Donald Maass Literary Agency

Library Journal: This is a strong example of a midseries-building book, showing the heightening of stress without a major change in the status quo. Bishop (Murder of Crows; Daughter of the Blood) marvelously invents a rich world that is a faint echo of our own but ruled by wild inhuman creatures tied to nature and pushed to violence by the greed of humans who refuse to understand that they are not in charge. The delicate character of Meg is a fulcrum, a special human whom the Others protect, and her damaged but determined will is the key to this terrific series.

As tensions escalate between the terra indigene known as the Others and the humans who live among them, Simon Wolfgard and the Lakeside Courtyard search for a compromise that will allow peaceful coexistence. But a group called Humans First and Last are stirring up hostility toward the Others, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn is crucial to uncovering their plans before it is too late.

Library Journal: Verdict: Bear (Steles of the Sky; Blood and Iron) pumps fresh energy into the steampunk genre with a light touch on the gadgetry and a vivid sense of place. Karen has a voice that is folksy but true, and the entire cast of heroic women doing the best they can in an age that was not kind to their gender is a delight. Ably assisted by a U.S. Marshal and his Comanche posseman, Karen and the ladies kick ass.

The Gold Rush town of Rapid City is just about what you would expect in a frontier community catering to the mining trade: rough, violent, and full of prostitutes. Karen is a “soiled dove” working at Madame Damnable’s establishment, where she and her sisters in trade serve a more respectable crowd than the poor girls who work the cribs at the waterfront. When one of those young women escapes and runs to Madame’s for help, she brings the wrath of the crib owner, Peter Bantle, on the house. Bantle, in addition to bring a vicious bully seems to have a device that can control people’s minds.

Booklist: If contemporary Seattle is an apt setting for cyberpunk thrillers, it stands to reason that nineteenth-century Seattle should serve just as well for a steampunk adventure. Bear’s new novel follows the title character’s life as a bordello girl working along Puget Sound, from which steam-powered airships take gold prospectors up and down the western mountain ranges. But in the seedy dockside world of the Pacific Northwest frontier, the opportunities for criminals with powerful technology in their hands are ripe. Fans of the steampunk aesthetic will appreciate Bear’s affectionate treatment of the style. Weapons, gadgets, and their places in the characters’ lives put together a charmingly inventive fictional Seattle­–especially for those readers bringing along some knowledge of the city’s nascent history. Karen’s first-person narration can feel a bit inconsistent with her swapping between eloquence and intentionally ungrammatical slang, but she always manages to hit the spot when her descriptions need to set the mood.