Out now, the first Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novels, PHOENIX RISING, by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris. This very fun steampunk romp is a bit Sherlock Holmes, a bit the Avengers, and all fun.
These are dark days indeed in Victoria’s England. Londoners are vanishing, then washing up as corpses along the Thames, drained of blood and bone. Yet the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences—the Crown’s clandestine organization whose bailiwick is the strange and unsettling—will not allow its agents to investigate. Fearless and exceedingly lovely Eliza D. Braun, however, with her bulletproof corset and a disturbing fondness for dynamite, refuses to let the matter rest . . . and she’s prepared to drag her timorous new partner, Wellington Books, along with her into the perilous fray.
For a malevolent brotherhood is operating in the deepening London shadows. And Books and Braun—he with his encyclopedic brain and she with her remarkable devices—must get to the twisted roots of a most nefarious plot . . . or see England fall to the Phoenix!
You can read the first several chapters of PHOENIX RISING.
Want more? Visit the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences itself.
The authors discuss what, exactly, is a peculiar occurrence at RT Book Reviews, while Pip Ballantine talks about gadgets as over on Steamed.
This book defines madcap. An excellent introduction to the fun side of steampunk!
Posted by: Laurie McLean | April 26, 2011 at 08:44 AM