I hate the Victorian era. I find it excruciatingly boring. Here's some taffeta and high tea and let's have masked balls and let me carry my parasol and oh, fie! What do you make of these new inventions? 
 I hate the Victorian era because it's so overdone. You know what else is overdone? You know what else I'm sick of? London. Before any of you get into a flap - particularly any of you who know me - let me preface that by saying that London is the shiz. London absolutely rocks. Have you been to London? Oh my god, go. London is such a cool ass city, but that doesn't mean I want every single piece of British media to be set there. I mean, my god, stop trying to make Victorian London happen. It's not going to happen. 
 This book tore me two ways. Victorian era? Stop it, I beg of you. Edinburgh? 
 Nyeh. Just let me have a quick look. 
 I think my absolute favourite thing about this book is that it's devoid of stereotypes. People say aye and they eat shortbread, but...people say aye and eat shortbread in Scotland. That shit gets done. But this book does not fall back on woad and barbarism. This book says that high society existed and still exists in Scotland, because look at Rose Leslie, who lived in a fucking castle when she was a kid. Like, what the actual? I lived in a townhouse and then a caravan. 
 Look, whatever. And never mind that I secretly love books and movies about people being filthy and wearing armpit daggers in the Middle Ages (I'm sorry, but I love the wars of independence. They were such a perfect example of how money and fancy costumes can't buy nationalism). I liked Elizabeth May's Victorian era. I actually felt something in the face of the age old "I have to marry for duty, not love" tirade despite it usually treating my patience like mortar to pestle. "I have to marry for duty not love" is - wait for it - overdone as hell, but because Aileana has so much agency and passion for her cause, that is, killing evil faeries, it really strikes a chord. All of this bravery and skill that Aileana has built up, and all the time she has spent hardening herself, will be thrown to the wind. It'll all be for nothing. She'll go from battle-axe to subjugated Victorian wife. Isn't that sad? I think that's really fucking sad, and true of women, now and in antiquity, who've built lives for themselves only to have them pried from their hands for the sake of marriage. Look at Jill Duggar. That girl was training to be a midwife, and spent hours upon hours studying and taking house calls and even going abroad to help women who needed her, only to toss it all away because Duggar wives don't go to college or have careers. They literally aren't allowed to. I mean, jesus christ, the girl was pregnant seven minutes after she left the altar. Calm the fuck down. 
 Aileana surprised me in that her struggle felt real, and so did her grief. Man, her grief was epic. Don't knock Crimson suits you best because the girl is obviously suffering through some serious survivor's guilt and that does ugly things to a person. You might think that her constantly banging on about revenge and the hunt and her burning desire to taste the guts of her enemies is tiresome, but for me it rings true. This protagonist is fucked up and she knows it. She's going through some serious shit and she's a very unstable person at her core. What I'm getting at is that it hit me in the feels, and that matters. It matters that I felt something. I was supposed to feel something. 
 The author's love for the city of Edinburgh is obvious, and it shone through in such careful, adoring descriptions, which isn't to say that I feel that the setting was rendered to its full potential - it wasn't - but I got a sense of it and it was present. That said, I have strong expectations for setting. Setting should feel like a character in and of itself. The setting ought to have a pulse, and we ought to care about it, and it doesn't count if you care about it because you've already been there and seen how awesome Edinburgh is (it's awesome. Behind my hand, with eyes averted, I'll say that it's not as good as Glasgow. Glasgow rocks my world, daily. Glasgow is my fucking lover, with its rock-hard abs and ass that won't quit. But Edinburgh is goddamn beautiful). You need to feel it in your soul. And in your special place. 
 Speaking of special places, I want to mash my face up against Kiaran's, because this dude is glorious, so tough and dark and scary, but that's not what'll make your panties damp. (This review is all kinds of NSFW.) What'll make your panties damp or your jeans a little tight is that he's such a fucking feminist. Oh, Kiaran, I love it when you talk social justice to me. 
 This dude treats Aileana with so much respect, and he's such a great example of a male character who's dark and broody and mysterious but isn't a sexist prick about it. He sees her sexuality and he prays to it; he listens to her when she explains how hard it is to be a woman in her world, and he humbles himself before the social struggle that she is facing. He spars with her, and beats her, and that's awesome because he's not coddling her or treating her like she's incapable. He trusts her and believes in her. I think that is beautiful, and it's refreshing, and this is me enjoying a Victorian era novel. Enjoy it while it lasts. That piquant tang of my agreement will be gone as quickly as it came. 
 The writing's smooth, and while it could've had a little more flair, it's nothing to sniff at. Solid, strong, consistent. It's what was needed. Even if I nearly broke my neck with all of that Gaelic. (Sorry I'm not from Oban, okay?) Some good advice I can give you is that sgian-dubh is pronounced "skeen-duu", and that sith is "shee" which means that baobhan sith is "bah-van shee". Now say that three times fast. Bah-van shee. Banshee. Cool, right? Told you that a shit-ton of faerie lore comes courtesy of your good friend Alba. 
 (On a side note, why are villains always called Sorcha? Why? Wow, this just got super personal.) 
 My beef with this book both is and isn't the author's fault. What isn't the author's fault is the steampunk, which I absolutely hate. Steampunk can eat my toenails. I'm not even that sure what it is about it that pisses me off; it just does. But it's annoying because I love, love, that Aileana is an engineer and please, girls, be engineers. Live your dreams! Change the world! Tell your daughters that they can fix cars and built rocket ships! Tell them about the women who built warplanes in the thirties and forties! Tell them that it was a woman who created the coding that allowed modern computers to exist! Tell them these things! 
 Just keep your steampunk away from me! 
 Like I said, it's not the author's fault that I hate steampunk, thus all of those gears and the ornithoptor and this bag of vomit did not affect my rating. What did knock the star off is that this book isn't fucking finished. I kept looking for more pages at the end, because what the actual fuck? That's not an ending. That is not how you finish a novel. Part of me doesn't even believe that the author wanted to finish this book this way, because the rest of this novel was solid and logical and consistent. How was it all supposed to end? No author anywhere, ever, at any point in time, has ever written an ending like that in a word document, then hit save and shut their laptop down, with a smiling sigh of, "There. Done." Nobody would ever be satisfied with that, so who made this happen? Editors? An agent? How incredibly bleak. 
 I'm definitely picking up the next book, but only because of that cliffhanger. And my anger about the cliffhanger is not a cute Tumblr anger like "stop torturing us because we love these characters so much and miss them and how dare you end this book!" It's genuine irritation that a good book was spoiled by a crappy ending. 
 Now I'm all hot and bothered and it's bedtime. I'm taking my leave of all of you. Blast you all, ninnies and scallywags! 
 (That physically hurt. Let's never do this again.)