Song of the Slums (Richard Harland, A&U, $17.99 pb, ISBN 9781743310052, May)

Astor’s passion is for music, but she’ll take an arranged marriage if it gets her out of her stepfather’s house. Instead she finds herself tricked into working as a governess, where her only ally is the lanky and mysterious servant Verrol. The two of them escape into the dark smog and deep class divides of the city, where they find refuge with a street gang making a new, wild kind of music: a music that could sweep the world. Song of the Slums is a gaslamp fantasy of airships and political unrest, with a strong thread of music winding through it. Astor is an enterprising heroine who doesn’t hesitate to trust her own ideas and pull others along with her, especially within the band, despite the many knocks to her confidence. The weakest element is the political plot of profiteering warmongers and the power of popular music, which is simplistic and sometimes hard to take seriously. The overwhelming whiteness of Richard Harland’s alternate England is also unfortunate, in a story with such clear parallels to the birth of rock‘n’roll. But the world-building is vivid and the story has an energy that’s addictive. YA readers who like urban fantasy with danger and a dash of romance will definitely enjoy it.

Jarrah Moore is a primary literacy editor at Cengage Learning Australia

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews