I enjoyed the premise, but sadly, I found myself getting frequently confused and lost by certain plot points. ( )

Disclaimer: I didn't actually finish the story. I stopped at about 80%, although I was skimming before then. The cover looks good and the summary is intriguing, but the book itself I didn't particularly care for.

Main problems:

- There are Proper Nouns all over the place, but they're only rarely explained until much later (if at all). Some books can get away with this. This one did not.

- The POV jumps from character to character and in some cases it can take a while to figure out who in the world is talking.

- Bannon (main character) is crazy powerful. Again, sometimes you can have a story start with a very powerful protagonist and go from there, but more often than not it doesn't work out.

- Clare (apparently supposed to be a main character) never really feels like a main character. He's badly overshadowed by Bannon and one of her Shields, to the point where I'm not sure why the series isn't titled Bannon & Mikal.

- Holy purple prose Batman. The wording feels accurate for the period (so far as I know, which I don't), but the fact that I noticed enough to comment on it isn't great. Also Bannon mentions over and over again how unladylike she's being. We get it.

Upsides:

- Some of the descriptions were very cool. Counter to the last point above, I really could see what was going on in some of the scenes. Not necessarily why it was happening and I'm sure I got some of the Proper Nouns wrong, but it was still solid.

- There is a lot of neat worldbuilding just beneath the surface. I wish it was more obvious, but it's always interesting to read alternate history at this level. I want to know how things changed! I want to know how things work! Usually that wanting will drive me kicking and screaming through a story (in the best way possible). It almost did this time.

Similar to the point I made a little while back for Whitechapel Gods and Temeraire. I'm sure there are loads of people who love this kind of story. I'm not one of them.

So it goes. ( )

This was a very complex story set in an alternate historical London with both magic and steampunk elements. It also drops the reader right into this complex world which left me rather confused. Some paragraphs were filled with so much dialect that they were totally incomprehensible. However, others were filled with such lush description that I was drawn into the scene.

Since this is the first in the Bannon and Clare novel, I was looking to find out more about these two characters. Emma Bannon is a Prime Sorcerer who works closely guarding Queen Victrix who is the current vessel for Britannia. We learn that she is on the track of some sort of conspiracy which is killing mentaths who are sort of super geniuses. Archibald Clare is one of those mentaths and one Bannon manages to rescue before he can be killed. Clare is recently unregistered and in danger of dying of boredom when he meets Bannon.

I loved all the wonderful descriptions of this steampunk version of London. I liked the variety of characters from indentured servants to Shields to dragons. I thought Bannon was an interesting character with lots of mysteries about her. I enjoyed the action as the two - separately and together - attempt to track down the conspirators and end the threat. The worldbuilding was complex with much more for the reader to discover. ( )

Absolutely bloody fantastic. Best read on the year so far, and I'm eleven months in. ( )

Wow, I have to say, I loved this book! It pulled me in quickly and kept me reading voraciously until the end. Unique characters, a fully-developed steampunk world, and a complex plot--what's not to love?

So, why only four stars? It's really a 4.5 for me. The only minor complaints I had: there's a lot thrown at the reader at the outset, and you really have to work a bit to keep up with everything that's going on and to make sense of the world and the magic system. I didn't find it a problem, but (my editor persona coming to the fore) some readers would make heavy work of it. Also, after a while I found the many internalizations of the main characters a bit wearying--just a little overdone. To be fair, the characters have a lot of secrets that they really can't talk about but that are integral to understanding them, so the author does need to find some device to let the reader in. It just got distracting by the end.

However, do not let these editorial nit-picks steer you away from this marvelous book! My delight in it was dampened only by the realization that I have to wait a bit yet for the next Bannon and Clare adventure. ( )