In The Gangster, the second book in C.S. Poe’s entertaining and exciting Magic & Steam series, we join Special Agent Gillian Hamilton for another exhilarating adventure, this time on his home turf of New York City. As in the first book – The Engineer – the story is fast-paced and clever, featuring well-drawn, interesting characters…
The Engineer is the novella-length first instalment in C.S. Poe’s Steampunk AU Magic & Steam series, and it’s an entertaining mash up of magic, steampunk and Wild West historical. Magic caster and Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam Gillian Hamilton is sent to Shallow Grave, Arizona to apprehend a dangerous ‘mad-scientist’…
Somehow, I read Of Silk and Steam, the final book in Bec McMaster’s fabulous London Steampunk series first, then moved onto the Blue Blood Conspiracy series, so thanks to the TBR Challenge, I’ve been slowly catching up with the books I missed. My Lady Quicksilver is book three and is every bit as good as those that preceded it, boasting a tightly-written story with…
Jenn Bennett evokes classic movies and stories of derring-do in her latest novel, Lady Rogue. Set in Europe in 1937, this fun twist on the treasure hunting tales of yore is laden with romance, adventure, and just a touch of magic. The last time Theo (Theodora) Fox saw sexy Irish hunk Huck Gallagher she’d been…
The Iron Duke is #80 on AAR’s Top 100 Romances (2013), but in my opinion, The Kraken King, the fourth book in the series, is even better. Zenobia Fox is the author of the novels starring her adventurer brother Archimedes, but these books have made her a ransom target for people seeking to extort the…
This is the first book I have read by this author, and for the first half or so, I read it with rather mixed feelings, mostly delighted but thoroughly exasperated at certain passages. Fortunately it turned out to be an excellent read overall, and most definitely a series to follow. Let’s begin with the best…
This is the fifth book in the Darkest London series, and picks up the story of Holly Evernight and Will Thorne that began in the previous book, Shadowdance, when Holly, who works for the SOS (Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals) as a kind of Q was forced by a crazed demon to perform a…
I’m a huge fan of Gail Carriger’s steampunk novels and was sad when her Parasol Protectorate series ended in 2012 with Timeless. Well, I’m sad no longer! Prudence picks up several decades after the previous series ended and stars Alexia Maccon’s daughter, Prudence. It took just minutes to realize that Moira Quirk is the perfect…
I adore steampunk. The combination of historicals and paranormal elements and Jules Verne-esque science fiction is just so much fun. I’ve read a couple of Bec McMaster books before and really enjoyed the setting and the characters, and was hoping for another homerun with this one. Sadly, I was disappointed from just about the beginning….
I always greet the first book in a new series with a combination of anticipation and dread – it’s always exciting to try something new, but the possibility of getting burnt out by yet another series is so high these days it’s practically a guarantee. Fortunately, the world building in Steel and Song saved it…