Review – Heart of Brass (Antipodean Queen, Book 1) by Felicity Banks (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Steampunk
Length: 306 pages
Publisher: Odyssey Books
Release Date: July 29, 2016
ASIN: B07CGXNC8P
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Antipodean Queen series
Source: Bought for Kindle
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Emmeline Muchamore is a well-bred young lady hiding explosive family secrets. She needs to marry well, and quickly, in order to keep her family respectable. But when her brass heart malfunctions, she makes a desperate choice to steal the parts she needs to repair it and survive.

She is unable to explain her actions without revealing she has a steam-powered heart, so she is arrested for theft and transported to Victoria, Australia – right in the midst of the Gold Rush.
Now that she’s escaped the bounds of high society, iron manacles cannot hold her for long.

The only metal that really matters is gold.”

This is another steampunk series that I had heard good things about and was interested in reading. This was a decent read. I liked the world and the characters were okay. I felt like the writing was a bit stiff and didn’t flow all that well, this kept me from fully enjoying the story.

Emmeline is trying to marry well to provide for her family but her enormous secret causes issues (she has a mechanical heart and torso). Because of issues surrounding her mechanicalness, she is accused of theft and sent to Australia. There she must escape slavery and try to make a living on her own.

I liked the characters pretty well and enjoyed the Victorian Australian setting. The dialogue and writing style felt stiff to me and didn’t flow well. I had a lot of issues with the storyline.

For example, why did Emmeline need a mechanical heart? It comes off like she chose to be an experiment but I wasn’t ever completely clear on this. Also it seems a bit harsh to send a young well-off woman to Australia as a slave for grabbing a necklace. Then when Emmeline gets to Australia she hardly spends any time there at all before she finds someone to help her escape her slavery. The whole story seemed very contrived and I had trouble engaging in it and finding it believable.

I also would have liked better explanation of Emmeline’s affinity for metals. I think it was just Emmeline that had this affinity. However, it seemed like other characters interacted with metal properties as well. This was a bit confusing and never that well explained. It was a cool part of this world and I wish it had been gone into and explained in more detail.

Overall this was a decent steampunk novel. I liked the Australian setting, the characters, and the idea of metal bestowing powers/abilities on people. I thought the story could have used a lot of work, it was so contrived. I also thought the writing could have flowed better. I don’t plan on continuing the series and hesitate to recommend this one. It was kind of good but needed more polish.