Thank you Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very creative premise with them living in a giant clock. It was very YA and the adventure was pretty action pact. The plot felt very predictable but overall the story was very enjoyable and the characters where very likeable they defiantly acted their ages.

I had high hopes for this book but found it impossible to get engaged with the story and the characters. Found it very difficult to finish.
not really my cup of tea.

The Timekeepers is a wonderful story set in the Clockwork Lands. I loved the illustrations scattered throughout that really helped this world to come alive. The story centres around 16-year-old Onyx Chime who has until now lived a relatively sheltered life in the care of her father, the Timekeeper. There were several plot twists that kept me engaged and wanting to read more. It was an enjoyable 4 star read for me. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

This was my first venture in the steampunk genre and Jill Archie offered an intriguing introduction to this unique aesthetic. I found the worldbuilding captivating and this was perhaps my favourite part of the story. In each chapter there are accompanying illustrations that complemented the descriptions of this world of gears. I found this really helped with the immersion and aided the aesthetic. However, while I adored the aesthetic elements of this story, the actual plot felt lacking. The way the story unfolded was quite predictable and even the twists were not particularly surprising.

Overall, The Timekeepers was still an enjoyable read, particularly from the point of view of the rich setting. Although the plot didn’t quite match up to my expectations, I still think this was a solid introduction to the genre for me. For readers more interested in the aesthetic then this is worth your while but not for those wanting a more complex narrative.

Thank you eARC publishing for a copy of The Timekeepers by Jill Archie. This is a wonderful steampunk novel about living life in the present. Not searching to live in the past or to want the future more than the present. To be happy to live knowing we have eternity in our future. Lots of adventure with Onyx and Edison racing to foil a few enemies from messing with time. Onyx learns a lot about herself while racing from wheel to wheel to stop a few people from disrupting everyone lives for their own pleasure or selfishness.

"The Timekeepers" is a tale of adventure and self discovery set in an imaginative Steampunk world centered around clocks and clockworks. The narrative revolves mostly around Onyx Chime, the daughter of (and assistant to) the titular Timekeeper, and lived a sheltered life set my a (pun intended) clockwork routine. When she's presented an opportunity to explore the world beyond her home, she finds different wonders and dangers as she discovers not all is what she expects things to be.

It's an enjoyable story with the usual twists and turns and almost cliche archetypes found in Steampunk fantasy stories, though some of the twists were a bit predicable and while there was some suspense, it didn't seem as though the stakes were so high and most of the loose ends were neatly resolved. The illustrations weaved through the story (and appeared at the beginning of every chapter) was lovely and captured the spirit of the story. It's a fine start to the series, and I'd be intrigued to learn more about life on the different Wheels that make up this world.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for a free ARC of this book.

This was honestly the first steampunk novel I’ve ever read, I think. Very well-written and unique, but predictable. I liked the characters and the world-building was awesome! The cover says “book one,” and I would definitely read a sequel.

I had a bit of difficulty to get into the book. I couldn’t really connect with the characters. The storyline I did like there’s a lot happening that makes it fun to read although I didn’t find the book very original. Most of the problems the main character faced were predictable and the way she dealt with them was even more predictable. This doesn’t make this book a bad one, but for someone who reads a lot of books, it isn’t as enjoyable. The world could have been more in my opinion. Someone who picks up this book is probably doing this because they like the aesthetic of the world on clock gears, but this book could have played off anywhere as the clockwork didn’t bring a lot to the table. What I loved about this book were the illustrations these were a beautiful addition to the book.

*thank you to net galley for providing me with an e-arc in return of an honest review*

Well, I just loved this. I loved the concept of these worlds, if anything I would have actually wanted to explore them more and spend more time in each! It was an easy read, the illustrations really brought the world to life. I’m not sure if I’m happy or frustrated that there wasn’t illustrations of the people though, what exactly do they look like with the spaces for their heart keys, I NEED TO KNOW!

3.75 stars rounded up for NetGalley's metrics.

