'Boneshaker' by Cherie Priest - I first came across Cherie Priest's writing when I read one of her earlier books, the first of a series of Southern Gothic stories called 'Four and Twenty Blackbirds' and I'd heard all sorts of good things about her steampunk books so was very happy to pick up 'Boneshaker' via my local library.
The basic idea behind the book is that, back in the middle of the 19th century when an alternate US was still fighting its Civil War many years on, there had been something of a gold rush around Seattle. The main characters in the book are, respectively, the wife and son of a man who was responsible for Seattle being devastated, when the device he had been building to mine gold more effectively instead opened up the source of the Blight, a gas that basically creates zombies.
Ezekiel never knew his father and becomes obsessed with the idea there are still things inside their former family home that can be sold, as his mother is currently working herself to death to keep the two of them alive. Seattle is a walled city, to keep in the victims of the Blight, and when Ezekiel goes in then his mother has no alternative but to follow.
I'm not completely sure what I was expecting from 'Boneshaker' as my experience with steampunk books has so far been a bit mixed - the issue often is whether or not the author cares as much about the characters involved as they do about the setting. This isn't an issue with Priest, who is able to manage both with admirable competency. She's written another book in the same universe so far, 'Dreadnought', which isn't a sequel proper but is already on my want-to-read list...