Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles, #1)

by Philip Reeve

He smiled faintly, like somebody who had never seen a smile but had read a book on how to do it.

I thought you realized she was a spy.” “She didn’t look like one.” “Well, spies don’t, generally.

The world was changing. That was nothing new, of course;

Was this what falling in love was like? Not something big and amazing that you knew about straight away, like in a story, but a slow thing that crept over you in waves until you woke up one day and found that you were head-over-heels with someone quite unexpected, like an Apprentice Engineer?

“You aren’t a hero, and I’m not beautiful, and we probably won’t live happily ever after,” she said. “But we’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right.”