This is the sort of book that both makes so much good things, but then kind of disappoints. 
 I love necromancer stories, and books set in victorian London, so this should have been one of the best things ever! 
 Spoilers below 
 (view spoiler)[ I LOVED Charlie as a character for the first part of the book - interesting, independent, caring, strong, conflicted! She had lived for years on the streets taking care of herself disguised as a boy, and I LOVED HER! I loved it when Lincoln and his henchemen took her in and she finally got a family. Lincoln was an amazing father figure to her, and the henchmen were like her big brothers. But as soon as her gender was revealed EVERYTHING changed. And I mean EVERYTHING. She could no longer take care of herself anymore, the henchmen (kind of unerstandably) gets awkward around her for a while (it gets better though, and they keep treating her as part of the family), but the worst thing. THE WORST THING. Was her new father figure(!) getting the hots for her. Up until that moment I loved this book and would have easily given it a 4.5 star rating. I just wanted this book to keep that found family-feeling without romance, without Charlie having to become a "weaker" character because of her sex, without her new father figure(!!!) getting feelings for her and screwing up his (albeit already strained) relations with his "girlfriend". Why couldn't he just have been a dad to her? WHY did he turn from being a dickbag, to being a nice dad, to paying someone to attempting to RAPE HER to teach her a lession!? Seriously, what was up with that, that was seriously f*cked up! Ok, the more I think about it, f*ck Lincoln, he can go kick himself! The more I think about it, again, I realize how much I despise this guy after the first half of the book. Holy hell, do I hate him. Wow. Ok. Yeah. 
 Why did it have to be like this? The second half felt as if the author has been switched out somehow, to be honest. I still adore first-half Charlie and the necromancy of the book, but I don't think I'll ever continue to read the series. (hide spoiler)]