Thursday, September 8, 2011

Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

After soundly trouncing the son of her employer Finley Jayne is once again jobless. Running from the scene of the beating she crashes into Griffin King, who feels obliged to take the unconscious young woman to his home while she heals from her injuries.  His unconventional friends and employees, brainy engineer Emily and the hulking metaloid Sam, as well as his psychic aunt, Cordelia are all wary of the Finley, who seems to house two personalities in her fragile human body. But before Griffin can assist Finley in uniting her two selves, the group must uncover a plot by an evil mastermind known as The Machinist. The dastardly devil is somehow reprogramming robots to wreck havoc in the streets of London. Griff and his friends must sift through the random pieces of information they've found to uncover The Machinist's true intent and stop whatever devious scheme he has planned.

This novel is great fun. It successfully combines Steampunk and plot elements from several classic novels (I can't reveal which ones or I might spoil the plot) to form a very readable teen novel with memorable characters. I highly recommend this novel to fans of adventures, thrillers, historical fiction and fantasy.