Synopsis

As a young wilderness girl, Pistol Rose knows nothing of the advanced Strelkie City or the mad king Ward Harrol who sits behind its walls. She doesn’t understand why the Strelkie forbid marriage.

When the king forces the surrounding countryside to change their traditional culture to match his vision, the Punimin resist, and Rose learns everything about how to kill Strelkie and get away with it.

But throwing her own secret wedding without being caught… is another matter entirely. Rose refuses to give up her lover, Clock Dancin, for the tyrants who threaten her way of life. And most Punimin stand with her–only one is a betrayer.

In this futuristic medieval steampunk country filled with liars, killers, and wilderuckers, the strongest weapon is love. But using it comes with a heavy cost.

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Guest Review by Nora

“Truly, war is ripe on the tree and the gentlest gust could bring a fall no one is quite ready for. It would be an avalanche in both directions, and they all know it. Enough of them want it that the wiser folks hold their breath. Or maybe they aren’t the wiser folks.”

The first in a series that is sure to pull in any reader, ‘Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War’ by Michael Ryan Hahn, is a tale of two worlds and two directions.

The first is the world of the Strelkie, a posh city filled with delights for the lucky people who live there. The Strelkie are specifically told to move from family to family and household to household throughout their lives as a method of creating loyalty to their people and not to individual families.

In complete opposition are the Punimin, a group with strong family bonds who take to carving their family stories in any and all wood surfaces they can find.

Pistol Rose is a Punimin, destined to live a life of hardship outside of the city and to eventually go into her family business of gun making. Rose loves her family dearly, and she is a skilled gun maker, but when she falls in love with a boy from her village, she realizes that she has only two options. Either she can ask the local Strelkie emissary for permission to marry her fiancé and risk being turned down and possibly losing her love forever, or she and her love can escape to the forest to find a place beyond Strelkie rule.

Neither option is easy, as even escape will come with uncertainty and struggle. But Rose and Dancin’, her fiancé, decide to escape, not realizing that this decision will light the spark that ignites a war and that soon they will have no way out.

This was an excellent story for me, personally. I love great characters and great world-building, and this book had it all! I would recommend this for anyone who loves steampunk or fantasy because those elements were really present here.

Hahn is a very talented writer, and I can’t wait to read more from this series!

About the Author

‘Pistol Rose and the Wedding That Parked a War’ is Michael’s debut novel and the first in a planned 7- part series, The Anthem of Ash & Pistols. He previously wrote a standalone horror novella called ‘Children of the Storm.’ He recently released an adventure podcast in the style of old radio plays called Fire Pockets. His stories aim to weave exciting action with humor and heart, with complicated villains—probably because of his upbringing. He comes from a big ol’ raucous family, and he survived a shockingly bruising (but not altogether unfun) cadre of violently delinquent Boy Scouts to become an Eagle Scout. He loves fight scenes.

Michael won a ScreenCraft competition that led to development with Bad Robot. He’s a 3x ScreenCraft Finalist and has 18 other accolades from major screenwriting competitions, including AFF and Final Big Break.

As a director, he won Best Feature at GenCon and Best Director at BAFF for his micro-budget, wild sci-fi comedy action feature, ALIEN THEORY

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife. In his spare time, he designs custom habitats for cats.* The habitats are highly popular with the cats.

Website * X (Twitter) * Fire Pockets Podcast

Giveaway

This giveaway is for 2 copies.

The winners will have the choice of print or ebook.

This giveaway is open worldwide and on November 23, 2023, at midnight pacific time.

Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway