The Girl in the Steel Corset By: Kady CrossRating: Great
Age Group: 13+
Summary (from Amazon.com): In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one…except the "thing" inside her.
When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch….
Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities and an unrequited love for Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret.
Griffin's investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help—and finally be a part of something, finally fit in.
But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on—even if it seems no one believes her.
My Thoughts: So this was a fantastic book. You don’t find many steampunk novels out there, at least I don’t, and I think that it’s a really cool genre. The thing I like best is the atmosphere, especially in this novel. It’s just very unique and interesting, a melding of old and new ideas and mannerisms. The setting was rich and well described. The other thing I loved about this novel was the characters. They were all very interesting and unique, and I especially loved their back stories. Each character was complex, with a story of their own, ,and I loved find those stories out throughout the book. Finley’s was especially interesting to me. In this book there was a little romance, though mostly it was building up for the next book. There were parts of this story that had links to classic stories from the industrial era, and I thought that was a nice touch. And the science! While I had trouble envisioning the technology of the world (to me, if it acts like a phone then it looks like a phone, no matter how it was described), I really liked the idea of Organites and rapid evolution (my biology centered mind geeked out a bit :P ). It was believable in the context of the story and I love that in books. I loved how the characters interacted and how the story resolved, and I especially can’t wait for the sequel. This is a definite must read!
