The Odin Inheritance by Victoria L. Scott is a steampunk, urban fantasy set in Cambridge, England and centered on a young lady named Ariana Trevelyan. She’s a college student, a tinkerer, and an expert dart-thrower. A game of darts opens the book—a skill Ariana has recently acquired. While she’s worked hard to overcome prejudices at her school, she’s not allowed to graduate because of her sex. In contrast to expectations society has about her gender, her skill with darts bests all her opponent at the pub.

Ariana wins a game and acquires much needed funds for equipping the airship Bosch. The crew are all friends, and she, with her talents as a mathematician, assumes the role of navigator. Studying for the Mathematics Tripos, boarding with her friends at Towson Hall, and spending free time with her airship crew are what Ariana enjoys the most. It’s not until she has an encounter in the library with a mysterious German that her life spins into a whirlwind and secrets of her past are revealed.

In the first half of the book alone, the reader is confronted with a mysterious new addition to the Bosch’s crew, a strange assault on her journey back to school, a visit from her eccentric-yet-wise Aunt Miranda, secret organizations with multiple agendas, a raven with hidden talents, and a dangerous doctor visit. The second half of Scott’s 500 page novel has still more adventure as well as surprising revelations. This particular book concludes with a definitive ending though it leaves open the possibility of more adventures in the future.

While I like steampunk, I haven’t read a lot of novels in this genre. It took awhile for me to get absorbed into Ariana’s world at first, but when the “rules” started coming into focus, I really enjoyed it. I wanted to know more and more, but every time Ariana asked someone to explain what was going on, her sources would only tease information rather than tell her. Frustrating at first, once a character explains why Arianna is important to this supernatural world, the book really took off.

Without giving away too much, a test near the end of the book where Arianna meets her sponsor (for lack of a spoiler word) was a satisfying and unexpected twist. I was surprised and pleased by her answer to that character and enjoyed how the author wove together modern and ancient beliefs. In many ways, this sequence describes the book overall: Arianna’s modern enrollment into the long-held institution of college only for men and the mix of technology with magic both describe a world where both old and new can peacefully coexist.

While a long novel, the pacing is as swift as an Indiana Jones movie and I flipped pages quickly. The characters are sufficiently detailed to feel real, the ideas are fresh, and the action passages come to life in the reader’s hands. The Odin Inheritance is a fun, engaging novel, especially in the latter three-quarters of the book, and is worthy of space on any steampunk-lover’s bookshelf.