This takes place in late 19th century London. Julia works as a waitress and dancer on an airship, while Georgina, her sister, cleans houses. Julia is utterly shocked to come home one evening and find her sister dead. Although Constable Aloysius (Al) Grant gives her as many updates on the case as he's able, there isn't much for him to say. The police keep hitting dead ends.

Just when it looks like Georgy's killer will go free, Lady Harriet Law shows up on Julia's doorstep and offers to take the case pro bono. Julia accepts the offer. After all, Lady Law has a phenomenal success rate, having solved 100% of her 650 cases. It's that same success rate that, in part, inspires Grant's distrust. How does Lady Law come to her conclusions? Why did she offer her services to Julia in particular? And how does the disappearance of Josh, the young assistant of the famed explorer Horace Holly, figure into all of this?

Lady Law was presented as a Holmesian sort of character, except that her one on-page instance of making deductions in a manner similar to Holmes was never closely examined. She simply told Julia “This is what I can conclude about that person way over there, based on this, this, and this detail” and then expected Julia to accept what she said as fact. Julia, to her credit, knew that Lady Law hadn't proved anything, but she decided to keep working with the woman anyway because she didn't have any other options if she wanted to find her sister's killer.

Appleton laid out a lot of reasons for readers to be suspicious of Lady Law. In addition to her lack of proven on-page deductions, no one had ever been able to replicate her leaps of logic, even though her final results always turned out to be correct. Then there was her ridiculous success rate. Absolutely no one is that successful that often. Clearly there was something fishy going on. This being a steampunk story, there seemed to be a couple likely explanations. I rejected one of them early on, and the other one turned out to be Lady Law's secret. So that was kind of disappointing. I had hoped that Appleton would manage to throw something at me that I hadn't even considered.

Because I didn't bother to check the how the publisher had tagged it, I had sort of expected there to be more romance. Instead I got Al Grant acting a bit standoffish towards Julia during their first date, until he suddenly wasn't. It was a bit weird, although I was grateful Appleton didn't push them into bed. Still, it was primarily an okay story. The chase scene in the airship was a bit hard to follow, but I loved the chase scene through the giant mechanical solar system.

The problem was the ending. First, what was the point of everybody coming across the villain while they were engaged in an enthusiastic foursome, complete with a bit of bondage? The person's sexual preferences weren't important to the story at all, so it just gave everyone something to blush over and be shocked by. Second, what the hell was with that ending? How was that a good outcome? “Oh, we'll put this person in prison for doing X, but they can get early parole if they teach a bunch of other people to also do X.” Brilliant. And how do Julia and the rest deal with it all? By leaving everything behind and going to Africa. Where in Africa? I'm going to guess Namibia based on prior mentions in the story and some quick googling of “Ovambo.” Still, would it have killed the author to have mentioned Namibia even once in the epilogue? Instead it was just Africa, over and over. Finally, I wish Appleton had had the good grace to leave the name “Holmes” out of the ending. I assumed he meant Sherlock, and I hated the idea of Sherlock Holmes

becoming the protege of a morally bankrupt fake detective like Lady Law.

(spoiler show)

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I feel so-so about the story as a whole, but the ending makes me uncomfortable. First, it deserves a general spoiler-free "what the hell?" Second, Africa is a whole continent. Maybe be a little more specific? Third, I wish Appleton had had the good grace to leave Holmes out of this. I'm going to try to pretend it was some other person called Holmes.

Sooner or later, clockwork requires each piece to accept its nature or break. Hearts are no different.

I have limited experience with steampunk. Most of what I've stumbled across has been romance of some sort or other, which is fine in its way. But that's why I kept expecting someone to leap into bed with someone in this book. There is a romance element - but a PNR this ain't. (*muted rejoicing*)

What this is is the story of Professor Cecil Reardon, whose wife and young son were killed in a terrible accident - and he wants them back. He has been working to conquer all obstacles to the time travel necessary to go back and save them. The work is kept undercover; to keep them from interfering, he is happy to allow the Leviacrum Council to see him as having become a doddering old codger broken by his tragedies. He is getting close, when one night -

As long as there is science fiction, there will be two subjects of interest - time travel and Atlantis. Robert Appleton addresses both in this unique spin on the question of what would happen if one traveled back in time and discovered the lost continent. The story begins in 1979, goes all the way back 11,000 years and concludes in 1912. Along the way, Lord Henry Basingstoke makes friends, enemies and discoveries beyond his wildest imagination. If you're a fan of Wells and Verne, you'll enjoy this addition to the time travel pantheon.

Cyber Sparks (Cosmic Sparks, #3) - Rober... Another rarity for me - f/f - but this has an interesting twist in that it is actually at its heart a sci-fi novel. I loved the idea of a world stuck on the latest greatest technology to the point of ignoring reality. Allegra starts this quick read as a model at the top of her game. She's in lust/love with another model she has known for years but isn't certain if the feelings are returned. At a very public event she is felt up by one of the big-wigs of the company and snaps by punching the woman which of course results in her being fired. After she is fired a systemic push to discredit and ruin her is causing her no end of grief but then she tries out the latest virtual reality device and recieves a message noone else can seem to hear. This voice leads her on a deadly path that takes her off-world to save the planet. She finds out that a being from another world is trying to stop the changes that result in the same checking out from the physical real-world that doomed his own planet. This isn't exactly what you think going in but it does result in a decent read. Thanks to NetGalley.com and Carina Press for the chance to read this in exchange for my honest review.