Here we go! 7/100! Do be aware that I spoil things so if you have any plans of reading this book YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Title: Dreadnought
Author: Cherie Priest

The third book in the Clockwork Century Series! This book is told solely through Mercy Lynch’s point of view, a young recently widowed nurse who travels west to see her dying father who is a character from Boneshaker. The majority of the story happens on a train called the Dreadnought and that at times can get a little tedious, but for the most part Cherie Priest manages it and keeps it under control. There are not as many strong female characters besides Mercy in the main limelight, but there are plenty of them in supporting roles which for this story makes sense and meshes well.

Mercy is a great character because even when she doesn’t know what to do because she is a nurse and not a doctor she doesn’t back down and she applies all the information that she has picked up in her years to help people. Cherie Priest does a good job in that she lets people die instead of waving her magic author wand and making Mercy The Best Nurse Ever Who Saves EVERYONE. I appreciated this a lot. It was interesting to see a character that was pretty much opposite of the previous Southern belle turned spy (Maria Boyd) from the previous book. Mercy is also of Southern persuasion and married a Union soldier, but she comes off as less married to her country and their ideals than Maria.

As the third book this book does a lot to help us connect the ongoing war on the east coast to the brewing zombie apocalypse on the west coast. Mercy is spunky and fearless having worked in an army hospital for years and as she moves across the country we get to see how her nursing connections help her out and give her pieces to the great mystery that the reader figures out before the characters. The Sap, a drug derived from the poisonous gas that turns people into rotters (zombies), is doing exactly what the gas does but slower. This, plus a missing contingent of Mexicans mixes together with a high speed chase that is one that the characters will not forget for a long time and neither will the reader.