Engaged at first, my interest in the story waned. The pace was slow and the MC not very likable. I really had trouble understanding the whole plot and found it hard to pick up once I put it down. Other readers might enjoy this slow paced story.

Very unique, loved the concept, the characters were excellent. Kept me interested the entire way, very hard to put down. Looking forward to the next book from this author. .

The Sentinel Archivists listen and study the songs of ancient leviathans. Shay Bluefatlow is training to be a specialist archivist but the training is hard on her. She will learn a so much on her difficult journey but will he skills be enough?

This novel introduces us to a new world where war is about start. Strong characters with difficult roads to follow. Not all are true friends and life can be bewildering. Enjoy the ride.

I struggled to get through this book. The writing was incredibly wordy and made it difficult to follow. At times I felt like I was attempting to read Shakespeare. That appeals to some readers, but for me it made the story harder to lose myself in.

Gripping story from start to finish. The magical system is complex but really interesting to read. The world building is rich and complex. Keep the reader on the edge of their seat.

Seeker is a brilliant novel when it comes to style, immersing the reader in the regency style writing with vivids descriptions. Sadly it wasn't what I expected and I found that the action and plot came too late. It's a very unique voice in today's fantasy but I felt lost way too often wondering what the plot was. The worldbuiding is interesting and changes from the usual medieval settings, the characters are quite loveable and mysterious.
I think it comes down to the prose that just wasn't for me, I wouldn't want to stay long enough to get in with the plot.

The Seeker by Samuel Griffin, is an amazing debut story, that takes the reader to such a fantastical world you don't want to leave. The writing is so unique and old school, the reader feels as if they are in a previous era such as the Victorian Era. While reading, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens are the two main authors that come to mind that compare in the style of writing Mr. Griffin uses which is no easy feat, and for that alone should be granted an award. Book two of the Sentinel Archives will hopefully be coming out within the next year or so, and we can see what further adventures our Seeker will be going on, and how she will continue to evolve, both physically and as a seeker.

Although fantasy is not my go to genre I enjoyed this novel. Shay is taken to be educated by Chief Archivist and follow her out into the world. Well written and well drawn world, with good characterisation. Look forward to the next installment. Thanks to Panthe Press and Netgalley for this review copy.

Seeker
Just finished reading Seeker, an interesting fantasy book about a young girl who is taken from an orphanage , travels to a new location and begins her education. She soon finds out she will begin training with the Chief archivist. The story follows Shay through her training and duties with the Chief Archivist. I found the story very interesting and enjoyable and look forward to the next book. Happy reading!

The story is pretty interesting and I was fairly hooked from the start. I wasn't sure where things were going initially but it made me want to read more. The main character is likable (at least for me) and I cannot wait to continue to read other books in this series!

This was written for a specific audience and, once it reaches said audience, I think it will be very beloved.
The writing style would be best described as historical, old english story telling. This isn't a bad thing and does add additional theming to the book, but most casual readers could get tired of this type of voice.

In this regency era flintlock story, we follow the main character, Shay, as she is bought, educated, and eventually goes out into the world. This world is intricate, unique and pulls you in with detailed storytelling. Although the story does start off slow, it picks up about halfway through. The main character is as complex as they come.

Overall, a great debut book that needs to find its audience.

Historical fiction readers, if I said “Regency novel” to you, what comes to your mind? Elegant dresses, lavish house parties, coffee house meetings, callous  whispers behind elegant manners and Jane Austen, perhaps?

Well - hands on the table, it did to me. I will go further and say that it's not normally my sort of thing to read – why should I read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice when there are other books more to my taste? However, Seeker does that difficult thing of taking a Regency style setting and making it into a fantasy story - a flintlock fantasy, if you like. The two shouldn't work together, and yet here they do, admirably.

Shay  Bluefaltlow has for many years been brought up by Ridley Fassinger, a surgeon and doctor, along with the young deaf Peck in her home city of Fivedock. This is generally a happy existence, if somewhat sheltered, until Shay is indentured to Penelope Etherington.

