Sybilla and the Clockmaker's Secret - Nic Minnella - ★★★

AUTHOR: Nic Minnella

SERIES: The Guardian Cats, #2

GENRE: Middle-grade Paranormal Fantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: September 20, 2025

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade paranormal mystery involving curious kids, dangerous time travel and cantankerous cats. Great concept but complicated execution. Gets quite dark. The second book in the Guardian Cats series, but independent in storyline and characters. I did like it somewhat but am not sure how easy it would be for kids to follow.

Plot Preview:

2019. Thirteen-year-old Sybilla (whom everyone calls ‘Billie’) has always been the weird one in her class. Her fondness for historical clothing doesn’t help her reputation. With historian parents who are also antique aficionados, Billie has always grown up in a house full of love and weird relics. But since the death of her mother six years ago, things haven’t been the same.

When a mysterious cat enters her life, little does Billie realise that the cat is leading her towards a purpose, which has something to do with the gigantic grandfather’s clock in the living room that has not worked properly even once. A further exploration of this clock leads to some unforeseen consequences. Unexpectedly, Billie finds herself teaming up with Jack, the son of the local antiquarian, to save her family and also the world from an un*time*ly disaster.

The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of various characters.

Bookish Yays:

😻 The prologue set in 1879 – very interesting. Creates just the right amount of suspense for the main plot without revealing any spoilers.

😻 Billie. Brave, quirky, loyal, adamant, impulsive. In other words, an accurate teen. Her character is the best developed.

😻 Jack, as the voice of reason against Billie’s instinctive decisions. I liked their camaraderie, which develops after many misunderstandings on Billie’s side. I also appreciate that it is written more like a sibling-like friendship instead of relying on a ‘crush’-type connection.

😻 This is almost double the length of the first novel, but is just as fast-paced.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🐈 The plotline. The story is really good but it was diluted by the presence of too many discrete elements. Some of the minor threads could have been culled out to simplify the plot for its target readers. I was invested in what was happening, but this also meant that I used too much energy to remember subplots and character details that had no bearing on the final resolution.

🐈 Billie’s dad and her nanny. Both such amazing characters, but they hardly have anything to do in the plot except appear when (in)convenient. The remaining characters also stay somewhat vague.

🐈 The Guardian cat of this story, Lenore aka Lolo. A beautiful black cat with a heart-shaped mark on her chest, she had all the attributes of a protector. Unfortunately, unlike the guardian cats of Book One, we barely get to see Lolo in action. Most of her role seems to be restricted to leading Billie to various places. There are hints of her supernatural abilities, but these feel underutilised.

🐈 Just as in Book One, there is headjumping across the characters. I was better prepared for it this time, but I still found the random switch between character perspectives a bit distracting, especially at the start. Thankfully, once the action became more intense, I could just go with the flow.

🐈 The ending. Really good, but also really dark and messy. It leaves some questions unanswered,

Bookish Nays:

😿 The complexity. I wonder if kids will get the whole story without muddling things up. Honestly, I myself am not sure if I got what was happening.

Overall, the core plotline of this indie paranormal mystery was engrossing enough, but it became way too ambitious for its own good by incorporating some unnecessary back details. The intricacies of the time travel further add to the difficulty of the storyline.

I had read Book One of this series, The Cat Who Chased Ghosts, just a few days ago in order to go through the series in order. However, except for the concept of ‘guardian cats’, the plots, the characters, the worlds, and even the cats of the two books are independent of each other and hence the books can be read in either order as standalones. That said, the concept of ‘guardian cat’ is explained only in the first book. Though you can probably guess the meaning anyway, it would be more helpful to begin with Book One if you want to know the exact powers of a guardian cat.

Recommended, but not to kids looking for an easy read with cats. The feline track is relatively minor, and the dominant tone is more like a paranormal mystery.

My thanks to BooksGoSocial for providing the DRC of “Sybilla and the Clockmaker's Secret” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.