Sigh. I really wanted to love this one. I'm a sucker for pretty covers, the author was sweet as pie when I met her and the excerpt she read from the beginning of the book was great. Unfortunately, I only just barely liked it, and if it hadn't been for the fact that I'd received an advance copy of it, I probably wouldn't have finished it.

Things I liked about it:

Finley Jayne has the potential to be a great character. I was on board with the whole Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy and the battle for good and evil going on inside of her. I like it when the main character is a girl who can kick ass and doesn't need anyone to coddle her. She's an exciting and engaging character and as the series progresses I hope Cross can clean up the plot a bit to let her main character shine.

The organites and semi-sentient machines aspect was cool. I haven't read a lot of steampunk, but I liked the historical bent on science fiction.

Things that nearly ruined it for me:

It was LOOOOONG. Nearly 500 pages--and it felt that way. The plot was incredibly slow moving. For all the action in the first few pages, 3/4ths of the book moved at a snail's pace with repetition after repetition, and only the smallest revelations marking forward progress.

As I said, I haven't read much in the steampunk genre, but the fact that they had nearly every modern convenience felt like overkill. I understand this is science fiction, but other than the way the characters talked and dressed, I might not have known it was set in the Victorian age with all the talk of showers and electricity and vehicles--albeit powered in different fashions than we have today. I found myself wondering why Cross bothered to write it in a historical setting at all if she was just going to modernize nearly every aspect. But again, this could just be my unfamiliarity with the genre.

Neither of the love interests did anything for me, and I couldn't figure out why they did anything for Finley either. There was very little chemistry between any of them.

The cheesy romance novel-y writing style. I can't really put my finger on what it is about the writing, only that I knew right away the author had written historical romances before.

All that being said, I did see potential in Finley and was interested in the plot line itself--once she got around to it. I won't completely throw out the possibility of reading the next in the series, but I hope it's pared down with tighter pacing and a more controlled storyline.