Kalindi MacNeil's father was a British serviceman who was sent to India. Now she's come to the bleak island in the Hebrides where he grew up. She takes shelter in an abandoned fisherman's hut. All in this world is not the same as our own: Liverpool has been destroyed in war with Russians and Hapsburgs, while technology runs along some different lines. SKIES OF GOLD is the latest in a series called the Ether Chronicles.

Kali never learned to cook daal - there were too many devices to study and take apart. Now she's fueling a clockwork cooker with sods of peat. At night however, over the hooting of owls, she hears a mechanical humming, coming from the north of the island. When she investigates the next day, she discovers that she's not alone as she'd thought. A man stands in front of her, unafraid of her pistol, and she falls, revealing that she has a mechanical leg, normally hidden by modestly long skirts. Fletcher gives no explanations, but a few days later he shows up at her door with a brace of rabbits. He's marveling at Kali's ingenuity, and hasn't had company in a long while. Yet when the girl finds a crashed British airship on the moor, she realises that Fletcher is a Man O' War, a captain of the crafts that pursue the endless Mechanical War. What is he doing alone and lost?

Liverpool as a port city was targeted during the war and we see the destruction through the characters' eyes. Fletcher has been technically adapted to work with the airship. For all that his reactions come across as very natural and he quickly gains sympathy. Much of the story is taken up with the two lonely people getting to know each other and reliving their eventful lives. The outside world is bound to intrude however; peace can't last.

This is a Robinson Crusoe story and it's well written as such. In this we get the war at third hand; as memories rather than happening to the characters. The action only occurs late in the book. Kali is an admirable young woman, who has engineered her own prosthesis and her own survival. This story becomes an adult romance and I can only say, good for her! SKIES OF GOLD might be better for those who have read the previous works by Zoe Archer but if you enjoy this one, you'll certainly want to read more of the romantic adventure series.