Engine No. 9: Clockwork Empire
by Samantha KanePublish: Sep 20, 2022Science Fiction Book Overview
A clockwork Union veteran turned vigilante and a secret agent are all that stands between the United States, weakened by Civil War, and a power-hungry empire determined to cross the Rocky Mountains and take it all.
Good thing they're both armed and dangerous...
Union veteran Ryder—with a loaded clockwork arm from the war courtesy of a scatterbomb—travels the West, following the telegrams sent blindly to him from desperate people hoping to find justice, or just someone who cares enough to help.
Secret agent Lucy Monroe, descended from an American president, takes her heritage and her job very seriously. Lucy and her team are undercover in Sierra Blanca, Texas with one mission: to make sure that brilliant Mexican President Doctor Ferdinand Santos’s empire-building stops at the Rocky Mountains. And no one is going to get in her way.
Ryder ends up in Sierra Blanca after he receives a mysterious telegram asking for his help. He lands right in the middle of a territorial tug-of-war between Santos and the U.S. Lucy doesn’t trust him, and he doesn’t trust her—or her crew of knife-wielding, gun-toting fake waitresses.
His old commanding officer arrives in Sierra Blanca working for Santos and dead bodies start piling up. The tensions are high and danger is always nearby, so why is it all Ryder can think of is finding out where Lucy hides all those nifty weapons under her ever-changing disguises.
He’s iron-arm deep in clockwork bad guys, murderous waitresses, an irresistible, cantankerous spy, English Navaho airship troopers, and a whole lot of scatterbombs. And he and Lucy are standing right in the center. Good thing they’re both armed and dangerous.