#CBR12 Book 61: "A Heart of Blood and Ashes" by Milla Vane

Page count: 555 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Official book description: 

A generation past, the western realms were embroiled in endless war. Then the Destroyer came. From the blood and ashes he left behind, a tenuous alliance rose between the barbarian riders of Parsathe and the walled kingdoms of the south. That alliance is all that stands against the return of an ancient evil - until the barbarian king and queen are slain in an act of bloody betrayal.

Though forbidden by the alliance council to kill the corrupt king responsible for his parents’ murders, Maddek vows to avenge them, even if it costs him the Parsathean crown. But when he learns it was the king’s daughter who lured his parents to their deaths, the barbarian warrior is determined to make her pay.

Yet the woman Maddek captures is not what he expected. Though the last in a line of legendary warrior-queens, Yvenne is small and weak, and the sharpest weapons she wields are her mind and her tongue. Even more surpri sing is the marriage she proposes to unite them in their goals and to claim their thrones—because her desire for vengeance against her father burns even hotter than his own…

This book is pretty much your ultimate enemies to lovers story. There isn't just the flirty banter of rivalling colleagues in an office or dislike growing into attraction and affection, Maddek, our grouchy and grieving hero really is initially prepared to kill Yvenne, our clever and vengeful heroine, when they first meet. He hates her father and brothers and believes she is the reason his wise and brave parents were tricked away from the safety of their own lands and into enemy territory, where they were betrayed and killed.

Yvenne may be the daughter of a king and a legendary warrior queen, but she has not been raised in pomp and privilege, rather kept captive in a tower and forced to watch her father's abuse of her mother for years. Both her father and most of her brothers have abused her horribly, both physically and emotionally and desperate for a marriage alliance with a powerful and honourable tribe, Yvenne begged for Maddek's parents' help to get her away from her family. Her plan backfired spectacularly, and she feels terrible guilt about her role in their deaths, and the suffering they went through at the hands of her father, brothers and the men loyal to them. While she is physically weak and crippled, she nevertheless has her mother's blood in her veins, and the gifts of the goddess that bless the women of her line, and she's determined to be a worthy queen to her people. She just needs a man strong enough to defeat her father to marry her, so she can claim her birthright and inheritance.

Maddek's tribe values truthfulness above all, and before she died, Maddek's mother made Yvenne swear never to lie to him. Unfortunately, Maddek's grief and anger make it impossible for him to trust or believe anything Yvenne says, and he makes her swear never to even utter his mother's name (or he'll cut out her tongue). The massive distrust between the two doesn't exactly create a fertile ground for a good and strong relationship. Nor does it help that thanks to her father's mistreatment of her mother, Yvenne was born too early and barely survived her childhood. She's also been additionally crippled by her family after trying to help Maddek's mother escape. She's a far cry from the legendary warrior queens that make up her ancestors, nor is she anything like the independent, strong and capable warrior women of Maddek's nomadic tribe. When they meet, she's never even ridden a horse. 

What Yvenne does have is a fierce intelligence, a burning ambition, and the years spent being trained by her mother in the statecraft, manipulation and intrigue that a good queen will need to excel at. Her mother possessed psychic abilities and was able to see far and wide outside the tower she and Yvenne were captives in, and she told Yvenne everything and taught her as well as she could, to prepare her for her future. Yvenne loves her people and works very hard to get to know Maddek's loyal companions as well, knowing that she needs to learn as much about her new tribe as possible to be a worthy queen to them, even if she's nothing like what they value in a woman. 

This is not exactly a light-hearted or carefree book. In this barbarian world, an alternate reality where humans live side by side with pre-historic lizards and other dangerous beasts, physical strength and prowess in battle is valued. The gods that the various people believe in are very real and occasionally interfere directly in the lives of their followers. Some characters are blessed by the gods, others make horrible sacrifices to gain unholy magical powers for their own gain. 

There has been a lot of war, and death and all manner of atrocities and war crimes. Unscrupulous and evil men use rape as a weapon to demean and torture women (not directly described in the story, but there have clearly been loved one's raped in both the protagonists' pasts). A generation ago, the near-unstoppable and ruthless warlord known as the Destroyer was vanquished, but he didn't die, and there are rumours that he is on the move, coming back for another invasion. The various tribes of this world need a strong alliance to stand against him, and as prophecy would have it, Yvenne and Maddok are central to mounting a defense against him. 

I haven't really said much about the excellent world-building or the cast of interesting (and diverse) supporting characters, because this review is already getting long and if I'm ever to get through my backlog, I need to get better at being brief in my write-ups. Suffice it to say, two thumbs up for this too.

Milla Vane also wrote paranormal romances as Meljean Brook, whose Iron Seas novels, set in a Steampunk alt-Victorian world, are among my all-time favourites of the paranormal genre. As far as I can tell, she (like so many others) have had a difficult few years since she last published a novel back in 2014. I know she's been working on this new, pre-historic barbarian world for a long time, and thankfully for the reader, there are already two full novels and a novella to enjoy. My friend and fellow reviewer Emmalita absolutely raves about the books (and was lucky enough have her review quoted in Ms. Vane's social media promos). I have enough trust in the author after four novels and a few novellas set in the Iron Seas that I've already purchased everything Ms. Vane has published so far, but due to the darker subject matter and slightly grimmer feel to these books, I also don't feel in the mood to binge all three available stories in one go. I'm going to need a month or two to recover between books. 

Judging a book by its cover: Anyone seeing this cover, has to have at least a vague inkling that it's not your run of the mill Regency romance novel. There's the title, which suggests some dark subject matters. Then there's the cover model, who is wearing very little, except for some scraps of leather, scraps, and a whole lot of dirt and grime. The author describes this as "barbarian romance" and I think the cover sells that aesthetic very well indeed. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 90: "Frozen" by Meljean Brook

Page count: 192 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

Olivia just wants to go home to her family for Christmas, preferably before the snow hits, but her boss has made her go out of her way to deliver some important papers to his son, a man she's been studiously trying to avoid for over a year, after they kissed and he declared it a big mistake. Turns out that dear old dad had ulterior motives, and while Erik Gulbrandr does his best to get Olivia far away from him (even though he seems to be brewing on a fever or something), she's not going to be able to go anywhere, as something has torn her car to pieces.

Erik is forced to admit why he wanted Olivia to leave and while he's been avoiding her so aggressively. While it tends to skip every other generation, the men of the Gulbrandr family are under an ancient curse. When Erik kissed Olivia, he discovered that she was his fated mate and the curse makes him lose complete control during the Winter solstice. He'll do anything to get to her and won't exactly treat her gently. There is also a paranormal aspect to the curse, but I won't reveal what exactly happens to Erik, because it's a pretty cool reveal. They are trapped in the house, because rival paranormals have some sort of blood feud going and know that Erik is on edge just before the Solstice. They want to try to kill him, and keeping Olivia snow bound in the house with him provides them with more distraction. Erik wants Olivia to shoot him point blank in the head if the curse takes over (it's the only way he can be stopped, he is otherwise invulnerable). She is naturally sceptical and wants to find a different solution.

Since I stopped reading Kresley Cole books (I just could not anymore, I had completely run out of could's), I don't think I've come across a lot of fated mate pairings in my books. This novella, which I think Meljean Brook may have self-published certainly gave me something different from just your standard vampires, shapeshifters or fae. There's an element of Norse mythology involved, which I liked a lot, but the main problem with the story is that the curse didn't entirely seem to make sense. Still there's a couple threatened by dangerous beasties, all sorts of moral qualms, followed by quite a lot of bonking towards the end of the story. I was not very engaged with the story, and Olivia sure is going to have an awkward time the next time she faces her potential father-in-law, after the situation he knowingly sent her into.

Meljean Brook has written some excellent paranormal fantasies, I can highly recommend her historical Steampunk series, the Iron Seas, which begins with The Iron Duke, also has one of my favourite adventure novels, Heart of Steel, and another great entry (set in Iceland), Riveted. Unless you can get this on sale (like I did) or free, I would skip it and read something else by Ms. Brook instead.

Judging a book by its cover: So many different shades of blue. An otherwise fairly generic cover. You've got your pretty lady in a state of partial undress. Woods in the background. This cover says little to nothing about the contents, which is not unusual for some paranormals, actually. Only the tag line gives you some impression of what the story is about. I don't hate it, I don't love it. It's a cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 58: "The Kraken King, parts 5-8" by Meljean Brook

Total page count: 350 pages
Part Five: The Kraken King and the Iron Heart - 4.5 stars
Part Six: The Kraken King and the Crumbling Walls - 4 stars
Part Seven: The Kraken King and the Empress's Eyes - 4.5 stars
Part Eight: The Kraken King and the Greatest Adventure - 4 stars

Parts 1-4 reviewed here.

Zenobia and Ariq are over the initial awkward state getting to know one another and actually falling in love part of their relationship. That doesn't mean that their communication runs smoothly and that there are no more cultural and emotional misunderstandings in their future together. There is also very real danger to Ariq's friends and family if he and Zenobia can't convince the Empress of Nippon that the rebel attacks are a clever plot against her, from people she believes are loyal supporters. If they can't convince the Empress, then they'll have to take the dangers on themselves, but the dangers are great and there are numerous obstacles in their way.

In part five, Zenobia and Ariq are separated and we discover the lengths Ariq is willing to go to get back to the woman he's fallen for. Zenobia has clearly learned a lot during her adventures, and is no shrinking violet either. She's not going to sit around being used as a bargaining piece and doesn't hesitate to try to rescue herself. In part six, Zenobia finally reveals the truth about her double identity and literary career to her friend Helene, and she and Ariq wait for the Empress to grant them an audience. In part seven, it turns out that the Empress isn't above using torture to get to the bottom of the plots against her, and Zenobia discovers that she's not strong enough to watch the the man she's come to love being forced to suffer. They need to escape the Empress' forces, and get help from an unexpected quarter. In part eight, Ariq and Zenobia race back to Krakentown, hoping to beat the Empress' forces there. They need to use the fearsome weapon Ariq has been hiding to eliminate the threat to their loved ones, once and for all.

I managed to wait until the final part was released to read the last four, which meant that I didn't need to worry about pesky cliff hangers. In these four instalments, the story changes its focus from Zenobia and Ariq's blossoming romance to the solving of the central underlying conflict set up in the first half, with the mysterious attacks on flying ships by unknown assailants. Unable to persuade the Empress' captain of the guard of where the true danger lies, as she and others are chiefly interested in the powerful war machine only Ariq knows the location of, he and Zenobia have to rely on themselves, their friends and allies in defending Krakentown.

In my review of the first four parts, I emphasised how much I enjoyed the ethnic diversity of the characters in The Kraken King and the nuance in which they are portrayed. I should also point out that most of the significant characters in this story are women, to a degree unusual even in paranormal/urban fantasy, which tends to be chiefly written by women and most often features female protagonists. It's sad that I feel the need to point this out, but Meljean Brook shows how easy it could be for any number of writers to do the same thing. While her books are set in an alternate historical world, the degree of equality between the sexes seems unusual in the genre, and I applaud that, even as I hope that more fantasy (and normal contemporary writers) follow suit.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 55: "The Kraken King, parts 1-4" by Meljean Brook

Total page count: 335 pages

Part One: The Kraken King and the Scribbling Spinster - 4 stars
Part Two: The Kraken King and the Abominable Worm - 4 stars
Part Three: The Kraken King and the Fox's Den - 4.5 stars
Part Four: The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction - 4 stars

Because The Kraken King is being published in eight weekly instalments, I'm going to blog the first four as one book, and the final four as another, mainly because I don't want to wait until I've read all the parts to share my feels so far. So to anyone reading - be aware that there is more to come.

Zenobia Fox is used to a quiet life in Fladstand (on the north-East coast of what we'd know as the US). The only bursts of any kind of excitement are when she occasionally gets abducted and held for ransom, because her brother is a tremendously wealthy adventurer and explorer, married to a ruthless and fierce airship captain (see Heart of Steel). Zenobia is the woman who chronicles their adventures, in stories everyone believes to be fiction. Her childhood friend Helene, however, knows nothing of her secret life as an author, and believes her to be a widow very conscientious about her correspondence. She asks Geraldine (Zenobia's real name) to accompany her on a journey to Nippon (Japanese-controlled areas of what we'd know as Northern Australia.) and Zenobia eagerly accepts. It will give her a chance to see some of the parts of the world she's only ever read about in her brother's letters, and ideas for her new stories.

