Sunday, April 28, 2013

ARC Review: Bec McMaster – Heart of Iron

London Steampunk Series:

Book 2:

Heart of Iron: Will Carver and Lena Todd


Heart of Iron (London Steampunk, #2)


Expected publication: May 7th 2013

Purchase on Amazon:  Bec McMaster - Heart of Iron (London Steampunk)

Summary:
From Goodreads.com
In Victorian London, if you’re not a blue blood of the Echelon then you’re nothing at all. The Great Houses rule the city with an iron fist, imposing their strict ‘blood taxes’ on the nation, and the Queen is merely a puppet on a string…

Lena Todd makes the perfect spy. Nobody suspects the flirtatious debutante could be a sympathizer for the humanist movement haunting London’s vicious blue blood elite. Not even the ruthless Will Carver, the one man she can’t twist around her little finger, and the one man whose kiss she can’t forget…

Stricken with the loupe and considered little more than a slave-without-a-collar to the blue bloods, Will wants nothing to do with the Echelon or the dangerous beauty who drives him to the very edge of control. But when he finds a coded letter on Lena—a code that matches one he saw on a fire-bombing suspect—he realizes she’s in trouble. To protect her, he must seduce the truth from her.

With the humanists looking to start a war with the Echelon, Lena and Will must race against time—and an automaton army—to stop the humanist plot before it’s too late. But as they fight to save a city on the brink of revolution, the greatest danger might just be to their hearts…

Review:

I love love love this series. I cannot thank Annie ( Under the Covers Book Blog ) for suggesting this series to me. This book is the best of the series so far. I am in love with Will and want him for my very own! I read this book several weeks ago and for about a week after I finished it, I walked around with a Heart of Iron hangover! I couldn’t start any other books because this one was still swirling around in my head and in my heart.

This book takes place three years after the events of the first book. In the first book, Lena was determined to drive Will crazy and was very successful at this task. So much so, that Will had to leave and move into his own place. He desires Lena but there is nothing on earth that could make him take her as his own. For at least a year he has managed to avoid Lena, now that she has joined the Echelon that has become that much more untouchable. When Will next meets Lena he finds a missive on her with a damning code. Will recognizes that code, he knows it belongs to the Humanists who just blew up a draining factory and almost killed Blade. Will knows Lena is in over her head. When he is called forth by the Prince Regent for a favor he realizes that his is a chance not only to free himself but to keep tabs on Lena. Lena is in way over her head, she never signed up for explosions and death. She ends up with danger all around her, without Will, she surely would have died.

Bec McMaster has created a complex world and her world building is phenomenal. She really took her time building the world in the first book, so that by now we are familiar with all of the terminology and the world enough that we can truly appreciate the world that McMaster built! There are elements of paranormal, historical and steampunk effortlessly combined for a completely unique series.

I never expected to actually like Lena, she didn’t quite endear herself to me in the first book. However, in this book she is actually pretty fierce! I came to love her as a character. She wants to believe in a cause, one bigger then herself. She thought that life in the Echelon  was where she wanted to be but the life of parties, riches and Thralls turns out to be more and less than she thought it would be. She doesn’t really belong anywhere, so she throws herself into the Humanist movement. When she sees Will again she realizes that she may be in over her head and that she never asked the right questions. After the chance meeting Will manages to entangle his life with hers. He has to be able to move through society and he needs Lena to help him with that. Being so close to Lena is both bliss and torture, he knows that she is HIS but he can never risk being with her. The Lupe Virus is so aggressive he can’t risk infecting her. Will is your typical Alpha male; he is possessive, protective and caring to his woman. The way he is with Lena is something you would never expect from such a mysterious, dark and complicated man. As a general rule, he stays away from people and especially females but his draw to Lena is undeniable. Time after time Will has to come to Lena’s aid making for an exciting story. There is always something going on. Bec McMaster knows how to bring on the action to keep the reader entertained! While the action is raging, the romance is building. There is nothing quite like danger to bring a couple together. The passion runs deep and smoldering. Ms. McMaster makes us wait for it, she teases us so good you don’t even realize we are waiting for it. When we finally get it, it’s worth the wait. Will is definitely worth the wait!

Rating:

5 flames


Amanda darkkind

*This book was provided to me through NetGalley for an honest review. No other compensation was provided.

No comments:

Post a Comment