This story has a beginning and a middle, but no ending, it just stops. Until you hit that next bit of really bad science which totally jars you out of the story. At that point we get some great pacing, an intriguing plot, and decent characterization.

If you can get past the bad science, bad history, and most of the first five chapters. Electric is spelled with an unnecessary and pretentious k, which is not bad science, but still irritating. Vacuum tubes go long distances, without regard for how vacuum actually works. The idea of an electric car is considered an impossibly outrageous idea, even though in actual history it was a 'thing' nearly a decade before this story is set. Steam cars can be started and driven - sorry piloted - without any need to wait for the steam to build up. Then we'll look at steam engines that are the power that moves society, but no one seems to have realized that you can burn things besides coal to make steam. After reading the blurb, I was nervous about the science - if internal combustion engines fail, what reason will the author give? None, as it turns out it.īut that doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of other really bad science. This book was recommended to me so I was incredibly disappointed. if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals. They may help her realize her dreams and his. When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices.

But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St.

And steam is the power that runs the world.

Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina