PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA IS a real place, but we have embellished, a bit, around the edges. We grew up in small towns a few hours north of Pittsburgh, went to college near the city, and lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh for ten years. Two of our children were born in Pittsburgh, and we worked for Pittsburgh-based companies. We visit the area frequently, since we still have close family living nearby. It’s one of our favorite cities, and we always enjoy a visit to the ‘Burgh’.

In the late 1800s, Pittsburgh really was the nation’s industrial epicenter, quite deserving of a steampunk legacy, since steam powered the factories of legendary industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. In the Gilded Age, Pittsburgh was also home to more than its share of Robber Barons, men whose inventiveness shaped our modern world and whose rapacity and desire to live large were breathtaking, even by today’s standards. And in case you wondered, history reports that Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse did work together for a time… what if they had taken their partnership further? Thereon hangs a tale.

New Pittsburgh is a fictional construct. While many of the places mentioned in Iron and Blood (and some of the historical figures) are real, we’ve also invented people, places and things and taken liberties with key events to create a raw-around-the-edges Gilded Age true to the city’s frontier heritage. Historians may notice that we’ve fudged a few details here and there. Please forgive us in the name of entertainment.

Our co-authorship grew out of working closely on many books together over the years, brainstorming plot elements, passing revisions back and forth, collaborating on ideas to get past writers’ block. That grew from looking for typos and continuity issues into full collaboration, and although the steampunk series is the first to bear both our names, it’s the fact that we work together full time on the books that has made it possible to write three series, bring out monthly ebook short stories and contribute to anthologies. We are thrilled to find that a life partnership has developed into a creative partnership as well.

You might want to check out the rest of our epic and urban fantasy books, the Deadly Curiosities series, The Chronicles of the Necromancer series, the Fallen Kings Cycle, and the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga. We also bring out a new short story every month on Kindle/Kobo/Nook in the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures and coming in 2015, the Storm and Fury Adventures (featuring more from Mitch and Jacob, the Sturm und Drang boys as their boss calls them).

If you’ve enjoyed Iron and Blood, look for the short stories featuring the further adventures of Mitch and Jacob featured in several Steampunk anthologies including Dreams of Steel 5, The Weird Wild West and Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens. You can find details on our website, at www.JakeDesmet.com. Please also find us on Twitter @GailZMartin and @LNMartinAuthor, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, Goodreads.com/GailZMartin, and we post free excerpts of our books on Wattpad.com/GailZMartin.

Thank you for reading!