Off the Bookshelf: GEARS OF A MAD GOD by Brent Nichols

Warning: I am doing research for a Steampunk series I want to write, so I am reading all the Steampunk books I can get my hands on. (special thanks to the authors who offered their books, short stories, sample chapters for free on B&N -- my Nook has been feeling neglected, up until now!)

GEARS OF A MAD GOD by Brent Nichols is sub-titled: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure.

Thank goodness we didn't get a visit from Cthulu (am I spelling it right? ) in this book, but readers get a lot of close encounters from the homicidal lunatics in service to Lovecraft's truly creepy creation.

Colleen is an independent young woman who fixes things -- from clocks to annoying young men to mad pursuers to broken down old factories. An orphan, she is waiting for her young man to propose, but life is interrupted when she gets word that her uncle, her only living relative, has died. As she journeys across Canada of the last century, she receives bits and pieces that make her wonder what is going on. That and several men who keep showing up, following her, then chasing her, or poking their noses into her business ... it's enough to make an independent young woman itch for a wrench to do extremely unladylike things to said irritants. When she finds out the events of the days leading up to her uncle's death, the mystery gets even stranger. If you like tough chicks who are good with wrenches and cogs and steam boilers, this is the novella for you.