Love, Creativity & Magick by Kiki Howell

Ms. Howell had me at "steampunk." I love steampunk. Love love love! It's so hard to find a really enjoyable book in the genre that doesn't get so caught up in steam technology that it overruns everything else that's so appealing about the genre.

The mood that Ms. Howell set from the first page was so haunting and ephemeral, like trying to peer at something through the fog on the street outside Emma's bedroom: you know it's there, you can see it, but the more you try to force a shape to materialize the more it escapes you. It's something that you just have to let unfold around you. It's a fantastic feeling, and I could share Emma's hunger and impatience for this presence she has come to crave.

The only reason I didn't give this book five stars was the editing. There were quite a few typos and grammatical errors, as well as using a few words which sound close but were not the correct ones, such as "less" when I know the author meant "lest." It bumped me out of the story a few times, but the story was so enjoyable it was worth deciphering what the author meant in order to continue the story.

I absolutely love how her newfound love and sexual awakening give her a grander sense of the world and her own purpose and abilities, and she is able to set down her vindictive and petty desires for making fools of a society she only half belonged to, anyway. She had bigger aims and was off and eager to build that new life. Brava, Emma!