realm, an alternate version of the United Kingdom. 'You have finally sold the goose?' he asked in hushed tones. Suspicion, wonder, astonishment and at last hope chased one another across his face like successive sunrises lighting an opulent and rolling landscape.

68)Ĭlent's expression went through a number of different changes. It occurred to her that she and Clent were a good deal like clock hands, one large and one small, often pointing and striving in opposite directions, but always linked and bound to come into line sooner or later. They are a pretty fractious trio Mosca and Clent's marriage of convenience is characterized by resentment and distrust on both sides: Her companions on this journey were Saracen, a spectacularly ill-tempered goose who has eyes only for Mosca, and Eponymous Clent, a portly wit, bon vivant and, most of all, liar, who finds his destiny inextricably tangled up with hers. Mosca is a character readers of children's literature will find familiar: a bright young girl in a time and place with no use for such a creature a child who has enjoyed a liberatingly eccentric upbringing only to be parceled off to uncaring relatives following the death of her father a youth who escapes into the big, bad adult world and finds it full of adventures and lessons.

Frances Hardinge introduced the world to the wonderfully named Mosca Mye in 2005 with Fly by Night, her debut novel.

Fly trap by frances hardinge