“We all have our reasons for taking control of our lives, choosing who we love as family. Blood has nothing to do with it.”

This book blends fantasy, steampunk and Western elements to make for a unique read. It follows the Revere family, an all woman group of outlaws and criminals, as they navigate their world and find ways to survive. I loved the diverse cats of characters. While the story is told from the perspectives of Moira (The Raven),the matriarch of the family, and Adelaide (The Stranger), who has a second shadow who looks out for her, you get to know all the women in this story incredibly well. You see their unique struggles as they navigate a world designed for and by men and how they try to learn to trust and love where everyone who is not family is out to get them.

It took me a little while to get into this book but I ultimately ended up enjoying it. I loved reading about the Rim and its poisonous desert that hides history, plots, betrayals and treasure. If you decide to read this, I definitely recommend pushing through the start. While I may not have rated it as such, it definitely does became a four star book towards the middle I might just decide to read about the further adventures about our villainous heroines when the next book comes out. ( )

This was an interesting take on a western fantasy adventure story. The multi-generations family ties and the girl-gang vibe definitely added to the atmosphere. It took me a bit to wrap my brain around the place names, exclamations/swears, and technology, but in the end it was really pretty neat.

4* seems a little generous, but 3.5* a little mean so somewhere around there. It's pretty good, but struggles a bit with pacing. I'm not totally taken with fantasy crossover genres, there's enough depth in fantasy on it's own and adding another genre just increases the amount of explanation required. Here we've got a Western setting, with aspects of fantasy thrown in, but never clearly explained - part of the pacing struggles come from a late interleaving of backstory which only partly explains the history. The usual practise is to interweave the backstory at the beginning allowing the tension to ramp towards the conclusion, and this would have been more effective here, instead of diluting the drama the characters are in as the reader jumps back in time to find out how the beginning of the story started.

Life has always been hard in the West - at least in the opening half it's not quite clear what caused the West to become so ruined, and for women particularly. Our story concerns a family of three generations of women living together - again it is not clear of their relationships (or even how many there are) until much later in the book. They've managed to throw off the patriarchy and are making a living as gangsters more or less honourable with their own 'steam' train. Part of they dystopia appears to have created a coal-like fuel 'crystal' that can be burnt or used in other manners depending on it's type. How and why there are still rails running across the waste is unexplained - some eastern Rail companies prospectors seem insufficient for the magnitude of resource required, let alone the water/fuel requirements of such a multi-carriage engine, or the restraints in where it can travel compared to the distances involved.

The family are tight-knit, and well used to looking after each other, with different characters having a greater or lesser propensity to violence, science, sex etc. Curiosity remains a luxury of the comfortable, and the family are just about well-enough off to consider and offer - an explorer wants a guide to the deep West, beyond the rails. The family have other commitments but three of the girls could be spared for the prospect of a substantial payoff - and maybe the customer won't make it home. And so the narrative splits and we follow one of the daughters with her never explained Shadow, guiding a party deeper into the wastes than most wise people go, and also the grandmother who still 'rules' the family, conducting their normal business, smuggling goods and salvaging where necessary. This occupies a large chunk of the middle of the book and is enjoyable. However history never forgets and old crimes come back to face you, which was a fairly dramatic twist, with some side characters suddenly appearing and having more impact than expected. The ending is very abrupt and apparently continues in a trilogy. I may well continue to read these, although outside my normal fare the world-building is quite well done. ( )

Hard a very hard time putting this down, stayed up way too late reading. It was a little more violent than I liked but it was a horribly rough environment that these women were living in. Loved the bonding of the women and that they were family to each other, related or not.
Had a bit of a difficult time understanding their background and felt that it was not explained or developed enough. Descriptions of the rim
area were a bit sketchy. Great writing - kept me wondering what would happen next. ( )