Lady of Devices: A steampunk adventure novel with smart women inventors

Book excerpt: Enjoy this first in series novel of steampunk action and adventure that's family friendly and full of heart, by award-winning author Shelley Adina. She wants to be an engineer, but her parents—and society—will never allow it. Until riots break out in steampunk London and she seizes her chance... It’s 1889, and Lady Claire Trevelyan is expected to do nothing more with her life than catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, her talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the laboratory, where her experiments have an embarrassing habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine despite the fact that everyone knows the world runs on steam, Claire finds herself out in the street with nothing to her name but her steam landau and her second best hat. But the embarrassments of her old life might be the talents that save her now ... if she can stay alive long enough to barter her skills for a street gang’s protection. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the London underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices … a double life Claire must keep secret if she is to achieve her dream and become the assistant to a world-renowned scientist ... If you like old-fashioned adventure, brave women, clever children, and strong-willed chickens, you’ll love the first book in the Magnificent Devices series. Books 1-4 are best read as a quartet. Fangs for the Fantasy says Claire is “a wonderful main character (one of my favourites in the genre)” and the series has “a great sense of Victorian style and language that’s both fun and beautiful to read.” If you like books by Gail Carriger, Lindsay Buroker, and Emma Jane Holloway, you're in the right place. Enjoy!