The Girl with the Windup Heart

The Girl with the Windup Heart is the final book in Kady Cross's The Steampunk Chronicles.

London's underworld is no place for a young woman, even one who is strong, smart, and part-automation like Mila.  But when master criminal Jack Dandy inadvertently breaks her heart, she takes off to find an independent life, one entirely her own.  Her search takes her to the spangled shadows of the West End's most dazzling circus.

Meanwhile, taken captive in the Aether, Griffin King is trapped in an inescapable prison and at the mercy of his archenemy, The Machinist.  If he breaks under the hellish torment, The Machinist will claim his powers and control the Aether itself, and no one in either world will be safe- especially not Finley Jayne and her misfit band of friends.

Finley plunges headlong into the Aether the only way she knows how, by temporarily dying.  But she cannot parry The Machinist's maneuvers for long.  To defeat him for good, Griffin will have to confront his greatest fear and finally come face-to-face with the destructive power he wields.

The Breakdown:
1. Cross splits this book between Mila and Jack's story and Finley and Griffin's story which I think took a lot away from the development of either story.  Because she was trying to tell two very different stories at once, the book felt very rushed and like it was missing important details.

2. I did enjoy that there was more of Jack in this story, and that Cross really explained more about his past and his motives for what he does. I find Jack possibly the most intriguing characters of this series, and I really need to go back and read the novella about him.

3. The whole final confrontation with The Machinist ending up being a bit of a let down. I was definitely expecting something much grander that what Cross gave.

To Read or Not to Read:
Read just to finish out the story

Currently Reading:
Skin Game
by Jim Butcher