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Dawn Calamity
Maran never wanted to set foot on the airship, Dawn. Discovering her secret crush is onboard is only making things more awkward. When they find themselves behind enemy lines, Maran has to take charge to bring the crew home.
426 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 28, 2024
5 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Cherry
16 books93 followers Amanda Cherry is a native of Pensacola, FL and an alumnus of UNLV who hasn’t been thoroughly warm since moving to the Seattle area in 2003. Amanda’s first love was performing, and she has had a successful career as a theatre, television, and film actress.
Amanda’s first book was penned in her family’s den and published by her father in time for Christmas in 1985, she was six years old. After the limited success of that first outing, Amanda turned to writing stories for fun. She spent the next twenty-odd years doing just that.
A lifelong nerd, Amanda joined the staff at her favorite Star Wars site, Tosche Station, as a contributing writer in 2016 and discovered that letting other people read what she’d written was actually pretty fun. Thanks to the encouragement of a friend, she was invited to submit to Cobalt City Christmas: Christmas Harder in 2016 while living overseas in Berlin, Germany. When she learned that her story was bought, she cried.
Capitalizing on the success of that publication, Amanda’s pitch for a follow-up novel was accepted. The rest is, as they say, history.
Amanda once again lives in the Seattle area with her husband of ten years and three-and-a-half year-old son. In her free time, she enjoys driving her little blue convertible and officiating flat track roller derby.
Amanda’s first book was penned in her family’s den and published by her father in time for Christmas in 1985, she was six years old. After the limited success of that first outing, Amanda turned to writing stories for fun. She spent the next twenty-odd years doing just that.
A lifelong nerd, Amanda joined the staff at her favorite Star Wars site, Tosche Station, as a contributing writer in 2016 and discovered that letting other people read what she’d written was actually pretty fun. Thanks to the encouragement of a friend, she was invited to submit to Cobalt City Christmas: Christmas Harder in 2016 while living overseas in Berlin, Germany. When she learned that her story was bought, she cried.
Capitalizing on the success of that publication, Amanda’s pitch for a follow-up novel was accepted. The rest is, as they say, history.
Amanda once again lives in the Seattle area with her husband of ten years and three-and-a-half year-old son. In her free time, she enjoys driving her little blue convertible and officiating flat track roller derby.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 23, 2024
What do you do when you're assigned on a secret mission around enemy territory and your ship goes down? Princess Maran has hidden her identity and servicing onboard a ship that shouldn't even be sailing for a secret mission to possibly rendezvous with an enemy. Oh, and her longtime crush is also on board. Everything comes together in Dawn Calamity. Excellent world building and characters you cheer for. A fantastic thrilling adventure.
June 1, 2025
2 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Princess Maran Merteuil von Feirin Lohengrin is the black sheep of the family, and currently serving in the Diplomatic Service. She's been detailed to a secret mission that seems certain to fail catastrophically, unless she asserts her status. And, to complicate matters, the woman she's infatuated with is part of the team.
Review
This is a book that starts reasonably well, but goes well off the rails toward the end. It’s a light adventure focused more on romance than credibility, but largely gives up on the latter, seemingly for no reason beyond inconvenience.
The setting is lightly steampunk fantasy, and I was willing to suspend my disbelief in return for a decent stab at logical technological arrangements, if a fairly suspect monarchical culture that just seemed unlikely. We quickly move to the romance – a swooning inability to concentrate whenever the love interest is near, or even mentioned. That latter eventually grew to a major distraction – at the same time we’re asked to see the protagonist as reluctantly stepping into command and making serious, mature decisions, she’s constantly ignoring her responsibilities to go stand near the love interest and blush. You can’t have both, at least not as presented here.
The bones of the plot offer some interest – a scheming queen, a secret base with mixed allegiances, etc. The logistics of the thing, however are literally incredible – I just couldn’t make sense of almost any of the back of the book – the location to location movements, the logic of virtually any of it. Even the author can’t seem to make up her mind – is this a sacrificial mission, or staffed with the best of the best? Frankly, it felt she stopped trying to have it make sense toward the end. Having set up the coming conflict for the sequel, the actual mechanics of how it worked were apparently left as an exercise for the reader. The geography made even less sense.
