Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An Indie Next Pick

The eagerly anticipated new novel from the author of THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET--a treacherous quest in the magical landscape of nineteenth-century Peru.

In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. On the sprawling, crumbling grounds of the old house, something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather's pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.

When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.

Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick's grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Merrick thought his adventuring days were finished after an injury forced him to resign from the East India Company and retire to his brother's estate. In 1859, a desperate need for cinchona trees, a rich source of quinine and part of Merrick's family history in Peru, requires him to travel there to smuggle cuttings past a Peruvian government blockade. He and an old companion head for the New Bethlehem settlement where Merrick's father and grandfather once lived but find more than they bargained for. VERDICT Fans of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (who will be pleased that a character from that novel makes a cameo appearance) know that -Pulley has a way with damaged characters who are looking for a new purpose in life. While there are steampunk elements, including clockwork lamps, there's also a subtle inexplicable magic running throughout the unusual, remote setting. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]-MM © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

On account of a leg injury, botanical expert Merrick Tremayne, the hero of this witty, entrancing novel set in the 19th century from Pulley (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street), initially declines to travel from England to Peru for the East India Company. Because Merrick insists that a heavy statue overlooking his father's grave has mysteriously moved, Merrick's half-brother, Charles, worries that he's afflicted with the mental illness that landed their mother in an asylum. To avoid either of the unpleasant choices that Charles offers out of fear for Merrick's sanity (taking work at a parsonage where he'd no longer see the statue, or being confined with their mother), Merrick joins the treacherous expedition, whose ostensible purpose is to retrieve cuttings from the rare trees that are the only source for quinine, needed to alleviate a malaria epidemic in India that has adversely affected the company's business. On arrival in Peru, Merrick encounters more oddities, including animated statues that give benedictions and a border made of salt and bone that is fatal to cross, which cause him to feel that he has entered "an imaginary place where the river was a dragon and somewhere in the forest was something stranger than elves." His quest to both stay alive and to obtain the precious cinchona plants leads to more marvels-and to tragedy. Pulley makes the fantastic feel plausible and burnishes her reputation as a gifted storyteller. Agent: Jenny Savill, Andrew Nurnberg Associates (U.K.). (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Pulley's beautifully descriptive language sets the stage for a mysterious and dangerous journey reminiscent of the grand scientific expeditions of the nineteenth century. Malaria has reached epidemic proportions in India, so the East India Company is desperate to acquire cinchona trees, the source of quinine. Merrick Tremayne, recovering from a supposedly career-ending leg injury suffered in service to the company, is called on to smuggle viable seedlings out of Peru. A skilled botanist, he was chosen for his family connection to New Bethlehem, a settlement in the Andes founded by his grandfather, a famous explorer. The village borders a forest of gigantic trees with strange properties, wherein the medicinal plants grow. The boundary is overseen by moving statues and guarded by unseen natives who kill anyone crossing into their territory. Merrick will discover secrets beyond imagining and an ages-old connection to his grandfather. Timepieces play a role, as they did in The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (2015), and fans of the author's debut will be intrigued by the link between these two historical fantasy novels.--Lockley, Lucy Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Pulley's (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, 2015) second novel demonstrates that the imagination she showed in her impressive debut was no fluke.The story opens in 1859, with the narrator, Merrick Tremayne, morosely nursing an injured leg at his decrepit family estate in Cornwall. Merrick used to smuggle opium into Hong Kong for the East India Company until an explosion a few years ago cost him his health and job. Botany and exotic travel run in the family: his grandfather and father both spent years in Peru, combing the Andes for botanical valuables such as orchids and frost-resistant coffee. Now the company wants to send Merrick to his ancestors' old stomping grounds, hiring him to break the Peruvian quinine monopoly by smuggling out cuttings from cinchona trees, the source of the antimalarial medicine. Is Merrick well enough to hike the Andes? Pulley understands her genreswashbuckling costume fantasybut she deals in surprises, not clichs. An exploding tree, a mysterious moving statue, and a visit from an old friend help make up Merrick's mind, propelling him across the ocean to a strange world of thin air, volcanic glass, and floating cities, where descendants of the Incas keep magical secrets. Strictly speaking, this is a prequela few paragraphs and a character or two tie this novel to Pulley's masterful debutbut the two books have very different atmospheres. Where Pulley's first novel sparkled with the ingenuity of spinning gears, her second offers a slower, sadder meditation on love, trust, and the passage of time. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.