Review for Steaming by Vanessa Barger

Steaming

Author: Vanessa Barger

Publisher: Decadent

Source: PDF from author (thanks!)

Challenges: For The Love of YA

133 pages

"My name is Cornelius Latimer, and I have fallen in love.

The object of my affection isn’t tall and blonde with all the right curves. It isn’t even human. My love belches steam and breathes fire. My world runs on steam and hard metal, and I am a master of both. My Uncle, Rufus Harrison, has funded my expeditions. He’s gifted me with a lab containing all the parts and space I could possibly need. For weeks I have been toiling over my journals, crafting my biggest and best creation yet. It’s heady, this feeling of power. But I made a fatal error. I told a friend about my machine. And now someone who should not know, does. I should tear everything apart, but I can’t.

Love does strange things to people." - Goodreads

    I want to start off by just saying thank you to Miss Barger for giving me a copy of Steaming! Great book!

  Now, on to the review. Normally, this is not a book that I would pick up and read. This book was unique - not weird - but unique. I have never read something quite like it ever before, it is not one of my usual books. But I loved it and I'm so glad I had the chance to read it! In my opinion the goodreads description doesn't do it justice, it barely tells anything about the story!

  Cornelius (how awesome is that name?!) is a Tinker- an inventor. He is nineteen years of age and is obessed with machines. Until he meets Temperance. The woman of his dreams, or so he thought. All goes wrong after a rigged set up, and Cornelius is dragged into a bad situation. He is threatened into making his invention, but soon realizes that his captor may have other plans for him. Bad plans. So, with the help of a young lady, he and her escape. But what will they do when Cornelius's former captor frames them for treason and murder? Well, they hide out in a secret underworld and make a plan. A plan to clear their names, and to give the credit back to Cornelius for his invention. Well, there you have it, that's my best attempt to give a description for an awesome book.

  The characters were so real. I loved Cornelius, he was so smart and had a lot of drive in him. I also liked the other characters because some of them it was like 'hey wait a minute.... are they telling the truth?' and I loved that because it kept me on the edge of my seat! The setting was good too. I just am not sure exactly what period of time this book was centered at. This takes place in London by the way.

Miss Barger's writing style was so clear and easy to follow that I didn't go back tracking trying to figure out what just happened. I really appreciated that. Overall, I enjoyed this book from front to back. By the middle I was hooked and just so excited to see what was going to happen.

  In conclusion, this book has it all. It has: action, romance, mystery, thrills, witty converstations and even  mythology (I enjoyed that part very very much :p) I highly recommend this book to everyone. So, don't hesitate to grab this one up if you see it!! My hat is tipped to the author!

Excerpt:

Lord Stevens laughed."You don't believe that anymore than I do. We both know that machine will revolutionize industry, transportation, everything about life as we know it."
"What exactly do you want, Lord Stevens? I must confess, I have never been good at social interaction. My uncle has always been better at that than I."
"Ah, you prefer the blunt truth?" His nod was almost to himself. "I can respect that. No use beating around the bush then."
He leaned forward and the two hulks next to me shifted, became more aware.
"You have two ways of leaving my house, Cornelius. As the Time Keeper, the thing you hold in your hand will secure my position in the world for the rest of my lifetime. It may even help my children secure their power. Because of this, I can‟t allow your genius to work for anyone but for me. Your choice is simple. You will make this machine for me, or I will make you disappear."