I went in with some optimism, tempered considerably by the first quarter, but the bottom dropped out substantially in the second half. Dato anyone who’s looking for any credibility in a steampunk romance.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Summary
Princess Maran Merteuil von Feirin Lohengrin is the black sheep of the family, and currently serving in the Diplomatic Service. She's been detailed to a secret mission that seems certain to fail catastrophically, unless she asserts her status. And, to complicate matters, the woman she's infatuated with is part of the team.
Review
This is a book that starts reasonably well, but goes well off the rails toward the end. It’s a light adventure focused more on romance than credibility, but largely gives up on the latter, seemingly for no reason beyond inconvenience.
The setting is lightly steampunk fantasy, and I was willing to suspend my disbelief in return for a decent stab at logical technological arrangements, if a fairly suspect monarchical culture that just seemed unlikely. We quickly move to the romance – a swooning inability to concentrate whenever the love interest is near, or even mentioned. That latter eventually grew to a major distraction – at the same time we’re asked to see the protagonist as reluctantly stepping into command and making serious, mature decisions, she’s constantly ignoring her responsibilities to go stand near the love interest and blush. You can’t have both, at least not as presented here.
The bones of the plot offer some interest – a scheming queen, a secret base with mixed allegiances, etc. The logistics of the thing, however are literally incredible – I just couldn’t make sense of almost any of the back of the book – the location to location movements, the logic of virtually any of it. Even the author can’t seem to make up her mind – is this a sacrificial mission, or staffed with the best of the best? Frankly, it felt she stopped trying to have it make sense toward the end. Having set up the coming conflict for the sequel, the actual mechanics of how it worked were apparently left as an exercise for the reader. The geography made even less sense.
I went in with some optimism, tempered considerably by the first quarter, but the bottom dropped out substantially in the second half. Dato anyone who’s looking for any credibility in a steampunk romance.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
May 28, 2024
If you’re in the mood for a rollicking steam/dieselpunk adventure, I highly recommend Dawn Calamity. This is a thrilling and colorful story of leadership, teamwork, and survival.
When military officer and pilot Maran is assigned to a diplomatic mission aboard a decrepit, haphazardly updated airship, she’s pretty sure the whole project is doomed from the start. The stakes rise when she discovers her secret crush is also aboard. But Maran has more authority than her comrades realize, and her leadership skills rise to the situation when the Dawn crashes behind enemy lines, close to a sinister secret base.
The Dawn feels like a real ship, not just atmospheric set-dressing. Same with the secret base. I really enjoyed the subtly old-fashioned language of the book, and how Maran code-switched from formal royal or diplomatic speech to clipped military talk to casual colloquialisms and hilarious euphemisms. I also appreciated her collaborative leadership style: she listens carefully and gets people doing the work they're best at, and wants everyone to survive and thrive, no matter what level of society they are on. And she still gets gooshy around her crush.
I had the great pleasure of copyediting this book.
When military officer and pilot Maran is assigned to a diplomatic mission aboard a decrepit, haphazardly updated airship, she’s pretty sure the whole project is doomed from the start. The stakes rise when she discovers her secret crush is also aboard. But Maran has more authority than her comrades realize, and her leadership skills rise to the situation when the Dawn crashes behind enemy lines, close to a sinister secret base.
The Dawn feels like a real ship, not just atmospheric set-dressing. Same with the secret base. I really enjoyed the subtly old-fashioned language of the book, and how Maran code-switched from formal royal or diplomatic speech to clipped military talk to casual colloquialisms and hilarious euphemisms. I also appreciated her collaborative leadership style: she listens carefully and gets people doing the work they're best at, and wants everyone to survive and thrive, no matter what level of society they are on. And she still gets gooshy around her crush.
I had the great pleasure of copyediting this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews