Queen
Victoria is dead, killed along with her whole family in a terrible terrorist
attack that shook the empire and led to Juliette, young, inexperienced and far
from the throne as the next queen
The
New World Order has claimed responsibility for the deaths and threatens not
just Juliette’s reign but the world itself; Juliette must try to expose this
conspiracy while securing her nascent throne, some inconvenient romances and
the hunt for Excalibur itself.
Fantastical
Steampunk is one of my favourite genres - I do like the whole aesthetic and
plot of running around in dirigibles with mechanical arms and steam powered
gadgets - but to throw magic, unicorns (unicorns!!!) and arthurian legend in as
well and I am sold. We’re taking those elements - magic and machines - and
engaged in deadly attempt to take down a shadowy conspiracy that would plunge
the whole world into chaos by any means necessary, with battles, shadowy plans
and lots of hidden agendas and looking behind every corner for who the enemy
is.
If
anything I wish this book had explored this more because the world we have laid
out here is really excellent. The existence of magic, Excalibur and air ships
it all tantalises so much - but that’s kind of the theme of this book:
tantalises. We have Excalibur with apparently lots of powers and perhaps its
own agenda but we don’t really explore that.
We
have a fascinating female crime boss with a shadowy but apparently legitimate
past running around doing swashbuckling things… but we don’t really focus on
her except as a provider of resources.
We
have the American heiress to a major technological corporation pursuing an
illicit love affair and ready to offer friendship - but we don’t really explore
her
We
have a street urchin turned footman with a mechanical arm and lots of
streetwise contacts
We
have a society of magic users who apparently follow the legacy of Merlin and
have done so for generations - but they’re only mentioned.
A
county whose principle resource is unicorns, is in much demand by European
nations and appears to be African (it’s not explicitly stated but North Africa
was implied), but we only get their prince visiting?
It’s
like this whole book throws out a million fascinating storylines, characters,
world building etc and we don’t actually spend much time on examining any of
these amazing things instead focusing on Juliette
Who
is a decent fun character but kind of overshadowed by the vast potential of
everyone around her. Not because she’s bad, but because everyone else around
her, everything else around her, could be so amazing
