This is the first time I've read something by Nico Rosso and also the first time I've encountered the Ether Chronicles, a series he writes with his wife Zoe Archer. It's a really neat concept. They're a writing team but they write separate books in the same world. They're four books in with NIGHTS OF STEEL so it seems like it's a successful formula.

The worldbuilding in this book is pretty standard. It's a steampunk set in America's West, with most of the action taking place in California. There's not a lot of time spent telling the reader about the world, I guess because it's the fourth book in the series, but I still had a good sense of some of the interesting technologies and some of the settings. I generally prefer mythologies that feel more fully fleshed out but I didn't actually mind the sparser descriptions of the universe since the immediate settings were quite vivid.

The two main characters in this book are quite interesting. Jack Hawkins and Anna Blue are two of the best bounty hunters in the area but they've never really met until NIGHTS OF STEEL, when they're both recruited to track down an inventor by the name of Dr. Song. They're initially very wary of each other and view the other as competition but they eventually team up, leading to sparks flying. Jack and Anna have interesting histories and I enjoyed getting to know them and watching them learn to be emotionally intimate. (There's a lot of steamy sex, too, for those of you who might be curious.) I also thought their romance was nice, especially since it's an interracial romance, something we don't see all that frequently in the literature.

I have to say, though, I thought the action was more engaging than the romance. What looks like a simple bounty hunt to capture Dr. Song turns into something much more complicated and the action scenes are amazing. I was really hooked on Anna and Jack's mission and there were some nice twists and turns and reveals throughout, even though the book is short.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It's a nice read with some great action and interesting characters. I'd never heard of the series until I got an email about the blog tour but I'm very happy I gave it a shot. I'm definitely going to look for the rest of the Ether Chronicles so that I can see where the series began!

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