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Tara Sim

Chainbreaker Hardcover – Jan. 2 2018

by Tara Sim (Author)

4.5 154 ratings

Book 2 of 3: Timekeeper

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Clock mechanic Danny Hart knows he’s being watched. But by whom, or what, remains a mystery. To make matters worse, clock towers have begun falling in India, though time hasn’t Stopped yet. He'd hoped after reuniting with his father and exploring his relationship with Colton, he'd have some time to settle into his new life. Instead, he’s asked to investigate the attacks.

After inspecting some of the fallen Indian towers, he realizes the British occupation may be sparking more than just attacks. And as Danny and Colton unravel more secrets about their past, they find themselves on a dark and dangerous path—one from which they may never return.

Book 2 of 3

Timekeeper
Print length

488 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Sky Pony
Publication date

Jan. 2 2018
Grade level

9 and up
Reading age

14 years and up
Dimensions

13.97 x 3.56 x 20.96 cm
ISBN-10

1510706194
ISBN-13

978-1510706194
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Review

Praise for Chainbreaker:

"You won’t be able to put this one down." —Huffington Post

"Chainbreaker is an elaborate tale of magic, gods, and the beautiful, unfortunate humans caught in an ancient titanic struggle. You’ll cheer. You’ll cry. And once you enter this world, you’ll never want to leave." —Traci Chee, New York Times bestselling author of The Reader

"Mysterious, compelling, and urgent, Chainbreaker's scintillating prose, complex and multi-dimensional characters, and quick pace will pull you in till it leaves you breathless and transformed." —Aditi Khorana, author of The Library of Fates and Mirror in the Sky

"Expands on the universe created in Timekeeper, with new mythology, character development and international intrigue that really highlights Tara's talent for world-building. Chainbreaker combines factual historical research with a believable and original magic mythology to create a world that feels wholly real. With pacing and action running like clockwork, this is a startlingly unique series with a truly golden set of diverse characters." —Lauren James, author of The Next Together

"A wonderfully diverse read with unforgettable characters you can't help but root for." —Bustle

"Riveting and complex . . . Tara Sim’s newest fascinating tale full of magic, intrigue, and clocks will hook you." —TheMarySue.com

"An imaginative and action-packed novel set against the backdrop of Indian uprisings against the British occupation." —Book Riot

"Our most anticipated sequel of the year." —Paste Magazine

" Sim continues to offer an action-packed adventure for her lovely queer couple, but Chainbreaker features a particularly vivid environment and dynamic new characters thanks to the author’s personal cultural experiences." —BookMarked

Praise for Timekeeper:

Paste Magazine Best Book 2016
Barnes & Noble Teen Blog Best Queer Fantasy 2016

"Timekeeper is an extraordinary debut, at once familiar and utterly original. Between its compelling world, its lovely prose, and its wonderful characters, the pages flew by." —Victoria Schwab, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Alive with myth, mystery, and glorious romance, Timekeeper will keep hearts pounding and pages turning til the stunning conclusion. Reader beware—there's magic in these pages." —Heidi Heilig, author of The Girl from Everywhere

"Timekeeper is a triumph. . . . If you read only one such book . . . let it be this one.” —Bustle

"Timekeeper’s premise is original and its world unique." —EW.com

"While the world is wildly interesting and fantastic, with broken clock towers that have left towns frozen in time, it’s the emotional impact and diverse cast of characters that make this book soar . . . The resulting story is an exciting and inclusive one, drawing in elements of magic, mystical spirits, swoon-filled romance, and just so much more.” —BookRiot

"Part mystery and part romance, this fantasy novel delves into what it means to grow up and make important decisions. With an easily relatable main character struggling to fit in, the novel has a realistic and contemplative voice. VERDICT: A must-have richly written fantasy novel that will have readers eagerly anticipating the next volume." —School Library Journal

"Sim creates a cast of complex and diverse characters, as well as a mythology to explain how the clock towers came to exist . . . an enjoyable, well-realized tale." —Publishers Weekly

