THE CLOCKWORK DEEP

This dark steampunk fantasy should appeal to fans of Jess Kidd’s Things in Jars, Jim Butcher’s Cinder Spires series, or the Netflix series Arcane: League of Legends. Here’s a sneak peek summary:

Centuries after an alchemist tampered with human nature, the empire of Cordia is split into two classes: the ruling felix, whose perfect luck ensures long lives of wealth and safety, immune to pain or hardship; and the laboring miseries, whose constant misfortune brings suffering and death. Felix fortune has ushered in steam-powered marvels for the privileged, from auto-carriages to airships and automaton servants, but the afflicted miseries are growing in number and desperation.

Caleb, a misery, works for the City Watch in the capital, where a series of unblemished corpses reveals the impossible: someone has discovered how to kill the felix. With the aid of a stubborn street waif, and haunted by a ghostly voice he hopes is real, Caleb follows the trail of murders and a girl gone missing in a riven city plunging into war. Meanwhile Eliza, a scullery maid, is drawn inexorably into the misery revolution. As their gunpowder plot ignites, as half the city burns to ash, and as la guillotine spills rivers of blood over the cobblestones, she must confront the moral reckoning of freedom at any cost. When Eliza and Caleb unearth a buried secret that could shake the empire to its core, they can forever change the balance of power—if they survive long enough to bring the truth to light.