Review: The Girl in the Steel Corset

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
Coming out on May 24, 2011
Published by Harlequin Teen
Received from NetGalley

From Goodreads:

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: 

This book made me completely fall in love with steampunk, a genre I was completely unfamiliar with. Steampunk is defined as " a genre of science fictions set in Victorian times when steam was the main source of machine power." Science fiction isn't really my thing, but in the setting of one of my favorite time periods I find it all very intriguing and mysterious. Which is also a great way to describe Cross's novel. 

Finley Jayne, the "gifted" main character, pulls the reader in right from beginning. I immediately wanted to know more about her dark side--what it was and how it came to be. And with each new character added more questions are raised and the mystery ensues. However, Finley's condition is only one of the plots in this well-written novel. 

There's the love triangle between Griffin, Finley and a devilish cad named Jack Dandy, the origins of tiny organisms which effect those who come into contact with them and finding the Machinist before he commits his biggest crime yet. 

The plots are woven together nicely, the characters are fleshed out and the book ends leaving the reader wondering. Overall it was a great read and I will be picking up the second book as soon as it comes out.


The Girl in the Steel Corset will be released one week from today!

Rating: 4 Stars :)