A century before the events of Mortal Engines, Tamzin Pook fights Revenants, dead brains reanimated in armored bodies, for the amusement of crowds at the raft-town Margate's Amusement Arcade, until schoolteacher Lavinia Torpenhow has her abducted for a very different fight: retaking the city of Thorbury from the mercenaries who murdered its mayor. Tamzin's found-family crew, from the murdered mayor's reluctant son to a mysteriously sentient Revenant, sets the tone for Reeve's new prequel trilogy about resisting tyranny under the wheels of a traction city.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources