Update: I loved this book. I liked the direction that the author took with the character, but I can't really say why without some major, major spoilers, but those of you who like a good story won't be disappointed. One thing that I did enjoy is that the main character was surrounded by her 'people'. In a lot(most?) of UF the main character is so solitary they may as well have grown up in a test tube--despite years of life, there is no 'life' around them. Not here, Xandra's is full of siblings, mentors, long-term acquaintances, etc. It is as full and messy as real life and I appreciated that aspect.

If you are looking for PNR or the detailed love scene, I'm not sure this is the book for you. There is a love interest, but that is not the end game to the story, and while Xandra has a healthy respect for sex, it no more rules her story than it does her mind.

This is a solid UF more along the lines of Kate Daniels than Cat & Bones. I am not sure that calling it UF is correct, it is more of an alternate, steampunky version of the world we live in and I'm not sure if there is an official name for it; it just feels like a UF to me.

Big pluses for me were that despite the fact that this is the 1st in (hopefully a nice long) series, there is no cliffhanger. Nice. This is a self-contained story and my what a good one it is.
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Oh my goodness. Reading the 1st 4 chapters (for free on Kindle) and pre-ordered at 39% in. Hopefully they are long chapters because this is GOOD. New take on vamps and other supes. The steampunk elements work well in a Great Britain setting.

I hope the writing and plot live up to the sample. If so, heLLO new favorite author! ( )

This one pulled me in immediately and I soon started to desperately hope this wouldn't be another disappointment.
It didn't quite manage to fulfil all my hopes but I still enjoyed it immensely in general.

What I particularly loved was the attention to detail in the world-building. A lot of effort went into explaining all the stuff that's different in this universe from history to science as well as how these differences actually manifest in current technology.
Simultaneously lots of eye-rolling happened regarding the pseudo-science going on around the supernatural elements.
If you base your supernaturals on science please try to get the science part of your explanation right.
There are so many unnecessary mistakes in the pseudo-science that have nothing to do with the supernatural element of these explanations and its basic stuff like Mendel, not some complicated and obscure genetics detail.
Although considering the endnote, this was more the fault of the people helping her with the science stuff which leaves a bit of a bitter taste to the profuse thanks to them.

With that out of the way this story initially showed signs of something I really hate which is taking shit from people because they are family. This is more of a personal dislike tho, seeing how often I've read these kinds of situations it might be a somewhat unpopular opinion? I think just because people are related to you doesn't mean they have some special rights. If you have important family members acting like dicks please show me what they have done as a person to deserve leniency.
I hate it every time when I read "but she is my sister" as an excuse to forgive some bullshit.
Just being genetically related shouldn't matter.
Everyone is immediately on board with this concept the other way around in cases of adoption for example. Why not this way as well? This always has seemed really strange to me.
Ultimately this wasn't a major force driving the plot at least which is something I particularly dislike.

A few words and phrases are being used excessively in this work and I believe the editor should've corrected that. If I have to read that someone is "hatters" again I might actually go hatters myself.

I was initially aversed to reading this one because of a few pretty bad reviews by somewhat prominent people on gr I usually agree with but I really couldn't see where their criticisms came from. It seems a lot of the dislike for this book comes from unmet expectations and not some failing of the book itself.

In conclusion, this was a very enjoyable read that managed to feel fresh and gave me a glimpse into a fascinating world. I rate it a low 4 stars. It realized a good part of its potential but there is room for improvement.

Edit:
Sadly the rest of the series does not even come close to the polish and attention to detail this first book has shown. The third one actually is so bad that I had a hard time justifying even the 2 stars I gave it.
Long story short, you should probably enjoy this as a standalone and ignore the existence of the sequels. ( )

There are a number of things that are wrong with this book, but I'll get to those in a bit. Admittedly, Locke created a very interesting world - it's politically fraught where the aristocrats are vampires (including Queen Victoria, about to celebrate her 175th year of rule) and werewolves, and their half-blood children serve as their protectors. Xandra is a halvie serving on the Royal Guard. While investigating her sister's disappearance and later death, she discovers that her world is more complicated and dangerous than she believed it to be.

First, I did enjoy the book. It's a quick read, and a fun one. The plot moves along briskly and the world-building was extremely interesting.

There are a few things that kept throwing me out of the book, though. The first was that the writing seemed amateurish at points, which is weird considering that Locke has published a number of other books under different names. But the words "chocolatey goodness" should never appear on the pages of a professionally published book. The author also tried a little too hard to make the book seem English - using "kerb" and "colour", for example. Xandra also throws in the odd "Oy". The book's setting is the Britain that Americans believe to be Britain.

Also, I got the feeling the author wrote this to piggyback onto the steampunk craze, even though this book contained very little actual steampunk (actually, pretty much nothing - there were no steam engines). Steampunk is more than corsets and tiny hats. And it pisses me off when things are labeled "steampunk" when it's obviously just a ploy to get people to buy it because steampunk is the 'in' thing right now.

The plot was interesting, and I did consider reading the next one but the awful shallowness and marketing around this book just turned me off. ( )

I wanted to like this book, but in the end, just couldn't deal with Xandra's personality. ( )

As previous reviewers have stated very little real 'Steampunk'. However, enjoyed it as a 'good read' have decided to get the other 2 in the series. Perhaps in those, we get to travel on some of the 'aeroships' referred to. Characters were not a 'fleshed' out (pun intended) as much as I would have liked and their descriptions had gaps? ( )