Lady of Devices: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 1)
Book One of the Magnificent Devices series, a novel of 54,000 words.
London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world.
At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices.
When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. They may help her realize her dreams and his . . . if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals . . .
Good fun, but rife with Americanisms and fact-checking could be better,
Claire falls in with a gang of thieves – the very gang that had sought to rob her – when she discovers that they’re a rag-tag group of children in sore need of education, moral guidance and some serious scientific up-dating!
I generally liked this steampunk novel – about a titled, wealthy, but intelligent young woman on the brink of being forced into a straitjacketed existence that really doesn’t suit her character at all. It’s a stirring and interesting fantasy adventure and I enjoyed it considerably. But it’s not without fault. Shelley Adina’s world introduces a range of fictitious ‘devices’/wider applications of gadgets than actually occurred. All good so far. But there are also a number of factual inaccuracies/historical liberties taken in the background set-up that aren’t acknowledged. The US author’s language isn’t always convincing (“fall” for ‘autumn’ isn’t a typical feature of 19th C British English) and English schoolgirls completing their schooling in the 1880s aren’t normally as closely associated with graduation parties as seems to be the case here!
The heroine wants to attend university at Oxford and there are several references to the institution, including the statement that “she could have gone for a master’s degree at Oxford with that” [‘that’ referring to an amount of money]. However, although Oxford had opened its doors to female students by 1889 (the year in which this novel is set), this was only a limited admissions policy. Women were able to attend lectures, sit examinations (and receive honours in those exams) but were debarred from receiving the degree that the same results and being born male would have entitled them to… until 1920.
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|Lazy,
My other objection is that the book ends halfway through the story. As there are other books this just looks like a deliberate money-making ploy and the book just isn’t good enough to make me want to spend money to find out what happens.
The author evidently didn’t think her lack of attention to detail would matter but it matters enough to have warranted several reviewers to comment and in my case not to bother with any more of her books.
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|Good fun, but rife with Americanisms and fact-checking could be better,
Claire falls in with a gang of thieves – the very gang that had sought to rob her – when she discovers that they’re a rag-tag group of children in sore need of education, moral guidance and some serious scientific up-dating!
I generally liked this steampunk novel – about a titled, wealthy, but intelligent young woman on the brink of being forced into a straitjacketed existence that really doesn’t suit her character at all. It’s a stirring and interesting fantasy adventure and I enjoyed it considerably. But it’s not without fault. Shelley Adina’s world introduces a range of fictitious ‘devices’/wider applications of gadgets than actually occurred. All good so far. But there are also a number of factual inaccuracies/historical liberties taken in the background set-up that aren’t acknowledged. The US author’s language isn’t always convincing (although an earlier feature of the langage, “fall” for ‘autumn’ isn’t a typical feature of late 19th C British English) and English schoolgirls completing their schooling in the 1880s aren’t normally as closely associated with graduation parties as seems to be the case here!
The heroine wants to attend university at Oxford and there are several references to the institution, including the statement that “she could have gone for a master’s degree at Oxford with that” [‘that’ referring to an amount of money]. However, although Oxford had opened its doors to female students by 1889 (the year in which this novel is set), this was only a limited admissions policy. Women were able to attend lectures, sit examinations (and receive honours in those exams) but were debarred from receiving the degree that the same results and being born male would have entitled them to… until 1920.
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