Newcomer M.K. Hobson continues the story she started in The Native Star here with strong results. Her new novel moves deeper into the unique layers of magic of her reimagined 19th-century America, with plots, counter-plots and even a blood-soaked goddess to keep the action interesting. What really makes the book, however, is the attention paid to our protagonist, Emily, who navigates the equally alien worlds of high-end magic and cultured society.
In the first book, Emily had been forced from her California home when a bit of a highly powerful artifact embedded itself in her hand. Joining her was the wonderfully named Dreadnought Stanton, an exile with (of course) a dark, mysterious past. As it often happens in stories like these, the two fell in love, managed to defeat the bad guys and found themselves in even deeper, hotter water.
The U.S. government has made a deal with the aforementioned blood-soaked goddess, giving her the power to manifest and eventually, destroy the world. Emily and Stanton need to uncover the truth, which lies in both of their pasts. For Emily, that means learning about her birth family and the missing first five years of her life, and for Stanton, it means going back to his own blood-soaked early years.
The magical world is wonderfully developed, ranging from credomancers (who rely on their reputation at large to work their spells) to ones who specialize in violent, blood magic to factions that would like to eliminate any touch of magic in the world.
The plot may drag at points (it depends on how much you like political intrigue and romantic entanglements) but Emily is such an honest, living and breathing character that it becomes easy to be swept up in the action. Best of all, the story comes to a satisfying end here, which doesn't preclude additional volumes, it just means you won't be left hanging while the author moves the plot threads forward in the next book.
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