This was fun! I've never read a story that so fully embodied the steampunk aesthetic, and everything about the world felt so correct. The costuming, the world itself, the inventions, and the character design all fit the vibe appropriately and just made sense given the world. The maps and illustrations were very well done and complimented the written descriptions nicely, and I appreciated the fact that the author included a few solid male-female friendships.

I only have a few complaints. The writing tended to have a bit more telling than showing, and that made it feel a bit rough around the edges sometimes. Some of the plot beats and characters were also a bit stilted and could have used a bit more polish. That being said, I think this is the author's debut novel, so I have hope that the writing will smooth out as the author publishes more. I'm excited to read the next installment and jump back into this creative world!

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really cute story! It's suitable for YA readers as well as adults. The world being basically inside of a clock was unique and delightful and had steam-punk vibes. I very much appreciated the handful of illustrations that helped me visualize certain scenes and devices the characters used. The cast of characters was also delightful, and the story moved along at a good pace. All in all, this is an excellent debut novel. While this story comes to a satisfying end, I do hope the author writes more stories that take place in the Clockwork Lands.

I don't tend to read Steampunk that often however, when i read the plot of this book, i was intrigued and I wasn't surprised. Of course there was times where I was confused as it wasn't my normal sort of read.

However Jill Archie have managed to pull be into a fabulous book.

1.75/5 - Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review! I really wanted to like this book, I haven't read a lot of steampunk fantasy but I love the aesthetic and especially with this story revolving around a Timekeepers daughter in the setting of a giant clock world, I was ready to get sucked into this world. Unfortunately there were too many things that didn't work for me. The writing was just not good, very stilted, clumsy, and lacking in depth or nuance. Similarly the characters and plotline felt extremely flat. There was nothing to discover or wonder about, everything was given to you on a silver platter. The characterization did not make sense, the protagonist is supposed to be a sheltered 16-year old girl who has been taught by her brilliant father academically but has not seen any of the world herself, and yet when she finally does go out into this world she is constantly wowing everyone with wise-beyond-her-years philosophizing about the meaning of life that comes out of seemingly nowhere. The villain is moustache twirling with very basic villain-esque motivations, there was a bit of an interesting twist but it didn't really make sense with what had been presented earlier in the story so it wasn't terribly satisfying.

However, I will say the descriptive language was nice and the prose on world-building was very well done. The illustrations were beautiful and added to the already detailed picture I had in my head of the world based on what was written. The author absolutely delivered on the steampunk atmosphere and descriptions of how these elements were embedded in the natural world of this universe as well as in what had been built by the citizens, and that was what kept me going to the end of the book.

The Timekeepers is a steampunk novel that follows sixteen-year-old Onyx Chime, the daughter of the Timekeeper of the Clockwork Lands. For years her life has followed a meticulous routine with every minute accounted for but that is abruptly interrupted when a mysterious stranger arrives. She soon finds herself on an adventure to not only save her father’s life, but the lives of everyone in the Clockwork Lands.

This book was written beautifully and was my introduction to the steampunk subgenre. The author paints a beautiful picture when describing the Clockwork Lands.

The story started off a little slow but once the action started, the chapters flew by. There was a recurring theme of the importance of time and what it means to be eternal throughout the book. Many philosophical conversations were held which could be boring if you aren’t interested in that. I didn’t enjoy them all but I do admit that some of them were thought provoking.

I loved the genuine friendship between Onyx and Edison and loved that a romantic side plot wasn’t shoehorned in. I felt that he was the perfect complement and stood on his own without overshadowing Onyx as the main character. Onyx herself was a very capable character and even though she made plenty mistakes, I found her to be very relatable. Her moments of self-doubt enhanced her character and made it easy to root for her.

Overall, The Timekeepers was an interesting read. If you enjoy steampunk tales and thought-provoking discussions about immortality, this may be the perfect book for you.

Unusually for a steampunk/clockpunk novel, this one has very few vocabulary errors. The rule of thumb seems to be that you can have an airship in your book, or you can use vocabulary correctly, but not both. Perhaps the reason this one is comparatively clean in this regard is that the voice reflects the sheltered 16-year-old protagonist, and the author doesn't try to use any fancy vocabulary.

