Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dead Iron | 2011 | Devon Monk | Buy |
| 2 | Hang Fire | 2012 | Devon Monk | Buy |
| 3 | Tin Swift | 2012 | Devon Monk | Buy |
| 4 | Cold Copper | 2013 | Devon Monk | Buy |
The Age of Steam series builds an alternate American West where the frontier is being remade by steam power, mechanical invention, and Strange magic that ordinary people have learned to use without fully understanding. Cedar Hunt is a lycanthrope — a werewolf bound to a curse he did not choose — and his search for the device called the Holder runs through all three novels alongside a cast of companions who are drawn into the same threat.
Devon Monk brings the same attention to magical cost that defines her Allie Beckstrom work, but the steampunk Western setting gives the Age of Steam a different atmosphere: bigger landscapes, harder physical stakes, and a mythology rooted in frontier folklore and Native American tradition alongside the European werewolf lore. Dead Iron (2011) established the world and won the RT Book Reviews award for Best Steampunk Novel.
The series moves west across the continent through Tin Swift (2012) and Cold Copper (2013), escalating both the mechanical and supernatural threats as Cedar and his group close in on whoever holds the Holder and what using it would mean for the frontier they are trying to protect.