At first, everything seems to be going well, with Zenobia's mercenary bodyguards posing as her maid and late husband's valet. When the airship they are on is shot down by bandits, Zenobia gets to experience more adventure than she had hoped for. They are rescued by none other than the Kraken King, a legendary warrior who fought the Mongolian Horde, but now wishes to live peacefully as governor of his little settlement. He needs to figure out who is behind the bandit attacks in the area and stop them, because the Nipponese Empress and her forces will obliterate all threats first and ask questions later. He is intrigued by Zenobia and her fortitude. She needs to hide her true identity, and is, as always, worried that people will use her to get to her brother. Ariq, the Kraken King, believes she may be a spy or foreign agent, and is determined to figure out what she is hiding, while also trying to tempt her into his bed.

While both keep their cards close to their chest, unaware of how much their mutual secrecy is complicating matters between them, Ariq and Zenobia's attraction towards one another grows. Zenobia and Helene need to get to Nippon, for Helene to be reunited with her husband as quickly as possible (as the lady is expecting, and can't really pass it off as her husband's if she hasn't seen him in months). Zenobia just wants to write her stories and protect her brother, while Ariq needs to prove to himself that the fascinating woman he just met and is falling for isn't a dangerous spy who could bring down destruction on him and his town.

I love Meljean Brook's Iron Seas books. The world-building of her Steampunk alternate history world is fascinating. She has a very useful guide to her fictional world here, complete with world map. The previous books, The Iron Duke, Heart of Steel and Riveted have focused mostly on the European parts of this world, with the Mongolian Horde as the villains of the piece. Now she moves the action East, and shows us other exciting aspects of the world. Here Zenobia and Helene, as a white females are in a definite minority, and we see that not all the Horde are ruthless villains, and some of them were just as opposed to the world domination plans of their rulers as those who were occupied in Europe and Africa.

There is absolutely a romance at the centre of the story here, but because of the instalments, it builds slowly and there are all sorts of obstacles and misunderstandings that get in the way for the happy couple. Each instalment is about three to four chapters long, and frequently ends on a cliff-hanger. In the first part, Zenobia and Ariq meet and Zenobia's airship crashes. In the second, their party is attacked by a terrifying gigantic boiler worm on the way to a smuggler's settlement. In part three, Ariq tries to hunt down the bandit's in the various smuggler's settlements and discovers Zenobia's true identity when he rescues her from a kidnapping attempt, and in part four, he and Zenobia are in fact (as the title suggests) abducted, but not because someone wants to hold Zenobia for ransom. No, it's Ariq the abductors want. Zenobia is just taken for leverage.

I'm glad I waited until the four parts were out, so I could read it all in one go. Even so, it was very exciting to get an e-mail notification every Tuesday announcing that the next part was available for download. I can see why some fans were annoyed at Brook's decision to publish this way, but I very much enjoyed the serial format. My review of the second half of the story will follow soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR4 Book 81: "Riveted" by Meljean Brook

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Date begun: September 5th, 2012
Date finished: September 6th, 2012

Annika has grown up in a small secluded village in Iceland, populated entirely by women, who have kept it well-hidden through stories of witches and trolls in the area. She's been travelling for four years, trying to find her sister, who took the blame for Annika's nearly revealing the location of the town to the outside world, had a massive row with the elders, and left.

David Kentewess is a vulcanologist desperate to find the village Annika is from, as his mother's dying words was that he bury an heirloom necklace by the sacred mountain close to where she was born. When he meets Annika, he recognises her accent, and tries desperately to share her secrets. While drawn to David, Annika can't reveal the secrets of her home and the women there, whether threatened or cajoled. And before long, both Annika and David have much more to worry about than their growing attraction to each other and whatever promises they made to their families.

I will say this for Meljean Brook, after The Iron Duke and Heart of Steel, I thought I knew a little bit of what to expect. I was wrong. Well, I expected clever writing and interesting world building, and multi-faceted characters who I'd enjoy reading about, and I got all that. But story wise, this was completely different from the other two Iron Seas novels, and the start of the novel gave me absolutely no hints of where the story was going to end up. Suffice to say, Annika and David are absolutely nothing like the protagonists of the previous two novels Brook has written in her alternate history, pseudo-Victorian Steampunk world.

Annika has been raised purely by women, in a community where women either go off to get pregnant (some stay with their baby daddies if they have sons), or bring home foundling girls from other places. Same sex relationships are very common, to the point where Annika clearly feels slightly sad that she hasn't seemed to find a romantic relationship with any of the girls she grew up with. Nick-named "Rabbit" growing up, she still finds the tremendous courage to go off into the wider world to find her sister, visiting a number of new places on the airship where she serves as an engineer, and David is both amused and baffled by her lack of self-insight when he sees her many acts of self-sacrifice and bravery throughout the story.