Unfortunately, at least in the pre-publication version I had via Netgalley, it does have not only most of the other errors that 70-80% of authors typically commit, including sometimes punctuating dialog tags as separate sentences (and numerous dangling modifiers, and commas and apostrophes in the wrong places, and frequently missing past perfect tense), but also some issues I see less often: the wrong form of the word used sometimes when it is in the past perfect, and in general a number of sentences that aren't quite grammatical, or don't mean quite what they're obviously intended to mean, or aren't as clear as they should be about who is doing what. An editor is credited; the fact that she didn't fix all of these doesn't mean that she's not a good editor, necessarily, just that there may have been too many issues to deal with in the time allotted.

Not every reader cares about this kind of thing, but if you do, be advised that there is a lot of it, and that even if you don't notice the specific issues, you may find you're confused occasionally.

For example, quite often there's a sentence of the pattern "Onyx did X when Y happened," which sounds like it means that she did X triggered by Y and the effect is being described before the cause, but actually makes more sense if you include the past perfect and say "Onyx had done X when Y happened," and the sentence becomes about two separate, independent events that happened in sequence. Another example where a sentence isn't as clear as it could be: "She used a fresh handkerchief to wipe away the small streak of blood from her shoulder." In this sentence, "she" is one female character and "her shoulder" belongs to a different female character, so that even though the plain meaning of the sentence is that character 1 is wiping her own shoulder, the reader has to infer from context that character 1 is actually wiping character 2's shoulder.

The plot is a simple one, quite predictable, and relies heavily on the main character making bad choices. At one point, for example, her father is kidnapped and the kidnapper sends a ransom demand: Send me the McGuffin by return of post! The heroine then proposes that she and her two companions instead go to where her father is being held (which they can discover from the means the villain used to send the message), unarmed, and take the McGuffin with them. The companions, both of whom are older and more experienced, praise this as a great idea and see no issues with it whatsoever. She then recruits someone she knows is a slightly unhinged radical to help them, by promising something she knows she can't deliver. Exactly the problems you would expect ensure.

The worldbuilding involves a world that is spread across the main gears of an enormous clock, of which the main character's father is the Timekeeper. It's consistent in its aesthetic - lots of gears and springs and brass - but not especially realistic; I don't think it's meant to be. It's there to create a vibe, not to be a serious science-fictional speculation. If that's the case, it does its job, and at least it's original. Still, even giving physics a holiday, there are parts of the setting or the events that didn't make sense to me. I never did get straight in my mind what the scale of the tower that holds the clock hands was, for example, and I couldn't figure out how a mirror at the top of a staircase could possibly make it look as if the stairs continued up. There were a number of other minor examples where my suspension of disbelief stuttered, not because of the steampunk aspects, but just because of something incidental which looked like it had been invented on the fly to make the plot work, despite not being particularly credible. For example, the obviously misanthropic airship inventor conveniently has two spare bedrooms in his airship - the exact number needed by the characters to, among other things, have a series of interactions that forward the plot - even though the author flat-out says that he didn't seem the type to entertain guests (and even though, in what is intended to be the fastest airship in existence, you would probably want to save as much weight as you could, but that's a physics thing, and I did say I was going to give the physics a pass).

Overall, for me it fell short of being a book I'd recommend. This is primarily because, at the sentence level, the prose frequently doesn't do its basic job of accurately and clearly conveying the author's intent. But also, a plot based largely on the incompetence of the main character (who's still supposed to be some sort of special chosen person), who must be opposed by incompetent villains in order for her to succeed, doesn't work for me, and I constantly struggled to maintain my suspension of disbelief about secondary details.

There's some light philosophy about living in the moment and not fearing death. It doesn't have enough depth to raise the rating.

It engaged me enough to finish, but I was constantly distracted by the many issues, so it gets what are perhaps a generous three stars.