“[M]ystery, LGBTQ romance, and supernatural tale of clock spirits and sabotage that explores how far people might go for those they love. Its strongest elements are the time-related mythology and the supernatural gay romance.” —Booklist

"This LGBTQ steampunk romance sports a killer premise and admirably thorough worldbuilding, helpfully annotated in the author’s afterword. The characters—even the bad guys—are sympathetically drawn and commendably diverse in sexuality and gender." —Kirkus Reviews

"An enjoyable start to a promising new trilogy." —BookPage

About the Author

Tara Sim can typically be found wandering the wilds of the Bay Area in California. When she’s not chasing cats or lurking in bookstores, she writes books about magic, clocks, and explosives. She is the author of Timekeeper. Follow her on Twitter at @EachStarAWorld, and check out her website for fun Timekeeper extras.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sky Pony (Jan. 2 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 488 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1510706194
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1510706194
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 596 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 3.56 x 20.96 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #1,238,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #100 in Steampunk Sci-Fi Books for Young Adults
- #918 in LGBTQ2S+ Romance for Young Adults
- #1,303 in LGBTQ2S+ Fiction for Young Adults

Customer Reviews:
4.5 154 ratings

About the author

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Tara Sim

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Tara Sim is a YA author found in the wilds of the Bay Area, California. When she's not writing about magic, clocks, and boys, she drinks tea, wrangles cats, and sings opera.

Tara grew up in California, but braved the elements of Virginia to study English/Creative Writing at Hollins University.

Half-Indian and full geek, she eats too many samosas and awkwardly dances to Bhangra music.

TIMEKEEPER (Sky Pony Press, Fall '16) is her debut YA novel.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

154 global ratings

5 star		67%
4 star		24%
3 star		7%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Canada

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Angie

Chainbreaker: I am not okay, my poor aching heart

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book was totally worth the wait, I cannot even begin to explain how much I love Colton and Danny. They have grown so much since the first book. In fact there is a whole lot of character development in this book. I love how much Daphne is given so much spotlight. She has become my favourite female character (beside Cassie) it’s so good to have her become so much more. I feel that the plot has become a lot darker then the first book. I was not expecting those plot twists, and my heart hurts so much for these characters. I just want them to be happy. I cannot wait for book 3. I’m shaking in anticipation.

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Amazon Customer

My new favourite book!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

I have been waiting forever for this book and it was worth the wait!!! Now I have to start waiting all over again for the next one! I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves books with a little romance but mostly action!

Helpful

Not As Good As The First

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 3, 2021

I was super excited about this book. I had really enjoyed the previous one, so I couldn’t wait to get back into this world. So I immediately jumped into it since I had it on audio. And honestly, I was pretty disappointed. This book suffers from second book syndrome. As I said in my review for TIMEKEEPER, I am not sure this was truly intended as more than a standalone.

One of the best parts of the first book for me was the relationship between Danny and Colton. This story has them separated for nearly the entire book. And while we get to learn about Colton’s backstory, which was super awesome, I wasn’t captivated by either of the separate threads.

Plot wise, there’s a lot going on and yet it felt like nothing was happening at the same time. I was bored for a while and honestly thought about DNFing because I didn't care about any of the POVS, including Danny and Colton. They were together but not and it just made for an uninteresting read, in my opinion. When it got to about 80%, it really started to pick up and I was intrigued to see what was going to happen. That is probably the only reason I am going to finish this series out.

TLDR: Not nearly as strong of a book as the first one in my opinion. I'm hoping the conclusion brings it back around. But truthfully it felt too much like a second book, focused on secondary characters, and the plot dragged a lot more than I wanted. But it is a really interesting read, I like the setting still so much, and it's super compelling characters.

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Arkham Reviews

A series on the up

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 22, 2018

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I thought that Chainbreaker really built on the foundations laid out by Timebreaker, taking its wonderful concept and layering on the mythology through Colton's increasingly relevant dreams. The plot this time feels a lot grander, ambitiously widening the scope of the tale. The setting is no longer focused on a small English town, but instead quickly relocates to India. It is here that the terrorist acts take on a new scope, as tensions rise between the Indian people and occupying British forces.

