The poor living in the gutter are as valuable as the rich living in a manor.
The scoundrel is no less valuable than the saint.
Because of this, every life a reaper takes must be redeemed.

Raven has lived by this first tenet since she was trained by her father to become a reaper. But since his death, she’s been spending years redeeming the lives she’s taken. By her count, she’s even and it’s time for that life to end. If she settles down and becomes a wife, she might just feel human again. But on the way to the life she thinks she wants, the baron of New Haven asks her to complete a task which she cannot ignore… Just when Raven decides to give up on her life as an assassin, she’s pulled right back in.

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REVIEW

This was my first encounter with a steampunk book that I read all they way through, it is a genre that I haven’t really enjoyed as I don’t fully understand the whole steampunk thing.With this being a YA it was actually a good introduction to steampunk – mechanical horses, night vision goggles and airships were the main one and I liked that it wasn’t too heavy on the technology stuff, I didn’t make sense to me though. Also it started out a little slow for me, but it picked up once I wrapped my head around the whole dress-in-Victorian-clothes with mechanical horses line

Raven is a reaper – she was trained by her father who was also a reaper and they are basically assassins who follow a rule of for each death you must save a life. Raven is almost done repaying her debt when she rescues a young boy who turns out to be Baron Darius.

She is tasked with taking Darius to the Wood Witch in the hopes that she can cure him of his affliction – he seems to have the ability to blow up anything mechanical, the horses for example a few times in the book. Along the way she is also hunted by guards of the Duke sent to retrieve the boy and her head.

The Duke basically wants him dead and she must do everything in her power to protect him.

This was a great story for a YA and introduction to the world of steampunk and I would recommend it to anyone not sure of the genre – I at least enjoyed much better than the previous steampunk novel I tried to read. I think also, for me anyway, because it was YA and clean that made it a little better to get through this genre.

4 stars