While I love Steampunk, UF, and a good suspense story, this book failed to fill the need. Despite reading the book till the very end (cause of course I had to know the why),it failed to entertain and drag me completely into the story. I often found myself distracted while reading it. There were too many details in the Steampunk world building and the scientific world. The character descriptions often made me NOT care about them though I wanted to. I think this book would have benefited greatly with more romance sprinkled in. It had the potential to be a great recipe but the ingredients just did not jell for me.
I am a huge fan of steampunk novels so I was really excited to start this series. This ended up being just an okay investigative steampunk romance novel. I had some trouble engaging with the characters and the plot, but the world-building was intriguing.
On the surface this book had a number of things I love about steampunk series; the Victorian setting, interesting devices and a heroine that's torn between the underworld and a glittering high society. Unfortunately all of this just kind of fell flat for me. I had trouble engaging with and enjoying Cherry as a character and didn't find any of the surrounding characters to be all that intriguing either (in fact a week after reading this book I would be hard pressed to tell you any of the side characters' names).
The plot mainly involved Cherry tracking down a man who was eviscerating prostitutes (very Jack the Ripper). There is a love triangle between Cherry, a society man, and a man who rules part of the London below. The chemistry between the characters was just so so.
I did enjoy the idea of a London below and some of the world-building around this; that was my favorite part of this book.
Overall an okay investigative steampunk novel but not great. At the end of the book I wasn't dying to read anymore about this world or characters. There are much better steampunks series out there.
On the surface this book had a number of things I love about steampunk series; the Victorian setting, interesting devices and a heroine that's torn between the underworld and a glittering high society. Unfortunately all of this just kind of fell flat for me. I had trouble engaging with and enjoying Cherry as a character and didn't find any of the surrounding characters to be all that intriguing either (in fact a week after reading this book I would be hard pressed to tell you any of the side characters' names).
The plot mainly involved Cherry tracking down a man who was eviscerating prostitutes (very Jack the Ripper). There is a love triangle between Cherry, a society man, and a man who rules part of the London below. The chemistry between the characters was just so so.
I did enjoy the idea of a London below and some of the world-building around this; that was my favorite part of this book.
Overall an okay investigative steampunk novel but not great. At the end of the book I wasn't dying to read anymore about this world or characters. There are much better steampunks series out there.
