The Girl in the Steel Corset

****

4 Stars/5

Finley Janye is not a normal 16 year old girl, when her boss’s son tries to take advantage of her; she fights him off and wins. This is because she has a darker side, which is stronger than most men and more daring than most girls in 1897 England. When fleeing the sense, she runs into Griffin King an orphan Duke who has a unique power of his own, he can control Aether. Finley joins the Dukes group of misfits including a girl with an affinity with machines, a boy who is half machine and an American cowboy who is super-fast and has a secret. They have to stop The Machinist, a man who is using robots for some sinister purpose.

The Girl in the Steel Corset is a fascinating Young Adult Steampunk with action, romance, humour and suspense. This book seemed longer than it is, but in a good way as there is a lot information and action in this average sized book.

Finley is an interesting character as you can identify and understand both sides of her, and Cross has cleverly been able to merge both sides of her together and yet see both of them in her. I also really like the rest of the group especially Griffin as he is one of the best YA love interests, however I just could not connect with Jasper but I feel we will get to know him better in the next book.

While I liked the characters, I did not like the romance as I am not a big fan of love triangles, and this book has two. I especially did not like the triangle between Emily, Sam and Jasper as it did not really feel needed. Also the copy of this book had The Strange Case of Finley Jayne in it and it felt that the events in that story did not happen to the Finley in this book.

I can’t wait to see what happens next to Finley, Griffin and the rest of the gang in the next book. I would recommend this novel to people who like The Infernal Devices series.