David lost an arm and both his legs, and sustained a fair amount of facial scarring, in a horrible accident as a child, and his mother died to save him. He now has a mechanical eye-piece over part of his face, and mechanical limbs to replace the ones he lost. Most people naturally have trouble seeing past his artificial additions, and women especially seem either repulsed by him or excessively pity him. So when Annika, unused to men in general, treats him with kindness and openness, he's drawn to her even before he recognises her accent to be the same as his mother's. In no way an alpha male, David is deeply reluctant to pursue Annika, because of his previous bad luck around women.

The development of their friendship and later romance is a wonderful, slow and gradual process (frankly, both characters were almost too convinced of the other's disinterest and so reluctant to approach the other that I wanted to reach into the book and shake them both). Yet I'd rather the character have time to get to know each other properly before they declare they madly love each other than fall into instant lust and/or love.

As I've come to expect in Brook's novels, the world building is excellent, and while the first third of the story is very slow and sets up Annika and David's relationship and gives us their back stories, once the plot takes a sharp turn, it's frankly action and adventure and unexpected plot twists until the end. As in the other two Iron Seas novels, there are several breath taking action sequences that kept me at the edge of my seat, and once the story got going, I really didn't want to put the book down. While Heart of Steel is still my absolute favourite, this is a decent second, and I can't wait to see what Meljean Brook is going to give us next.

CBR3 Book 90: "Heart of Steel" by Meljean Brook

Publisher: Berkley Trade
Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Date begun: November 1st, 2011
Date finished:  November 2nd, 2011

This is the second book in Meljean Brook's Iron Seas series, and while it can be read as a stand alone, a lot of the world building is established in the first book, The Iron Duke, as well as the first encounter of the protagonists of this book, so it's definitely better if you read that one first. Also, while the covers for these books are beyond awful, I promise that they are actually REALLY REALLY good. It's why I buy them as e-books, so I can avoid embarrassment on public transport.

Yasmeen is the legendary mercenary captain of the airship Lady Corsair, and refuses to cede authority to any man. When adventurer and explorer Archimedes Fox tried to threaten her and take control of his airship, she threw him over the side, into waters teeming with zombies. Now she has to tell his sister, the woman who's made him famous writing about his adventures, that Fox is most likely dead. As Yasmeen also killed the woman's father, she is not really looking forward to the encounter.

I'm spoiling very little by revealing that of course Fox is only mostly dead. He survived the horde of zombies, and now needs to get the very valuable da Vinci sketch he left on the Lady Corsair from Yasmeen, so he can pay off an old acquaintance and hopefully no longer be trailed around the world by assassins. He doesn't mind at all that Yasmeen killed his father in the past, he's grateful, frankly, and now feels that she would be the perfect woman for him to fall in love with. Having had his emotions smothered and blunted under Horde control, he's now determined to live life to the fullest and feel every emotion at its strongest, and he believes loving Yasmeen and probably having his heart broken by her would be a glorious adventure. As they need to travel through Europe together, avenging the deaths of her airship crew and trying to reclaim his stolen sketch, while looking for treasures and running from zombies, falling in love with the temperamental mercenary shouldn't prove too difficult.

The Iron Duke first established the world of Brook's Iron Seas - a Victorian era where the Mongol hordes took over huge amounts the world with their advanced technology, enslaving people with the use of nanobots in their blood stream. The oceans are filled with giant armor plated megalodons and krakens,  much of Europe and parts of Africa are teeming with mindless zombies. Having been trained as a warrior, Yasmeen learned the hard way that most men could not be trusted, and felt threatened by her independence, self-sufficiency and strength. While her former lovers would desire her, they could not accept that she held the highest authority on board her own ship, and frequently tried to dominate her in front of her crew. Archimedes Fox is not such a man. He's attracted to Yasmeen because she is strong and capable and could quite possibly kill him if he so much as looked at her the wrong way. He's a thrill seeker and adventurer, and getting the dangerous and deadly Captain Corsair into bed would be his greatest achievement. He has no wish to outrank her on a ship, he just wants to be with her.

