My policy with reviews is generally to find something positive to say to go with the negative; add a balance given that a book can't be as terrible as to have nothing positive about it, and then I read this book where it became one of those rare cases. When the only positive thing you can say is that it had a premise full of hope and expectation then there's no point trying to paint it in a different light. This book was just bad. I adore Steampunk. Powerful and sexy women in Steampunk even more! Quite a deal of unbelievable things go on in this book though including one that is just downright insulting to women. This book was intensely disappointing overall. I had really hoped it would be executed well, but that was not the case. I could've even overlooked some other stuff had the execution of the plot and the character development been better, but that just wasn't meant to be.

SPOILERS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK:


However, these women are just so unbelievable as to make you want to rip out your hair. There's one point where, in an effort to be all girl-power-how-dare-guys-tell-us-what-to-do, these women who have been doing missions for their Queen and Country for YEARS disobey cause two men are put in-charge of this particular mission(and one makes their beloved leader cry at the drop of a hat over every little thing it seems!) that they decide to go rogue. . . and fail miserably leading to them getting ambushed and said leader getting captured. Later on in the novel, the one guy actually apologizes for doubting their ability! Apologizes when they literally screwed up and made things more difficult by just not following the orders of their Queen, and got caught, but how dare he — a man! — call these women out on having been wrong, right? And then there were the oppressed harem women who suddenly became powerful warriors practically overnight to achieve their freedom from their highly trained male guards though they had no training and never thought to want that for themselves until the leader woman is held captive in their harem for an extremely short time. Look, I love powerful women in stories who might go rogue to prove someone wrong that is awful — the one guy who they were so offended(not the one that made the leader cry) barely qualified by the way — when it actually works. Having them apologize for doubting them when they did wrong and messed up just cause they're women is insulting. Call them out on their nonsense! Do not excuse it.