So far, this reads like Dickens’ Great Expectations (I know: later age, but even so..), the story told in the first person about a young person’s rite of passage. It is at this point, however, that things become more fantasy like. We learn that Etherington is Fivedocks’ Chief Archivist, charged with keeping records and monitoring for the Sentinels for the nation. She is told that the Sentinels are ancient leviathans, not seen for hundreds of years, but whose records show that if they return, devastation will result.

Shay’s new occupation is to train to be an assistant to the Sentinel Archivist as a Seeker, a role that involves monitoring for Sentinels as well as maintaining and deciphering some of their old records, using scent song to understand their speech. She takes to her new duties in  this Age of Enlightenment with a passion, even though it means that she must take a poisonous elixir in order to decipher the scents of the ancient creatures.

The story here revels in the scientific wonders and the joy of knowledge that Shay experiences at this point.

Although some of the minor characters are a little unsubtle, Shay herself is an interesting character. Clearly young, she is impetuous, rash and immature. She makes mistakes, but generally learns from them the hard way. This makes her endearing and irritating at the same time, a cause of frustration to the more experienced, less impetuous adults. Her reckless nature also has life-changing consequences for more than one person close to her.

Away from Shay’s new world, things are also changing in the wider world. A war seems to be brewing between different political factions, with neither particularly concerned about the signs that the Sentinels may be returning.

When Etherington is called away on official duties, Shay finds herself put into the position of covering for the Sentinel Archivist and also having to negate a possible coup by negotiating the dangerously civil world of the influential elite. In the finest tradition of regency novels, Griffin  presents Regency style soirees as some sort of battleground, a sneakier, subtler version of what happens on the high seas.

Shay is, of course, an outsider, a fish out of water who would rather be with her books and her studies rather than having to navigate around the barbed conversations of societies’ elite.

The end of the book finds Shay dealing with many issues all at once - tangled with the impending return of the Sentinels, involved in the middle of a sea battle and also attempting to foil a power coup attempted by some of the government’s enemies.

The book’s inner cover describes the book as “Robin Hobb meets Georgette Heyer meets Bernard Cornwell”. To me, it is more like “Jane Austen meets Godzilla”, where regency manners meet legendary monsters. Although the Sentinels only really appear at the end of the book, I’m sure that we’ll read more about them in future books.

Lastly, a mention of the book itself. Shay’s story is illustrated throughout by some lovely black-and-white illustrations by Jonas of Stardust, which add to the story and show us some of the instruments used by Shay in her work. They are not essential but do add to the setting enormously.

It’s always good when you find a book to be more than you hoped it would be. And so it was with Seeker. An unexpectedly good read, and I look forward to reading more stories set in this world in the future.

I received an eARC this book for an honest review from NetGalley. This was a fun book with great characters and wonderful world building. It was some what steampunk with naval background. I was taken in from the beginning when Shay was purchased. I would have liked to have more of Penelope in the story and may at some point a prequel of the history of it all. It was very exciting and I loved the intrigue with all of the characters. I truly enjoyed Hardy and her involvement. I liked that Shay had her anxieties with her development as an archivist and her person in general, The ending was something else and I was on my toes the whole time . Yay for Seeker!

Shay Bluefaltlow is a war orphan. One vivid day she finds herself being purchased, uprooted, and brought to the city of Fivedock to start her new life as a ward of a Mr. Ridley. She is expected to get an education but is unaware of her importance until some strong willed rebellious decisions lead her to discover her role with the Seekers and the Sentinels. Faced with her new situation, a world of new truths and discoveries unfolds. Shay must put aside her immaturity and become the woman she is meant to be.

This is a decent debut into a new fantasy in a flintlock setting. I did struggle with some of the world building as this first novel is very heavy on the development of Shay’s growth and maturity. At times I would lose the bigger picture or get disinterested which really broke up the flow of the novel. The Seekers and Sentinels were very abstract to me and it took a fair amount of the novel to actually sort out what they are and their purpose. However, with all that being said, I did like the premise of the novel. I think this world has lots of potential to become really engaging. I do enjoy a flintlock style fantasy and hope for good things in the next installment. 3 stars.

Review based on a digital Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by Panthe Press and NetGalley. Thank you!

What a great debut fantasy novel. The writing style took a little bit to get used to but eventually you fall into the crescendo pattern. This is not a book you can rush through. Take your time and allow the world to form. Such a great story and and would absolutely recommend.

