This is the first book in the new “Rebel Runaways” series from author Dave Johnson, a former textile designer and lecturer who has written a series of popular historical time travel books.

In 1860s London, in the age where steam and clockwork power took centre stage, three strangers are on the run from authorities. Charlotte, who hails from one of London’s richest families, wants nothing more to do with her corrupt father. Genius inventor Jake Moss, who’s been fired from Charlotte’s father’s factory, has knowledge of a secret weapon that the factory has been building. Charlotte and Jake meet under precarious circumstances in the slums of London and join forces with Oliver, a wealthy man on the run who owns an airship, and together they flee to a hideaway location on a Scottish isle. As they journey, the company grows to include an escaped slave, a street urchin, and a prostitute, and the group names themselves “The Rebel Runaways.” When the country is sent into martial law and street gangs roam freely, the group decides they must face the enemy to survive and take down the dangerous weapon the government is building.