A lot less angsty and grim than the previous Iron Seas novel, Heart of Steel is an adventure romp. There are kidnappings, sneaky attempts at poisoning, witty banter, double crossings, explosions, bar fights, revenge quests, adventure, zombie attacks, huge amounts of sexual tension (the couple don't do anything but throw amazing quips at each other until the latter half of the book, they don't even kiss until the last quarter or so). I think I actually even preferred it to the Iron Duke, and can't wait until the next one comes out.

CBR2 Book 90: "The Iron Duke" by Meljean Brook

Publisher: Berkley
Page count: 384 pages
Date begun: October 8th, 2010
Date finished: October 9th, 2010

Detective Inspector Mina Wenthworth is the daughter of the Earl of Rockingham, but she lives in a version of England that not long ago was enslaved by the Mongol Horde, and had been for centuries. The Horde infected the populace with nanoagents, and were able to control them with electronic frequencies, taking away their free will, and could even, during something known as the Frenzy, force them to become overcome with lust, mating with anyone close by. Mina is the result of such a Frenzy, when her mother was raped by members of the Horde. When she saw her child for the first time, the Countess of Rockingham gouged her eyes out.

England was saved from the Horde when the pirate captain of Marco's Terror, Rhys Trahaearn, sailed up the Thames and blew up the huge tower which controlled the infected Englishmen, popularly known as buggers. In the ensuing revolution, the Horde's control was lifted, and now the nanoagents no longer enslave people, but make them faster and stronger. Rhys was embraced as a popular hero and given the title Duke of Anglesey. He is popularly known as the Iron Duke

But Mina still looks like the Horde overlords that sired her, and this causes people to whisper behind her back if they are kind, and physically attack her if they are less so. She works hard as a Detective Inspector to help support her family, who while they are noble, are very poor. When she is called away from a ball in the Iron Duke's honour, to investigate the murder of a man literally dropped on the Duke's doorstep, her life changes forever.

Rhys has not had an easy life, and is not comfortable with the adulation of the people or the hero status he feels he is undeserving of. He is first annoyed that one of his staff called the police, as he would have preferred to sort out the murder himself, it is clearly meant as some sort of signal to him - but he is impressed with the Detective's zeal and determination, and the more intrigued he is by her, the more determined he is to add her to his possessions.

Mina, who has had to work three times as hard as anyone else because of her half-Horde heritage, and who constantly faces scorn and derision, is not about to become even more of a talking point and scandal by becoming the Iron Duke's plaything. But when it turns out that the Duke's former ship, Marco's Terror, where her younger brother Andrew is serving as midshipman, has been captured by enemies of England, she is forced to work together with him to try to save her brother. As they set out on a dangerous journey, it becomes obvious that not just the ship is in danger, but possibly all of England as well.

Mina is a really strong and unusual heroine. She has loving parents, but can never escape the knowledge that she is a result of rape, and her features cause her to be hated and feared almost wherever she turns. She is a dedicated professional, and has clearly earned the respect of her superiors and co-workers, but knows that she is unlikely to ever find a man who can accept her shameful origins, and any child of hers may inherit her Mongol features and face the same difficulties that she has had. She finds the Iron Duke intriguing and very attractive, but cannot let herself be tempted by him, as her reputation is all she has, and she cannot give any ammunition to the writers of the scandal sheets. She was also old enough to experience on Frenzy before the Iron Duke rid England of the control of the Horde, and fears losing control like that ever again.

Rhys is very strong and very dominant, and literally has bones made of iron. He escaped his birthplace in Wales early, and it is a mystery to most why the frequency of the signal tower failed to affect him. He did not want to be hailed as a hero and a saviour, but has reluctantly embraced his title and is trying to do the best he can for his people. He is fiercely loyal and protective of what he considers his, and does not hesitate to go after his ship when it's been captured. He pursues Mina with determination and aggression, but has to change tactics when he realizes that she cannot be bought or blackmailed into working for him, or sleeping with him. The more time he spends with her, the more fascinated he is, and he is determined to win her - whatever the cost.

The Iron Duke is the first book I've read by Meljean Brook, and I was very excited to read it, having read rave reviews in several places, and having gotten a taste for Steampunk in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series. This is the first of new series, The Iron Seas, according to Ms Brook's website, and I am very excited. She has created a fascinating world, with mechanically enhanced humans, steam driven carriages, air ships, krakens and megalodons and some very well drawn characters. I will eagerly await new installments in the series, and probably go back and read some of her Guardian series as well.