Review: Crimson & Steam by Liz Maverick

Title: Crimson & Steam Author: Liz Maverick Format: ARC Available Formats: MM Page Count: 320 Genre: Paranormal Romance/Steampunk Publisher: Love Spell Pub. Date: December 29, 2009 ISBN-13: 9780505527790 Series: #8 in the Crimson City series Rating: 3 of 10

Summary:
Marius is vampire aristocracy; Jill is a human reporter. The two could perhaps have realized their soul-mate bond if only so many forces didn't seem set upon keeping them apart. Marius and Jill live in a world in which the different races do not get along. Namely, the humans have difficulty accepting the vampires, werewolves, and mechs. Adding to that difficulty is the fact that Marius has agreed to marry a werewolf princess to secure peace between the werewolves and vampires. It seems that he and Jill are destined to not be together--whether they're soul-mates or not...

TL;DR Version:
An interesting premise. The novel dabbles in steampunk, but is primarily paranormal romance and comes with all that entails. Not an overly "sexy" novel. Though there is a bit of bodice-ripping, it certainly isn't the priority of Crimson & Steam.

Review:
Crimson City is, apparently, a series written by a handful of authors (including Marjorie M. Liu, Patti O'Shea, Carolyn Jewel, and Jade Lee). Crimson & Steam is the 8th novel in the series, but don't worry. Crimson & Steam doesn't seem to rely upon the plot or characters of the previous novel and can be read as a stand alone easily.

A lot of the tropes used in the book will seem familiar. There's the star-crossed lovers across paranormal species. The tattered world and cross-paranormal species prejudice. The good vampire who loves the human girl. But that isn't to say that Crimson & Steam lacks originality. Rather, many things are very creatively approached. And the world is intriguing, if a bit thinly explored within this installment of the series. Particularly interesting was the side historical romance story that ran parallel to Marius' and Jill's. It was unusual that I got so caught up in this 1851 romance, because I generally don't particularly care for Victorian settings. Perhaps I so enjoyed the parallel story because the heroine was a breath of fresh air after having to deal with Jill (who, as far as I can tell, has no redeeming quality). I could be overcritical with Jill. After all, I tend to loathe female characters that are completely unable to take care of themselves, constantly whiny, only have a life revolving around the Man, and are in constant trouble that they must be saved from. The 1851 heroine, Charlotte, was refreshingly strong compared to Jill--and just more interesting character all around.

The only other criticism I'll make is that the book is dismayingly short. Maverick raises many ideas that could have been truly interesting if they had been explored further (and maybe they will in future books or have been in previous). the overreacting human government could have used a lot of fleshing. The idea was good, but in action it seemed like a hallow puppet to blame rather than actual antagonist organization. Also, I'd like to have learned more about the bond Jill and Marius had/lost. It seemed rushed and chalked up to, "Oh what a shame." Lastly, I wanted more characterization on just about everyone. The novel was disappointingly thin, so there was definitely room for more about the characters' development. Especially Tatiana and Hayden, who--I believe--reached their conclusions with an incredibly poor stroke of characterization.

Crimson & Steam was entertaining, has some good thoughts, but quite a few failings. Altogether, a pretty uncompelling escapade throughout another vampire romance.

Cover/Title/First Line Critique:
I loathe, loathe, loathe this cover. Not only does it not say anything useful about the novel, but it's just "yet another romance cover". The only thing accurate at all is that they used shades of red. Also, there's something vaguely disturbing about the model's bellybutton. I get the feeling that it's either deformed or Photoshopped into some strange bellybutton oblivion.

Rating: 3 of 10 [Learn more about the rating system?]

This book was received for review from the author.