Point of View

The point of view in "The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray" switches from character to character as needed, showing the world from different perspectives. This technique, known as the omniscient point of view, allows the reader to be in the shoes of not only the main characters, but also lesser characters. Some characters make only a brief appearance, perhaps long enough to share a brief life story and a last breath. The love story of Thaniel and Alaizabel is best enjoyed by their combined perspectives, as each tentatively reaches out to the other.

Setting

The setting of the novel is nineteenth-century London, but overrun with wych-kin and in rubble due to a Prussian attack known as the Vernichtung. The reader can glean lessons from the novel and yet feel a certain sense of safety and distance, because wych-kin are not a part of the true history of...