I just finished Cherie Priest’s Dreadnought, her second book in her Clockwork Century series.  I like Cherie’s world, in spite of the fact that I am generally an anti-fan of novels with zombies in them at all.  At least here they remain again decently off-stage for most of the time.  What Cherie puts on-stage is a lot of fun.  I loved the first one in this world, BoneShaker, primarily because of the main character, Briar Wilkes.  In Dreadnought, the fabulous female is nurse Mercy Lynch.  Like Briar, she is really all about family, and that drives her on an adventure complete with some great steampunk machines and some nefarious characters.  And a  few guns.

As a reader, I feel like I could become Mercy with the same drivers in my life.  She a real person, and not an unreachable superhero, yet at the same time she’s a grand protagonist.  A nice book to settle in with for a cool fall evening.

This is a travel story – and the reader is along for the ride.  It’s not terribly tense until the last third of the book.  That was okay by me since the story absolutely delivered.  But don’t expect a page turner from page one.