All Those Vanished Engines

Park takes readers on a challenging and multilayered tour of an alternate history America—including alternate Park family history—that will resonate with fans of his Princess of Roumania fantasy series. In the aftermath of the civil war, young Paulina is a pawn in the settlement that ends “the woah” with the North by creating two separate nations. Paulina’s alter ego is Matthew, a character she’s created to tell a story set in a fantastical future she longs to see, complete with aliens and steam-powered airships. Meanwhile, a 21st-century author uses bits of family history—and a Civil War–era character named Paulina—to fuel his own fantasy novels. The story simultaneously stretches forward and backward in time, revealing dense layers with even more mysteries to be explored, from extraterrestrial intervention in the Civil War to the shifting truths behind family history and the nature of storytelling itself. Park handles multiple viewpoints, time lines, and story lines masterfully in this dense, philosophically provocative story. (July)