This is a rip-roaring steampunk adventure perfect for young adult readers. The year is 1976, and the British Empire still spans the globe. Coal drives the world, and the smog of it hangs thick over the canals of London. Clara Calland is on the run. Hunted, along with her scientist mother, by Menshevik spies and Imperial soldiers, she must flee Ireland for London to have any hope of survival. Tim Barnabas is one of the underpeople, born to the secret town of drowned London. Seeing no farther than his next meal, Tim has hired on as a submariner on the Cuttlefish, a coal-fired submarine that runs smuggled cargoes beneath the steamship patrols, to the fortress America and beyond. With their paths inextricably linked, can Clara and Tim survive what the fates have in store for them? Is the lost scientific secret they carry with them really enough to topple an Empire?