Mpauli's Reviews > Steam & Sorcery

Geez, what am I going to do with this book? I could justify every rating between 1 and 4 stars. I'll probably rate it 3 stars despite of all its issues, or maybe because it doesn't really care about all those issues and just wants to play.

Merrick Hadrian is a knight of the Order of the Round table, descendants from Arthur's knights, who fight vampyres (they are called vampyres here...with a y...cause it's cool....you know?).
On one of his vampyre hunting trips, Merrick gets rescued by a bunch of vampyre fighting street urchins and their clockwork dog George. (George is awesome!)
One of the kids radiates with the knight aura, so Merrick takes in the kids as his wards. As a bachelor he's in dire need of help. Enter Caroline Bristol, beautiful (look at the cover) guverness with a magical secret.

That's the basic absurdity we have to work from. Now the book does something really interesting. It sends the plot on vacation (Bye plot, have a nice time in Brighton!) and focuses on Caroline's role and the kids. The kids are actually the strongest asset of the book and they are depicted rather well and age appropriate.
At the 50% mark the plot decides to come back, opens the door and watches the adult characters having sex. That happens like 5 times until the end and everytime everyone is clothed again, the plot sneaks in and tries to be included...says something about vampyres and seems very relieved when a cheesy happy ending rescues him.

Another issue of the book is its language. I've read Soulless by Gail Carriger (also a Paranormal Romance in a Steampunk corsett) recently and Steam & Sorcery can't compare, when it comes to reflecting the speech patterns of the era and the general stiffness of the setting. The language is very easy and modern compared to Carriger.

So, as you can see, on a very rational level this book is 1-2 star material, but and it's a big but (no pun intended) it's actually quite fun. Although I rolled my eyes at times, I enjoyed this book enough to honestly say that I liked it, so that's that.
So, if you're in for a Romance with sprinkles of supernatural and steampunk elements with a heart warming Mary Poppins story arch, this might be something for you.