Mercury Rising

The Age of Steam was a time of innovation in Great Britain, and nowhere was steam power more important than the railroads. But what if someone envisioned even better and faster steam locomotives? What if they sponsored a contest and offered a prize for the train that could travel the fastest from Bristol to London? And what if one of the engineers competing for the prize was a woman?

Harriet Colton is one of the first women with a degree in engineering, thanks to Queen Victoria’s determination to see women included in all professions. She is also the daughter of a man whose company builds trains, and she has designed a revolutionary locomotive named Mercury. Of course, she has to work with an all-male team on this project, including the handsome, slide-rule-wielding engineer hired by her father while she was away finishing her diploma. The one who gets under her skin.

Royston Staley has never worked with a woman engineer, nor imagined one as brilliant as Harriet Colton. He has also never been so distracted by a co-worker. Working together seems almost as great a challenge as building the fastest locomotive ever, facing obstacles it will take both of them to overcome. And the steam isn’t limited to the train shed.

Mercury Rising is an alternative history romance.