I wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but it definitely wasn’t an queer steampunk political intrigue epic with zombies. It’s the first in a series, so there’s a lot of worldbuilding. Without revealing too much, the land of Maricol is poisoned, and it requires a lot of managing from keeping the poison from encroaching: the work of Wardens, like Soren, people who are tithed by each country and raised to withstand the poison. Why is the poison so bad? […]