Welcome to the Blog Tour for the In the Live of Puppets paperback release!

I’ve wanted to read so many different T.J. Klune books for so long, but somehow they keep slipping through the cracks of my massive TBR. After In the Lives of Puppets won the Goodreads Award for Best Science Fiction in 2023, I knew I wanted to prioritize it this year. Luckily, I was given the perfect excuse to pick it up for this Blog Tour.

Amazon / Goodreads

Synopsis:

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

Review:

In the Lives of Puppets is everything I hoped it would be. I went into the book completely blind, and I recommend you do the same if you can manage. Puppets is full of robots, romance, and friends that stick together. It’s a novel for people who believe in second chances and would fight the world for those they love. This also has some of my favorite side-kick characters ever – it’s that good.

I’m so glad that In The Lives of Puppets was my first Klune novel. I completely fell in love with his quirky, heartwarming writing. Puppets is great for those who enjoy sci-fantasy adventures, found families, anxiety-ridden robots, and thoroughly unique characters.

The real question is – What Klune novel should I devour next?

The paperback version of In the Lives of Puppets was published this month. If you haven’t picked up the book yet, do it!

Huge thanks to Random Things Tours and Anne Cater for inviting me to participate in this blog tour, and to Tor/PanMacmillan for providing me with a review copy. All the above thoughts are my own.