The Signal Lamp of Tremont Bridge

About this book

In an alternate dystopian 19th-century England, the ruling Directorate enforces 'The Great Sorting'—a brutal mechanical census that rigidly divides citizens into five social classes at age ten, outlawing cross-class friendship and erasing family legacies. The story unfolds across two timelines. In 1845, as the first Sorting threatens to tear their mill town apart, five twelve-year-old friends create a collaborative 'living book' of their true histories and use a battered brass signal lamp to coordinate secret meetings beneath Tremont Bridge. When one of their own is targeted for complete historical erasure, they must risk everything in a desperate chase across the canal to preserve their bonds. Fifty years later, in the calcified police state of 1895, a new generation of five children from vastly different classes discovers the hidden lamp and book during a mandatory badge inspection. Decoding the forgotten symbols of the past, they spark underground reading circles and orchestrate a spectacular city-wide resistance using light flashes across the smog-choked rooftops. As betrayals threaten their movement, these descendants must force the Directorate to confront its own origins in a massive public gathering at the bridge, fighting for a single, revolutionary reform: one annual 'bridge day' of permitted mixing, proving that legacy is not inherited glory, but hard-won continuity.

Book details

Genres:

Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Fiction, Dystopian, Steampunk

Language:

en

Published:

2026-04-30

Content rating:

PG-13