The story takes you through Shay's journey from a nobody to being a Seeker, this society is veiled in secrecy and mystery. They are searching for the huge leviathans of the deep. The story is told by Shay but the author tells us the story in a historical Regency era type of prose. This way of writing is not for everyone and felt old and reminiscent of Dickens. I struggled with the voice of the author and it made reading this difficult for me. But if you like that sort of writing I am sure you will enjoy it.

The world is richly imagined and you can tell that the author has put a lot of work into making this world real, a very engaging place. Fivelock is an interesting place and you really get drawn into the story with the rich world building.

If you like this type of writing I am sure you will like this new Flintlock Fantasy from Samuel Griffin.

What an amazing debut from Samuel Griffin. The author is an impeccable descriptive writer and this book goes beyond anything I have ever read. I can’t believe that this is his first book! I haven’t read any books with this sort of regency-era writing style before and I for one can say it is not too difficult, I would say the style is more intriguing and mystical which simply adds to the genre of the books setting, it certainly doesn’t hinder the projection of the story at all. I cannot wait to follow Shay in the next book, counting down the days! I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to delve in to a new magical world with endless possibilities! From golspek harmonisers to outrageous behemoths…I am in my element!

Seeker by Samuel Griffin is the story of an orphan, Shay Bluefaltow, who has a different appearance, a birthmark that covers half of her face and portions of her body. She is ridiculed at school and there is no one to speak up for her. She is headstrong and does not always take advice. Eventually, she is sent into indentured service with a kind doctor who is also taking care of a deaf/mute young boy.

Shay cannot leave well enough alone and makes plans to run away. She asks for help from someone who informs the doctor of her plan and she is sent to a place where she must learn a new job, to be an archivist. This is much more complicated than Shay at first understands. The main archivist and the good doctor have much hope and trust in Shay. She may not deserve their trust, she is just a teenager, her choices are not always what an adult would do.

The writing style is sort of “flowery” or maybe old-fashioned, which makes it seem like a former time. However, the story takes place in a time and place which is undeterminable. Past? Future? It is hard to say. It took me a few chapters to become accustomed to the writer’s style, but it is well worth continuing reading and hard to put down after a point. It is definitely fantasy, but even if you don’t normally read fantasy, you will enjoy this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy to read and review.

This book was quite disappointing. The idea of it is interesting, and the part about the "scent song" was intriguing and original, and there are some good tidbits here and there. I mean, the job of archivist seems pretty cool, even if we just saw the menial parts of it, and they have a lot of strange instruments that seem wonderful and fascinating. And my favorite thing in this book was Peck (view spoiler).

But the book per se is pretty boring, I think that it was, mostly, the writing that didn't work for me, but also the fact that we learn things as the MC learns them, and this would be a good way of telling a story if the MC discovers and learns new things. Here nobody tells Shay a single thing, it's always "trust us, we have your wellbeing at heart, and the wellbeing of the world too. And all will be revealed in time". But nothing is ever revealed. So she is left there, in the dark, and we are right there with her. It is annoying, and it made for a really drab reading.
It is also quite an unbalanced story, we have parts in which we follow Shay in her job, which seems important, and with the fate of the world at stake, but we just know that without really seeing it, and parts in which we follow Shay's day to day life, and in theory is a beautiful thing but here, in this particular case, it is always a drab and small thing after another drab and small thing. I kept reading because I was hoping that later on we would get more but it never happened. And then, suddenly things are moving and big things are happening, almost out of the blue, and... the ending is not bad, but it is how the book should have been as a whole.

I'm not a fantasy reader, I prefer romance (Dark, Sports etc) but this cover pulled me in.

Once I started reading, I was sucked in from the start til the end, It wouldn't let me go and I'm happy to be it's hostage..

This is one of those books that will stay with me forever.

Watching the world be built as I read was such an experience. The character building, watching them make mistakes as they go and growing from them was imo amazing.

I tend to get bored easily (ADHD), but I couldn't put this down until it was over & then I was sad. I was sad that the story was over and I wouldn't be with these characters until the next book. I can't wait to have this in my hands and on my bookshelf when it's released in Hardback..

Samuel take a bow, what an amazing debut.
I had the honour of getting this debut as an earc from the publisher.