I liked the world setting but it was a slow moving story. I doubt I'll read the next book in the series. ( )

From the title and cover alone this book sounds promising. Even the blurb is promising, but all it manages to do is stumble about and be a weird mix of steampunk and not steampunk. Instead of complaining though I'll break it all down for you.

A seemingly strong female Elle is put into a precarious situation with her father being kidnapped and the 'quick' delivery she was supposed to make. It all turns out to be a huge set up for some terrible things to take place.

The things I liked in this book. The characters were pretty unique and awesome. Lots of treachery and fun to be had by all. It was interesting seeing some of the characters I was suspicious of turn out to be evil. I really liked Marsh and how much he grew throughout the book. Elle seemed like a strong character, but later on she started to fall flat for me.

The things I didn't care for was that the book literally took a turn around 50% of being slow and boring. I almost didn't finish it, but I made myself stick it out. Which the ending was pretty good so I'm glad I did.

Overall I really can't say a lot of good about this book I give it 2.5/5 stars. I was left just not as interested in the end. Don't foresee myself picking up the sequel either. It's definitely more on the trash end of things. ( )

A good debut work. Needs a little tightening but details, world building and dialogue are good.

Editing was decent, very little misspellings or missing words but as noted above some tightening of the timeline and story would be good.

Overall I enjoyed the theme. The ending seemed a bit rushed after spending the entire book building to it. And it would have been slightly better to have explained how she eliminated the vortex...

Undecided on whether I'll continue the series ( )

I have actually never read a steampunk that takes place in the early 1900s, so that was different. Because new things were already on the move, but then this book also mixes magic and tech. The world is divided into Light and Shadow. Magic and new inventions. And things have gone wrong in the past when one side has grown too strong.

Elle our heroine was strong and a woman pilot. She went for what she wanted and got it. The hero, Marsh is mysterious and someone she comes into contact with when she is hired to bring a parcel to England. He is a warlock, she does not believe in that nonsense. He has secrets, she is annoyed by that. He wants to tell her something, she starts to fall. Yes you see my point, they are quite the pair.

These two will have quite the adventure as..things happens. Again I will leave it at that. There will be magic, bad guys, vampires, an absinthe fairy and flying.

I enjoyed the story. It was light and the story always moved forward with a good pace, and threw a few surprises too.

The end was good too as it was a solid ending that I could live with. It did not end with a horrid cliffhanger, but still left a big danger still to come ( )

I received an advance copy of this book through a First Reads giveaway! THANK YOU Goodreads!

So, I think I would get along with this author. She likes a bunch of cool things: airships, pirates, airship pirates, absinthe, fairies, vampires, plucky heroines, noble heroes, evil villains, henchmen, secret occult societies, sacrifices on altars, the Orient Express, Paris, Constantinople, absent-minded professors, scientific inventions, magic, and of course, alchemy.

All these things are jammed into this book.
It's not about being original, it's about fitting all the cool things in. The result, is a light, cartoony, adventure-romance. it's good fun, even though I had a persistent feeling of 'seen it before,' and even though the romance aspect was a little annoying, mainly due to the male lead's patronizing attitude. No, I really don't find that kind of thing attractive.

I would highly recommend this book to all fans of M.K. Hobson - I found it very similar - and, to a lesser degree, to fans of Gail Carriger and Leanna Renee Hieber.

I know this is an advance copy, so I'm not going to make a big deal of the few errors in the text... with one exception. A "bill of fare" is the MENU at a restaurant, not the bill or check. Editors! ( )