The first Spark Punk novel set in Temmeland, home of four other standalone novels: Beauty in the Beast, Femarine, Qué, and Nature of the Beast.

Claudine-Antoinette, the great niece of inventors Bernard and Nicéphore Niépce, was raised in benign neglect after her parents died, growing to become headstrong, adventurous, and accomplished, but a time of great change has arrived.

Steam power is yielding to the infernal combustion engine, which her aging uncles have embraced. Claudine is against employing the putrefied remains of dead things to power their world into the future, believing that battery-driven vehicles, ultimately powered by wind energy are better.

Her uncles dismiss her ideas, so she takes the modest funds they allow for her studies, and sets up her own laboratory, intent upon creating a cleaner, smarter future.

The oil company won't have that, and their representative, the aristocratic and arrogant Henri Champ de Roche is firing on all cylinders. Can Claudine beat the oil dinosaurs, or will this new man in her life create more sparks than she knows what to do with?