It is a time of steam technology, scientific innovation and quietly simmering political tension. Having lost her husband to the dangerous life of an adventurer and the hazards of hot air balloon travel and murderous mercenaries, Astrid Darby has found herself alone in the world, aside from her motley assortment of eccentric associates, mad scientists, cheeky Ministry of Defence agents, and her keen, clever young cousin, Alexander Knightly. Now an esteemed and erudite adventurer herself, Astrid is, once again, embroiled in a grand conspiracy, the scale and nature of which she has only begun to...

Now rogue from the Ministry of Defence for his outrageous accusations against the renowned and well-connected Professor Julius Coffin, Agent Asher Key engages Astrid to help confirm that the professor is indeed responsible for the disappearance and suspected murder of no less than ten people. Despite her scepticism, Astrid concedes to facilitate his investigation, and they join the professor's annual retreat to his private island, the Isle of Jules, an island rumoured to be home to mysterious and sinister forces. Amidst jealousy over Asher's attention to their fellow reveller, the lovely...

In the years after the American Civil War, the West is wild, and the East is run by the robber barons battling each other for power and money. The range is untamed and blood-soaked, and the cities are dazzling tributes to culture and questionable scientific development. Outlaws roam free on the frontiers, and crooked lawmen and Pinkertons compete with lawless bounty hunters for the prices on their heads. Tess Mercury and her posse are the best damn bounty hunters in the West. When Tess and her posse, trick shooter "Bonny" Quimby Burton, mad scientist "Lightning" Hazel Harley and Vaughn, a...

CIRQUE DU FLAIRE Pietro Augustus Flaire's Dazzling Spectacle of Delectation Stimulation and Stupefaction Amidst the Clouds and Among the Firmament When she is accosted in the street by the bedazzled and flamboyant Eitenne Allard, a funambulist for the Cirque du Flaire, who claims his employer, Pietro Augustus Flaire, has bewitched his twin sister, Elodie, and has concocted a most nefarious scheme involving the apparent disappearance of a favoured spectator, Astrid Darby and her clever young wards, Xander Knightly and Juliana Coffin, are drawn into a surreal and shocking mystery upon the...