If you’re like me, you may not know a lot about the Steampunk genre. I know I could check wikipedia or Google it, but it’s much more fun to discover how a genre is written by reading a Steampunk book and chatting with an author who writes in this genre.
My first foray into Steampunk was with P.G. Forte’s, THIS WINTER HEART.ย I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
P.G. Forte joins us on the blog to explain in her own words what Steampunk is and she shares an excerpt.
First I’d like to share my review of THIS WINTER’S HEART.
Intriguing, suspenseful, heartfelt love story.

Welcome, PG, please share with the readers your knowledge of Steampunk.
At its most basic, Steampunk is Victorian-era sci-fi. It’s what Jules Verne and HG Wells were writing, without even knowing it. Steampunk attempts to answerย the questions, what would the world have been like if steam power had continued to prevail and the internal combustion engine had never been developed? And, what if the inventions of Charles Babbage and Nikola Tesla had lived up to their full, game-changing potential? ย It’s a melding of alternative history with pseudo-science. And for a writer who loves world-building and has often wished she could manipulate both science and history, it’s pretty much irresistible.
The initial idea for This Winter Heart came from the setting. There’s something about the Southwest that’s always struck me as being timeless. And I’d been wanting to write a Christmas story set in Santa Fe forever. When Carina Press put out the call for steampunk Christmas stories for its holiday anthology, it all came together for me. The images of a woman arriving in Santa Fe by airship and cold and lonely man who wanted to make the desert bloom (and revive his own frozen heart in the process) wedged themselves in my mind and refused to budge until I found their story and wrote it all down.
Interestingly, all the authors in the Clockwork Christmas anthology have sequels planned to our stories. Mine will follow up with my heroine’s four half-siblings. I hope to devote most of next year to getting those started.
Santa Fe, The Republic of New Texacali, 1870
Eight years ago, Ophelia Leonides’s husband cast her off when he discovered she was not the woman he thought she was. Now destitute after the death of her father, Ophelia is forced to turn to Dario for help in raising the child she never told him about.
Dario is furious that Ophelia has returned, and refuses to believe Arthur is his sonโ–after all, he thought his wife was barren. But to avoid gossip, he agrees to let them spend the holidays at his villa. While he cannot resist the desire he still feels for Ophelia, Dario despises himself for being hopelessly in love with a woman who can never love him back.
But Dario is wrong: Ophelia’s emotions are all too human, and she was brokenhearted when he rejected her. Unsure if she can trust the man she desperately loves, she fears for her life, her freedom and her son if anyone else learns of her true nature…
Excerpt:
โSay that again.โ Dario Leonides glared at his valet, who had just finished shaving him. He could not have heard the man correctly. Or, if he had… No. She wouldnโt, would she? It had to be an error, a baseless rumor, a mistake.
His servant, used to Darioโs temper, continued to go about his duties unperturbed. โI merely mentioned, sir, that it appears Mrs. Leonides is back in Sante Fe. I have it on good authority she was seen checking in at La Fonda last evening.โ
โBloody hell.โ Dario hurriedly wiped his face on the proffered towel, then surged to his feet. Ophelia. She was the last woman… The last person… No, damn it, she was the last thing he wanted to have to think about right now. He stalked to the window but the frozen, snow-dusted landscape brought him no comfort. If anything, it served as a stark reminder of all heโd lost, of all that Ophelia had stolen from him.
Sheโd taken his name, his heart, his futureโeverything heโd had of value. And now? What could have brought her back here now? What could she possibly want to take from him this time?
Heโd been a fool when Ophelia first entered his life. A young, impetuous fool with a passion for science, and wealth enough to invest in any scheme that caught his interest, such as the bold, borderline-preposterous claims a certain Dr. Charles Winter had been making.
Professor Winter, as Charles preferred to be called, was undeniably brilliant, but some of the ideas he proposed seemed too fantastical to be believed. Dario had been hesitant initially, and naturally so, about committing so much of his money to what could very well prove to be mere flights of fancy. Then he met the inventorโs daughter, newly home from Europe, and all his doubts and scruples, along with most of his common sense it now appeared, had fallen by the wayside.
Ophelia was beautiful, talented, cultured, refined. She was fascinating, enchanting and utterly adorable. She was, in short, everything Dario had ever hoped for in a wife. She had only one flaw that Dario was aware of, and that was her lineage or lack thereof. If only sheโd been the product of her parentsโ marriage, if only sheโd been born to the professorโs wife, rather than his late mistress, his parents would have welcomed her with open arms.
The Leonides were a proud family, one who could trace their history back for well over two hundred years. By contrast, Ophelia had almost no family at all. She had no relatives that she knew of on her motherโs side; on her fatherโs side there were only a handful of half-siblings who refused to even acknowledge her.
Did he really intend to marry a bastard, his parents had demanded. Was this soiled heritage the one he wished to hand down to his own children? But the more time Dario spent in Opheliaโs company, the less he cared about these other matters, even if their importance had been drummed into his head since birth. Let his brothers and sisters marry for the prestige or the money it would bring them, or to advance the familyโs social standing. He had enough heritage for both of them, or so heโd boldly declared, blinded by his passion. He would marry for love or not at all. And so he had.
