4.7

I believe there must be a rule that says all knew Steampunk novels must start off slow, involve automatons serving food and then trying to kill you and explosions with large scale destruction.

On that note, this story follows Eliza Braun and Wellington Brooks, both agents of the crown with opposite personalities and interests. Wellington is safe and seemingly tamping down on some wicked past psychological issues while Eliza is ignoring her past and living life with the veneer of living it to the fullest. She is brazen and daring he is the epitome of stiff upper lip.

Of course that just makes it all the more fun.

There is an attraction, both of curiousity and a bit ... more.

There were parts of the book where it seems that the writers forget to add how something happened. Meaning, if one of the characters was inside of a room, there was nothing to previously indicate that they walked into a room. Which disconnected me a few times. It doesn't happen too often but it happened enough for me to notice.

The mystery could've been a bit more ... mysterious but as they were solving a cold case (unlike what the description implies) I suppose all the mystery is sort of gone.

This book is character driven and is mostly told from Wellington's point of view. Eliza has a few chapters and I wish she had a bit more. What was also a little disconcerting was the POV of other characters that I don't care about. Also, within those chapters that were told by the other characters plot points and future mysteries were told that IMHO shouldn't have been.

Either way, it had action, it had a smattering of romance and it had two solid leads that I'm very interested in finding out more from.