Solutions aren’t always black and white—sometimes they come in shades of iron gray.Captain Bridget “Briar” Rose wants for nothing. Each day is a new adventure, living the life she loves, running cargo on the Ohio & Erie Canal. That is, until her cousin decides to sell the family boat to finance a new business venture. He wants to build locomotives for the railroad—the very industry that could … that could put the entire canal system out of business.
Not one to give up without a fight, Briar does a little snooping into her cousin’s new business partner. When she gets a sneak peek at the locomotive plans, she suspects that the man is either a genius, or a ferromancer—one of the dreaded metal mages of Europe’s industrial revolution.
Determined to reveal her suspicions, Briar takes the plans and heads for the newspaper office in Columbus, stealing the family boat in the process. Kidnapping her cousin’s handsome business partner wasn’t part of the plan, but when he shows up, demanding the return of his property, she can’t let him go. After all, if Briar can prove that the railroad is using ferromancy, she could save more than her boat. She could save her way of life.
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If you’re willing to go back in time, this historical fantasy will likely hit all of the urban fantasy buttons otherwise. There’s a delightful canal-boat-captain heroine — tough, lovable, and unique. Fascinating magic. Plenty of adventure. Basically, it’s the kind of book you open on a weekend and finish before you do anything else. Good thing today’s Saturday!
A good book overall. The author’s writing style does very well at keeping me interested. The tension level is perfect, never too much melodrama but always something to keep you on edge. As with most indie books, there were a few typos but not enough for me to find annoying. The length of the story felt about right. The general feel did not come off as much “steampunk” as I expected. Although it takes place in what seems like an early steam-era America it feels more like an alternate historical fantasy story than it does steampunk. Not a problem for me, I like both genres.
The worldbuilding is acceptable but not exceptional. Some stories just don’t have room for history lessons and tedious explanations, so we don’t really find out as much about the world as I would have liked. What we do see of it though, is interesting and unique. Generally a steam-tech world, but adding in ferromancy. A kind of techno-magery that is reviled by the rest of society. The main character captains a river boat (steamboat? It’s never specified but probably not) making trade runs and in direct competition with the encroaching railroad. There’s just enough explanation of the workings of canals and boats to make it feel that some research has been done, and the magic of ferromancy feels coherent as a system although both could stand to be explored a little better.
The characters are not very sympathetic or loveable (other than the cute little shapeshifting construct she names “Lock”). They seem nice but have questionable morality, the heroes being not much better than the villains. The characterization in general was OK, but not great. The different characters had different personalities and didn’t feel like cardboard cutouts. So that’s a good thing. But they also didn’t feel like complete people either. It would take a lot of time to examine what makes a character feel complete, and perhaps I’m not knowledgeable enough to write that book anyway, but here I’ll just say that it didn’t feel like enough.
The ending was slightly disappointing. Technically, the main plot does resolve, but the author then chooses to add more. I guess it’s common enough to add a ‘hook’ that drags you in to the next book. It’s not a cliffhanger exactly, the Big Bad is all tied up and done for, and it’s a new thing that complicates life and so another journey begins. When this is done as an Afterword, or in a preview of the next book, then I don’t mind it. But here it wasn’t even given a new chapter. When the ‘hook’ is seamlessly woven into the wrapping up like this then I feel cheated out of the satisfaction of an ending that a book should normally have.
On the whole, this review has dealt more with the negative than the positive. The book is such that when you analyze the details the flaws become most apparent. And the flaws are considerable. But the good of it is in the reading itself. In the moment, when you suspend disbelief and immerse yourself in the author’s world, the critical analysis becomes less important and it’s more about how it _feels_. And in spite of the issues this one still feels good. I don’t regret having spent the time on it. I may even read it again some day. So if you can get past the individual flaws… if you’re the sort of reader who doesn’t need to critique, who can simply read and enjoy the moment, then I can recommend this book to you. In spite of it’s many flaws it still reads well.
Truly unique premise: magic and metal combined. The characters are well devised and develop throughout the series. The over-arching plot carries the interior plots for each book nicely. It feels complete with each read, but you can see the journey is not over. On a more readerly note, it is easy to slide into this story and feel as if the world the story lives in exists somewhere.