But that was before heโd learned the truth about whoโor rather, whatโit was heโd married. And that was before heโd had to pay the price for his reckless impulsiveness, before heโd had to stand by and watch as his family was taken from him, lost to one senseless tragedy after another. Two of his brothers had died in battle, victims of the almost constant skirmishes along the border with Mexico. Another, the eldest, and their countryโs president, was lost when a tornado touched down unexpectedly on ranch lands heโd been inspecting along with a small group of foreign diplomats. Darioโs youngest sister, the baby of the family, had been little more than a child when she was taken by small pox. Most recently, his remaining sisters, along with their children and both his parents, had succumbed to complications brought on by influenza.
Suddenly, rumors of a family โcurseโ seemed to buzz in the air around him whenever Dario left his estate. Suddenly, the future of the entire Leonides clan appeared to rest with him, and with the wife heโd chosen for what he now realized were all the wrong reasons. A wife who could never give him a child to carry on the family name. A wife who was not even fully human.
Not that heโd wanted to believe that, or ever would have imagined it to be possible without overwhelming proof. Even now, he found it hard to reconcile the reality with the Lia heโd known and loved. Even now, the memories of their time together, of the love he thought theyโd shared, had the power to torment him.
A WINTER’S HEART is available at:
This Winter Heart is also available as part of the Steampunk Christmas Anthology,ย A Clockwork Christmas
We Wish You a Steampunk Christmas
Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband’s love. A man learns that love isn’t always what you expect. A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor. And an American inventor finds love Down Under. Enjoy Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four steampunk novellas.
Anthology includes:
Crime Wave in a Corsetย by Stacy Gail
This Winter Heartย by PG Forte
Wanted: One Scoundrelย by Jenny Schwartz
Far From Brokenย by JK Coi
The Clockwork Christmas Authors have several sequels planned. To learn more about them check out our Facebook page
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17 responses to “What is Steampunk?”
Fantastic! I need another book to read like a hole in the head but I’be been wanting to try this genre for some time. I think this might be just the book to get me acquainted with steampunk. Thanks for sharing.
Hi, Moira, I hear you. Good thing I’m addicted to books. LOL
My first intro into Steampunk was Rachel Graces’ Geared for Pleasure. I really enjoyed it. I think I will get this anthology. I am in need for a good read
Hi, Kaylynd, thanks for stopping by. I am going to try another steampunk, thanks for the recommendation.
Hi Selena and PG! Great post. Like you, Selena, I haven’t really read steampunk but this sounds like a good one to start with! And Xmas too! You got me there. Congrats PG!
Hi, Rosanna, you will enjoy this book, her writing will draw you in.
Thank you Selena and PG for this introduction to Steampunk!!
This looks like a very interesting story!! Adding it to my neverending pile of TBR.
Thank you all! As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun with this story and being part of this anthology was wonderful. Kaylynd–Rachel Grace is wonderful! I was on a Steampunk panel with her (and two other authors) this past April at the Romantic Times Convention. Good times. ๐
And thanks again, Selena for the great review.
Ooooh, yummy. I haven’t read any Steampunk stories either and this one sounds wonderful!
Hi, Kimberley, thanks for stopping by. This was my first Steampunk experience, and it was a good one to start with.
I have no idea why the put the “punk” in it though.
Actually, I believe the punk was taken from punk music–remember the steampunk genre was “born” in the 1980s. So I think steampunk, cyberpunk, et al was seen as having the same kind of cool, hip, urban feel. There’s an interesting article about it here: http://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/the-punk-in-steampunksteampunk-ideology/
I’ve been hearing the buzz about Steampunk and it sounds like a genre I’d like to try and besides I just like the name. Great post. ๐
Hi, Heidi, thanks for dropping by. I found the name interesting as well, my mind conjured up images of the gang from “The Outsiders.”
Hey, Kimberley. Thanks! I had a lot of fun writing it.
Heidi–I know just what you mean. And at that panel I mentioned earlier we discussed a bunch of other ‘punks’ to. For example, biopunk, dieselpunk, atomicpunk, cyberpunk, oilpunk, clockpunk–the list is apparently endless!
I think we could create some new “punks.” Chocolate-punk, Cucumber-punk, Crazy Romance Writer Punks. LOL The list seems endless. ๐
I haven’t read any book in steampunk genre yet, but I’ve read “The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart” by Mathias Malzieu. It is marked as a steampunk novel on GR, but I think it has only steampunk elements. Anyway, I love steampunk covers, they are so intriguing and imaginative. And “This Winter Heart” sounds good! Thanks for the post!
That’s an interesting title, Exina, “The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart.” Will check it out. Like my TBR pile isn’t high enough. LOL Good thing I read a lot and fast.
I agree, the Steampunk covers that I’ve been researching do look intriguing.
Thank you for visiting my blog, I hope you stop by again.