*This ARC was provided to me by the publishers via NetGalley. No money or favours were exchanged for this review.*


Somewhere along the way, zombies became hot.


No, not that kind of hot


This kind of hot!

Lia Habel has taken my two favourite genres, steampunk and zombies, and mixed them together. The results of which should have been a hundred times more fantabulous than anything humanity could ever have hoped to produce up until this point.




With the sole exception of Neil Patrick Harris. Oh! And Terry Crew's abs.


Habel has a lot of potential going for her. This novel had SO much potential. Unfortunately, it was let down in a few key areas. However, I'm assured by the powers-that-be that this was done on purpose to stop humanity from transcending to the next level of consciousness, so I guess that explains a lot.

Habel displays an easy talent for creating fun characters, a diverse world and interesting storyline. Unfortunately, a lot of this was lost through a few rookie mistakes. It was doubly frustrating because I really wanted to enjoy this novel.

First of all, there are five POVs in this novel and it switches between them all rather frequently. Look, there's nothing wrong with multiple POVs. Many people enjoy them. However, what you gain in adding to characterization, you lose in pacing.

Reading a novel is a little like driving a stick. You start in first gear and you move your way up to five as the intensity picks up and heads towards the climax (I so want to put a filthy joke in here, but notice I didn't. RECOGNIZE MY RESTRAINT!) Then you have to move down in gear for your denouement and eventual conclusion.

But POVs tend to equal an automatic change in gear - often downward and it takes the reader awhile to get back up to speed and progress upwards. They have to get mentally pulled out of the storyline they were just following, they have to readjust to the new setting, recall where the current POV last finished and pick back up from there. Most readers can do this without much difficulty - to a point. But too many of these and you have a jerky ride at best, or lose all momentum at worst.

Secondly, the beginning struggles to get past a few big info dumps which makes the first half of this novel cumbersome. Once Habel is finished setting up her world, despite the extraordinary amount of time she takes to do this, she shows a natural flare for storytelling. With explanations out of the way, Habel seemed free to actually pump the novel full of action and excitement - something I greatly enjoyed.

I suppose the biggest issue is getting past the squick factor of romanticizing reanimated flesh.


Oh c'mon, walking corpses have been dominating the catwalk for years! Right, Kate Moss?

Every time I thought I was okay with it, I realized I. Just. Wasn't.

Which, I guess, leads me to my last and final complaint because I found the relationship between the two main protagonists to be... uninspiring, if you know what I mean. And your proper enjoyment of the novel probably hinges on the following question. Do you want to imagine illicit zombie smoochies? And let's keep in mind that Habel's zombie lore isn't that different from normal zombie lore. They're still rotting dead people.

I mean, we're talking about a Chris Brown level of gross.


No, wait. That's insulting to the zombie.

If you can, then strap on your clockwork jetpacks and give this novel a try!