The most fascinating thing about Chainbreaker is that it is a novel about shades of grey. While a character early on emphasises the importance of putting the needs of the many first, Danny quickly realises that life is rarely this simple. It's one of those stories where villains are not necessary evil people. Sometimes they're just normal folks who are pressed to make difficult choices. And I personally found this to be utterly compelling.

However, the book still felt to be a little slow moving and simplistic on the whole. While there were some twists in the tale, I was disappointed to find that some of these were a little too well signposted to be fully surprising. While the book was never boring and kept my attention throughout, it did seem to be lacking in action at times. It wasn't until the final 20% that the plot really picked up pace and became utterly compelling, but then it ended on a rather abrupt cliffhanger that left many plot threads hanging.

In terms of character, the book is still really strong. While it has a huge secondary cast, it only really focused on a handful of core characters. Danny and Colton's love is still central to the story and as sweet as ever. While the two are separated for a large portion of this novel, which could disappoint fans of their romance from last time, this did give ample opportunity to explore each of them individually. Personally, I thought that this was a great idea as it particularly allowed Colton to stand on his own and revealed a lot more of his backstory.

I was also pleased that Daphne got a lot more to do in this book. Her plot is largely centred around discovering more about her heritage as she builds a firm relationship with Indian pilot, Akash. I was really glad that she finally got fleshed out, but I was disappointed by how her involvement in the plot petered out towards the end of the story. It's a shame that she didn't get more involved in the climax, as it felt a bit like she ran out of things to do in the novel's final act.

All in all, this series is on the up. While the cliffhanger in particular did frustrate me, I loved how this story developed the concepts and characters introduced in Timekeeper. I'm very excited to see how this series concludes.

C. L.

Better than the First Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

Though suffering a few minor plot conveniences, CHAINBREAKER is a vast improvement over its predecessor, with high stakes, great cast, epic action and a sizzling climactic ending. Better writing, developed characters, and deepened lore all make this a fantastic read.

Looking forward to FIRESTARTER! [Received an eARC]

BooksDoNotSnore

Recensione a cura di IG booksdonotsnore

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on August 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

Quando li ho acquistati avevo terminato da poco la lettura de 𝐼𝑙 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑜 e 𝐿𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑧𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑖 𝐴𝑐𝘩𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒; desideravo trovare un’altra coppia #lgbt che potesse prendermi sino alla follia e, in parte, ci sono riuscita!

Siamo immersi in un mondo vittoriano. Il tempo è controllato dalle torri con gli orologi e i meccanici vengono venerati; il lavoro che svolgono (riparare e proteggere le torri) viene considerato fondamentale, visto che un orologio danneggiato può fratturare il tempo e uno distrutto può direttamente fermarlo. Tuttavia, questo mondo è in pericolo a causa di una serie di bombardamenti volti a distruggere le torri.
Ed è qui che entra in gioco Danny Hart, un giovane meccanico prodigio che si dimostrerà in grado non solo di riparare gli orologi, ma anche il tempo stesso.
Ma non è finita qui! Sin dal primo libro veniamo a conoscenza di uno straordinario particolare: ogni torre ha in sé uno spirito che mantiene in funzione il tempo.
Ed è così che Danny fa la conoscenza di Colton, lo spirito di un ragazzo intrappolato nella Colton Tower. Boom! Scatta la scintilla.
Il secondo e il terzo libro sono più incentrati sull’azione e sull’avventura; v’è un mistero da svelare, che ci accompagnerà sino alla fine.

Sincera? All’inizio pensavo non mi sarebbero piaciuti. Andavo a rilento nella lettura e facevo fatica a seguire, ma non appena mi sono immersa nell'avventura...ho divorato tutti e tre i libri. Mi piacciono i personaggi (chi più chi meno), le coppie che nascono e lo sviluppo della storia. A volte quello che capitava ai protagonisti mi è sembrato ‘'troppo’’, ma sono particolari su cui posso sorvolare. La scrittura è fluida, non trascende mai nel volgare: Danny e Colton sono una delle coppie più pure e dolci mai lette.

