Swendson, Shanna. Rebel Mechanics.

Swendson, Shanna.  Rebel Mechanics.  Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2015  310p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-374-30009-8   ms/hs  Science fiction  E-BN    

In 1888, Verity Newton leaves England for the New World to find work.  She manages to get a job as governess in a wealthy magical home.  She soon learns that there are secrets to be explored and romances to be explored while she performs her job.

Readers will be on edge as she falls for a rebel inventor and agrees to help the underground movement by reporting on various activities in the magical world to which she has access.  There is also lots of excitement as she takes a ride on new devices created by an underground society of mechanics and engineers with non-magical sources of power.

Readers will like Verity.  She is an honest and quick-witted person who learns from her mistakes.

In the author’ s note, Shanna explains that this work represents an alternate reality in which she ponders the question of what might have happened differently if the American Revolution hadn't happened, and the ruling class had magical powers.  What would our technology, industry, and social atmosphere look like today?
     

Summary: A young seventeen-year-old gets a job as a governess in a magical family.  She also falls in love with a rebel mechanic and wonders if “all is fair in love and revolution.”    

Spies-Fiction, Magic-Fiction                                --Linda McNeil