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Welcome to my stop on the tour and review of

The Pursuit of William Abbey

by Claire North

Organized by Compulsive Readers Blog Tours .

Many thanks to the publisher for my review copy on kindle.

A hauntingly powerful novel about how the choices we make can stay with us forever, by the award-winning author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K.

South Africa in the 1880s. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William.

William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die.

Gripping, moving, and utterly thought-provoking, this novel proves once again that Claire North is one of the most innovative voices in modern fiction.

Title: The Pursuit of William Abbey

Author: Claire North

Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy

Kindle, 432 pages

Publishing Date: November 12th, 2019

Publishing House: Orbit

ASIN: B07P9Q5MZV

Edition Language: English

My Review

I was very excited to have the opportunity to review this title from the moment it appeared on my radar.

Like an endless sea, this remarkable work of fiction does not cease to ever end in scope and engagement as one reads through the 400+ pages. Hopes, dreads, dreams, and desires of a lifetime of every facete imaginable will be touched on in this journey of The Pursuit of William Abbey. Not a country in the world, not a shore unexplored, no historical events within its premise missed, nor a stone left unturned will bereft the reader the enduring, yet fleeting travels of the haunted soul residing within the pages of this novel. But William Abbey is not the only one on this voyage, this race from death to save loved ones and humanity. We are part in this effort too. Will it be enough?

Evil comes in all shapes, forms, and sizes. Sometimes it can be experienced with either our senses or remain inherently hidden deep down in our souls while our conscience turns a blind eye. The famous parody of the devil and the angel on the shoulder whispering sweetly to garner persuasion is a classic. Though it isn't always our actions that get us in trouble. In the case of William Abbey, it was his inaction that was his fatal mistake.

Born in London as the youngest of seven children during the reign of Queen Victoria, William chose to become a doctor against the whole and sound moral path set out by his traditional parents. It was an exciting time to be a part of the studies in medicine with the rise of knowledge in science and technology, though in the field and on the streets, it looked a lot more like dread and suffering as William finds out soon.

"But the dying will tell their stories. Prostitutes who could not feed themselves, let alone their children, torn from the ward to another night's work not hours after birthing a child. Mangled limbs crushed on factory floors; women with faces ripped in two by flesh-gnawing sulfur. Children coughing tar from the chimney stacks; bursts of the pestilence that swept through eight-to-a-ton tenements faster than a man could sneeze. Faced with this, I longed to escape my patients entirely and the reality of their suffering. When I had money to spend, I spent it on bad drink with Plender and flowers for beautiful, unobtainable women, and it was my pursuit of the latter that banished me from England."

Now banished in Natal, Africa, in 1884, William finds himself in a brothel that spawns every disease imaginable when he witnesses the lynching of a Zulu child by the white and powerful elite outside in the town. The fantasies of becoming a hero in the event to intervene and save the boy did not even cross his mind, never even occurred to him. A coward act he regrets for the rest of his life in the chase by the ghost boy who was killed and whose mother spoke a curse most powerful.

"She spoke in isiZulu, or at least I thought she did. She did not move as she spoke, nor do I think she blinked. She did not drop the knife wet with her son's blood, or point or howl, or catch the moonlight in her fingers. She did not laugh, nor fall down in a fit, or foam at the mouth. She looked me in the eye, and with her gift she put the curse upon me, and I knew it, and could not name it, felt cold of it crawl up from my feet to my ankles, ankles to my knees, all the way up my body if the earth had grown fingers of icy bone that now pushed with will alone into knuckle-deep hollows of my flesh.”

“Then it was done, and both her stare and the ice let me go, and I realized that my whole life I had known nothing of anything and that only truth I had my heart was ignorance."

From this day forward, Langa comes for him with his limp, injured boy shuffle and seeks to kill everyone William has ever truly loved. Creepy, scary, unremorseful he will follow William to the end of the world to never let him forget what he has done by not doing anything and he terrorizes him with the insurmountable heavy-weighted truth of world corruption and the black hearts of its inhabitants.

The novel proceeds to travel around the world as William tries to outrun his pursuer. Along the way, he meets violence, death at close call countless times, and experiences hardships and loss, but there never will be rest for the wicked. A vicious cycle of corruption ensues and never ceases to run out no matter where in the world he is.

Sweeping over all continents, William can see the truth of people's hearts and he is not alone. A circle of other Truth-speakers becomes known and 'enslaved' by governments to use as spies and play out political intrigues to add to the plot of the novel. Themes in socialism, communism, anarchism, and nationalism add to the turmoil and world unrest, historically exploring moral character, (in-)justice, (in-)equality, liberty, and freedom. Readers will encounter disasters like the San Francisco earthquake, mining accidents like at Rolling Hill, worker strikes and poor immigrant working conditions in the early days of the US, tunnel collapses, opium trades, the discovery of radium and on and on the range of international incidents and intrigue continue as the novel goes on.

There is much to be learned from the wisdom imbued by the story. It isn't all a negative endeavor. The scenes are set in depth, richly against the plot backdrop. William's character serves as a reflection of human flaws wretched deep and the arduous growth it takes to see openly and be open-hearted to love, to be vulnerable and to judge and hate less.

As William isn't immune to feelings despite his distaste at the truth of the world, he longs to love and be loved. He meets his match and she is a Truth-speaker as well, but fate will not allow for their love to commence, or does it? With a race to the cure of all evil, it is left in the stars for the reader to find out what happens.

Many interesting characters and historical figures enter the plot and leave their footprint on this path of destruction. Some are brilliant and insightful, others are as evil as they come. Multicultural aspects feel authentic and whisk the reader through exotic, intoxicating places that leave the flavor of wonderful travel behind. As the saying goes:

Overall this novel has a tremendous reach in complexity, is a remarkable book to read and an even greater feat to write. It is difficult to describe it with high and low points or arcs as it is mostly steadfast and concise. North's writing holds strong throughout and is lyrical at the same time. The thought-provoking content will captivate and allure to the brilliant wisdom within. A 'truth-speaking' if you will with the insight of heart and mind, border lining exceptionalism in talent and understanding of human nature. We all can use a slice of it.

If you enjoy unique, thought-provoking novels, that hold adventure within its pages, then this one is written for you. Most likely, I will read this book again to get even more out of it, as I'm sure more wisdom has been hidden in these powerful pages and passages.

I hope you'll enjoy it too.