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Author: Bec McMaster
Title: Heart of Iron
Release: May 7, 2013
Reviewer: Chrissy
Series: London Steampunk #2
Source: Publisher
Purchase: | Book Depository

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…

One of the perks of working at the county library is having access to advanced reader copies. Every so often, a cart of ARCs will be placed in the lunchroom for us to pick through at our leisure. Needless to say, by the end of the day said cart is bare. Lucky for me, during my first month of work I was able to snag quite a few advanced reader copies, including Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster. While I am not normally a huge fan of steampunk, this one captured my interest simply because of its lovely cover. And while it is true that you cannot judge a book by its cover, I found this to be a delightful read nonetheless.

I probably should have read the first book in this series (Kiss of Steel) before reading Heart of Iron.

However, I did enjoy reading this book. It has definitely made me a fan of the steampunk genre and I cannot wait to read the other books that this series has to offer. Lena Todd is the quintessential femme fatale and Will Carver is a fantastic werewulfen creature dubbed The Beast for a reason.

The plot to this book is original and fun. The tension between these two characters is sizzling, a five alarm scorcher to be precise. The tagline of this book conveys everything that the reader needs to know about Heart of Iron: There’s nothing more dangerous than falling in love.

Chrissy fell in love with books at an early age. It all started with Judi Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. At the tender age of five she decided that she wanted to be a writer. Later, she graduated to books like A Wrinkle in Time, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the Goosebumps series, participating avidly in her school’s Book It program. High school brought on new challenges and loves. She began writing for the school’s newspaper and literary magazine. The works of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Shirley Jackson quickly overran her bookshelves. But when Chrissy was introduced to the world of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, a grand love affair was set in motion. She is an avid reader of romance, urban fantasy, horror, erotica, and cozy mysteries. After working for the city library for six years and being surrounded by the works of greatly admired authors, she decided to devote her life to writing full time and hasn’t looked back since. When she is not devouring book after book, Chrissy loves to cook, bake, volunteer at the local animal shelter, and feed her addiction for horror movies. She lives in Maryland with her family and beloved pets.

Doll Chrissy

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