Musing Monday, February 23, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…Musing Mondays is sponsored by Should Be Reading.
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! 
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I decided to talk about The Clockwork Wolf (A Disenchanted & Co. Novel) by Lynn Viehl.  I really like the series but there are reasons why I might not have.  I have read other books by Viehl.  She writes under several names and I first read something by her several years ago.  She wrote a Science Fiction Romance series called Star Doc and I did not like it at all.  In fact I read the first two books and never picked up any after that.  Since SFR is one of my favorites and I did not like her books you would expect that to carry over to any other series she writes.  Not so with the Disenchanted & Co. Series.  I got the first book from Edelweiss and was hooked.  I had to purchase books two and as soon as I got it it went to the top of my TBR pile.  The Clockwork Wolf is an alternate history mixed with paranormal and steampunk. Looking that that combination you would think it would be a hard mix to pull off.  One thing that makes this series so great is the main character.  Kit Kittredge has her own company and makes her living solving magical crimes.  She is very well developed character.  Helping her (many times without her permission) are Deathmage Lucien Dredmore and Chief Inspector Tom Doyle.  They are very different but fascinating characters.  Then there is the world building.  It is complex and very well done.  The result is a interesting world that is filled with new ideas.  The story in The Clockwork Wolf kept me guessing.  It was full of magic and new characters that added to the world building that was done in the first book.  All of this kept me reading and hoping it would not be to long before the next book is published.

Disenchanted & Co., Part 2: His Lordship Possessed by Lynn Viehl

Steampunk

What Goodreads says:

"The second half of Disenchanted & Co.—the thrilling conclusion. In a steampunk version of America that lost the Revolutionary War, Charmian (Kit) Kittredge makes her living investigating magic crimes and exposing the frauds behind them. While Kit tries to avoid the nobs of high society, as the proprietor of Disenchanted & Co. she follows mysteries wherever they lead.

Lady Diana Walsh calls on Kit to investigate and dispel the curse she believes responsible for carving hateful words into her own flesh as she sleeps. While Kit doesn’t believe in magic herself, she can’t refuse to help a woman subjected nightly to such vicious assaults. As Kit investigates the Walsh family, she becomes convinced that the attacks on Diana are part of a larger, more ominous plot—one that may involve the lady’s obnoxious husband.

Sleuthing in the city of Rumsen is difficult enough, but soon Kit must also skirt the unwanted attentions of nefarious deathmage Lucien Dredmore and the unwelcome scrutiny of police Chief Inspector Thomas Doyle. Unwilling to surrender to either man’s passion for her, Kit struggles to remain independent as she draws closer to the heart of the mystery. Yet as she learns the truth behind her ladyship’s curse, Kit also uncovers a massive conspiracy that promises to ruin her life—and turn Rumsen into a supernatural battleground from which no one will escape alive."

I loved Disenchanted & Co., Part 1, Her Ladyship’s Curse and when Edelweiss offered Part 2: His Lordship Possessed I asked for and received a copy.  Then it disappeared, at least that is what I thought happened.  I could not find it on my Kindle.  Of course it did not really disappear because I finally found it two months after it was released.

I was not disappointed in His Lordship Possessed.  Kit and Lucien work both together and against each other in Part 2.  There is a thrill a minute in Part 2 .  Nothing was working for Kit or Lucien and it looked like there would not be another book in the series.   It appeared that everything was lost and then there was a very surprising twist.  That twist really set up the next book in the series.

Most of the world and character building was done in Part 1.  The two parts are really one book so do not try to read this as a stand-alone.  Part 2 was action, action, action and it was very well written.  I look forward to The Clockwork Wolf, the next book in the series.

Simon and Schuster published His Lordship Possessed by Lynn Viehl in 2013.