Metal from Heaven

As a child laborer at Yann Chauncey's ichorite foundry, Marney Honeycutt watches strikebreakers gun down her family, her best friend, and everyone else on the picket line, sparing only her. A decade later, ichorite, a metal more durable than steel that powers the nation's industry, has made Chauncey richer and more powerful than ever, and he's arranging a political marriage for his ward, Gossamer.

Marney sees her chance for revenge: with help from a band of radical bandits and their stolen wealth, she poses as an aristocrat to court Gossamer herself, aiming to use the marriage to get close enough to kill the man who slaughtered everyone she loved. Competing suitors and Gossamer's own sharp instincts complicate the plan, dragging Marney into exactly the kind of elite, treacherous games she despises.

August Clarke's Lambda Award-winning novel is an unapologetically political fantasy, using its heist-and-revenge plot to dig into class war and anti-capitalist resistance against a magic-industrial backdrop.