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Nandini Bharadwaj

Good sequel that sets up a high-stakes finale in the third book

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on February 1, 2020

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✨ Reasons to Love ✨
✔ Colonial Indian setting
✔ Foreign clock towers
✔ Expansion of the time-based magic system
✔ New romantic sub-plot
✔ New friendships

✨ Characters ✨
Colton and Daphne are added to the list of main characters in this book and the multiple POVs are handled well. We also get a whole host of new characters and the Indian representation is on-point. The new friendships and relationships add interesting angles and complexity to the overarching plot.

✨ Plot ✨
The plot and world-building are both expanded upon in wonderful new tangents in the sequel. The story has a lot of elements and isn't as tight-knit as that of Timekeeper's, which disappointed me. The setting of Colonial-era India is presented with all its intricacies and the author does not shy away from showing the brewing tension and ugliness of that time period.

✨ Writing ✨
The writing does show improvement, with the pacing issues from the first book fixed in this one. Colonial India is a tricky setting because of the layers of nuance that is needed to accurately portray it but Tara Sim manages it quite well. I found only one portion towards the end iffy when there was a clear British vs Indian conflict, which could have been avoided by a few plot alterations.

✨ Verdict ✨
CHAINBREAKER is a solid second book in the exciting YA fantasy series, TIMEKEEPER. However, the story suffers a little from poor plotting and wasn't as enjoyable as the first book. I will definitely get to the third book soon to know how the series wraps up as the overarching plot is quite promising.

RV

Beautiful and moving, a powerful fantasy interwoven with the tragedy of real history

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

"For a moment, time froze.
Just two boys, so close and so distant."

With Tara Sim's Chainbreaker, the Timekeeper series seems to explode outward like the birth of a new galaxy, acquiring greater mass, gravity and dimension, but, above all, an inner light. In the process, these books acquire another, rare quality. They are beautiful.

Not just beautifully written. They don't just have beautiful passages. From beginning to end, from their formal literary qualities to their emergent aesthetic and emotional resonance, they are beautiful.

The first book in the series introduces clock mechanic Danny Hart, who can repair tears in time's fabric, and Colton, the mysterious spirit of the Enfield clock tower, in a story that allows the boys' love to take root and blossom. But Timekeeper hints at threats that become menacing and tragic in this second book of the trilogy.

In part, Chainbreaker's beauty comes from its precision, with the pacing, internal structure, and timbre of the writing all perfectly synchronized, like the inner mechanisms of a watch (appropriate, given the trilogy's theme, but no less astonishing). Its beauty also arises from its inventiveness, not only in its originality, but also from the way Sim's secondary, fictional world interweaves with the real one. Set in an alt-Victorian Britain and India, the weft of history and the warp of the author's imagination lock tightly together to create an enchantment all its own.

The author intersects the real story of the Enfield rifle, the British East India Company, and the ruthlessness of the British Raj with her vaguely steampunk alternate reality, where the flow of time is a carefully managed, potentially lethal, commodity. Thus, Danny and Colton are joined by Daphne, a fiercely independent woman who, like the author, is of Indian-English descent. Together, they investigate the destruction of India's clock towers, which are the edifices used to manage time. They soon find themselves at the mercy of barely-glimpsed conspiracies connected to a new wave of resistance to the British.

We meet, and come to care for, new secondary characters in this book, which makes the throbbing menace and the knife-point tragedy in the story so difficult to bear.

But the beauty of this series isn't just formal and inventive; it's also to be found in the exquisite balance the author brings to the work. The intensity, quality, and amount of each component part of the book is judiciously weighed in consideration of every other part, with each emotion, mood or situation given the space it needs yet still working in concert with the whole. It's the way the author orchestrates these many voices that adds depth and endurance to the beauty of the work.

I'm about to launch into Firestarter, the last book of the series - if I can stop gripping the arms of my favorite easy chair long enough to open it.

So, I'll end with one more quote from Chainbreaker:

"Here, at last, hope began to well within her, like a moth emerging after a storm. A whisper against the cold, a flutter of white amid the gray. It was neither beautiful nor ugly; it was the truth of living things."

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Chainbreaker Hardcover – Jan. 2 2018

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