It's a more horror-y West setting, with monsters and human monsters and swirling magic, and I've quite enjoyed playing in that world, even though my second and most indelible Deadlands character had an ultimately tragic arc, in that she was the only one of the party to survive, sentenced to live to tell other people of her fallen compatriots. Poor Nora.
But, "let me tell you about my character" story aside, let's see what Seanan McGuire did with that world. She tells a smaller story set in that larger landscape, and the setting is well served by being more focused in that way. You can try to get it all in, and have a travelogue, or you can tell a small portion well, and I think that's what's happening here. This isn't great literature, but it's a good adventure yarn.
It's about a mother and daughter, Annie Pearl and Abigail. They travel with a circus, where Annie is in charge of both the human freaks and the inhuman monsters that scare the townsfolks in the places they stop along the way. Abigail is mute, but fluent in a sign language. Annie is afraid of most of her monsters, but knows how to care for them. She also has a lynx who is devoted to her, a present from the not-so-loving husband that she and Abigail is fleeing. Well, Abigail has no memory of him, as Annie started to run when she was an infant.
The circus is having a lean year, so when they hear that there's a town deep in the forest in Oregon (I think Oregon?) that rewards visiting shows lavishly, they decide to make the trip. Despite the part where three out of four groups come back rich, and the fourth doesn't come back at all. It's getting on towards winter, and they're running out of money to see them through it, so a 75% chance seems awfully good.
We flip back and forth between their journey there and what they find in a cratered depression deep in forbidding woods, and Deseret, where Annie's husband still is, angry that his property escaped, and continuing his research at the behest of Dr. Hellstrom. He's a terrifying character if ever there was one - mad scientist with little regard for human life, paired with patriarchal values that care even less for female life outside of possession as an object.
Back in the woods, even as the Bad Doctor saddles up for a journey to retrieve his wife and child, the townspeople are hostile, but there are things out in the woods that are even worse. There are raids on the camp from both angles, and then Annie finds that Abigail has wandered into the woods. Much of the emotional drive of the novel comes from Annie looking for Abigail, with a few other characters along for their own reasons.
This wasn't a deep book, but it's a very fun fantasy that does a good job of capturing the Deadlands setting. The monsters are scary, the humans more so, and we root for Annie and Abigail to make it through together. What else do you need in an adventure tale?
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