Now is the Time of Monsters, book 1

In the Heartland of the Grand Republic of Motornin, in the middle of the second industrial Revolution, Kansa Hawken decides to leave her sleepy Halfling village for the big city. She hopes to find other Chunes, maybe some excitement, but what she finds is a quickly growing city full of struggle and pain. She is immediately recruited in the war against the city's notorious gangs on behalf of a militia that wouldn't think twice if she lived or died.