Boneshaker

How it reads

Boneshaker is fantasy (steampunk fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the historical past, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are survival, family and power and politics. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It opens a series. The ending resolves happily. At 416 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.