10.16.2015

finished reading

This quirky book defies description. Is it a romance? An adventure? A dark fairy tale? A mystery? It's a mash up of all of these.

The hero, Lucien "Lucy" Minor, is a puny young man from a village of giants. He's unmotivated with no ambition but accepts a position as assistant to the chief steward, or majordomo, of a large household. While Lucy finds himself in absurdly dark situations, surrounded by peculiar characters, the dialogue is matter-of-fact and polite.

From the publisher:
Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he is a compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling. When Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, forbidding castle of the Baron Von Aux he meets thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and a puppy. He also meets Klara, a delicate beauty who is, unfortunately, already involved with an exceptionally handsome partisan soldier. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behaviour is laid bare for our hero to observe. Lucy must stay safe, and protect his puppy, because someone or something is roaming the corridors of the castle late at night.

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