The Girl in the Steel Corset
By Kate Locke
~Book Review~
Warning! Minor spoilers!
FINLEY JAYNE, our
late 19th century English heroine, can knock full-grown men out cold
in a corset made out of steel, no
less. No wonder she is ill-tempered. Paying homage to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as reminiscent of Oliver Twist, Kate Locke’s steampunk The Girl in the Steel Corset introduces
us to a group of peculiar outsiders, whose newest addition thrashes back and
forth between her good and evil natures.
The first couple
chapters are exhilarating, as there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a
leering brute get taken out by someone he underestimates. Once serving girl
Finley comes back to the reality that she has defended herself against someone
of upper class, she goes on the run to escape the consequences. She meets
Griffin King, who takes her under his wing like the Artful Dodger, and meets
fellow uncanny miscreants such as a part-robot and a genius inventor.
Unfortunately, it
is here that the book begins to lose its suspense and the plot slows to a
meandering crawl around a very surface level exploration of the characters’
lives. There is a shadowy villain, the Machinist, who, predictably, lurks from
the shadows and doesn’t effectively establish himself as a menacing threat.
Sam, who is part-robot, is super-charged aggressively hostile toward Emily, an
inventor, and by the end of it, I still wasn’t convinced as to his reasons for
being so. It just made him immensely dislikeable. And Griffin was a bland
leader with none of the Artful Dodger’s charm.
All of the
potential of Finley’s dual character is lost as she is relegated to share the
stage with Griffin’s point of view. It would be an interesting exercise if
Griffin didn’t exist and Finley served as the sole main character, gathering
the other misfits to her side, and having a more personal, intense relationship
with the Machinist in order to build up the tension. Griffin didn’t really
serve as anything, certainly not as the fascinating subtle bad influence like
the Dodger demonstrated, like the type of mentor who seemingly has good
intentions, but whom the more naive “Oliver” character (Finley) needs to learn
to establish her independence against. Rather, he just served as a
disinteresting romantic prospect and not essential to the plot. Without
Griffin, I would venture to say that Finley’s other romantic interest, the
swaggering Cockney crime lord Jack Dandy, would still have given the story
enough spice.
As such, I am
hesitant to continue the series, as the stage is just too over-crowded to
provide a more intense, deeper characterization of not just the protagonists,
but even of the steampunk world itself. The Girl in the Steel Corset feels like it is trying to be
too many things (a romance, a steampunk noir mystery, a philosophical struggle
between good and evil natures), and in the end, leaves none of them memorable.
I would recommend the series to readers looking for a more light-hearted,
slow-paced romance with bits of steampunk magic here and there.
Recommended for
fans of: Cassandra Clare, Colleen Houck, and Shelley Adina
Upcoming Book
Review: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
