Just wanted to drop a line to my long-waiting readers over here. It’s been a long while since I’ve updated, but I’ve been busy! My debut novel just released, and while it’s not 100% steampunk, it’s got steampunk elements. I wrote it in 2008, and mentioned it quite a few times during the process, some might remember — it’s called Pilgrim of the Sky and the gorgeous artwork is done by none other than the immensely talented (and lovely, if I may say so myself) Brigid Ashwood.

You can purchase the novel at the Candlemark & Gleam Website, at Amazon, and at Barnes & Noble.

From Library Journal:
Maddie Angler’s lover, the brilliant and eccentric graduate student Alvin Roth, has disappeared and is presumed dead. Instead of moving on with her life, Maddie travels to Boston with Alvin’s socially challenged younger brother, Randy, to deliver a box of research papers to Alvin’s adviser, Dr. Keats. This simple action propels her into a parallel universe where she discovers through encounters with a more gregarious Randy that Alvin is not only alive but that he has discovered the secret of multidimensional travel and grown dangerously powerful.

VERDICT
Steampunk meets goddess worship in this unusual and highly original story of loves that cross the borders of time and space. Exploring the concept of multiple universes and the social, artistic, scientific, and religious differences among them, Barron’s debut is an sf adventure that mixes high action with exquisitely detailed depictions of everyday existence in these alternate worlds.

From The Steampunk Chronicle: (full review)
“Natania Barron’s first book, “Pilgrim of the Sky” from Candlemark & Gleam publishing is magical romp between worlds mundane, affluent, spectacular, primitive, and then back again.  This is a work of romantic Steampunk fiction where faces and bodies can be switched almost as quickly as fortunes and loyalties.  Behind those faces and – as she learns – behind Maddie’s own face, lie enormous power that brings the various worlds into great peril if she cannot solve the mystery of her beloved Alvin’s machinations and decide which allies she will draw close and which enemies she must draw closer.”

From Stories of My Life: (full review)
“Maddie is one of the best heroines I’ve read about. Or perhaps I should say she’s one of the best written: Natania Barron manages to take us to the deep pits of anodine life and near-depression at the beginning, when she thinks her old boyfriend is dead. She manages to confuse us with her feelings regarding the “special” brother of said boyfriend, with whom she’s forged a bond that, at times, feels uncomfortably close to love.

“Then, she blends it perfectly into the misgivings of a whole new reality, a place where she doesn’t know who to trust and where faces, familiar and alien alike, haunt her from a past that only at times belongs to her. In this world, Maddie makes mistakes and amends, and her change towards heroine begins.”

From So Many Books, So Little Time: (full review)
“Pilgrim of the Sky is a trip through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole for a new audience of readers. It is a ethereal mirage of splintered gods, improbable magic, and the threads of humanity that weave us all together. Above all it is a story about love, in each of its aspects and all of its possibilities.”

You can also check out the Goodreads page for the book, where apparently the trend is to ask for a sequel. 🙂