Searching for a fantasy book

[Krapotke]

Hey guys,

 

I really hope you can help me out! I'm desperately searching for a book I once read while on holiday. Its a series and I only read the first part off, which is driving me crazy not reading the rest. I tried googling it a couple of times but never found nothing.

 

It's a fantasy novel about "little people" in a world, which seams to be in a time-line after the extinction of humans(?). I remember that the protagonist was in a house, gigantic for him and something about a sun clock, I believe. They even talked about a time were humans were big. There were other races too. I believe something like rat-people. And there was a tinker(?) and he drove a cart pulled by mice. The cart was on the cover too.

 

It was a little bit like the silverwing series, only a bit more for grown-ups. I guess there was magic too, but I'm not sure.

 

The rest is pretty much fuzzy. I only remember sections like one of the "rat-people" being chased into the woods with torches (or chasing after something), the cart of the tinker being attacked by something and they had to run through a swamp, which no one ever crossed alive. Stuff like that.

 

Every time I try to google it, I get the typical book for children with mice-people or books like the borrowers.

 

Maybe someone hear knows it. Thanks up front for the help and for reading this :-)