Title: An Airship Named Desire
Series: Take to the Skies (#1)
Author: Katherine McIntyre
From: Netgalley
Genre: Steampunk, Adventure
Release Date: 18th October 2012
Challenges: 2016 Netgalley & Edelweiss Challenge
Links: Goodreads - Amazon
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Airships, sky-pirates, smugglers, and soldiers...An Airship Named Desire will take you for a thrilling ride. Ever since their last botched smuggling job, First Mate Bea and the crew of her airship can barely afford fuel, let alone a barrel of grog. So when a gentleman from Old Germany offers them a fortune to steal a locked box from a British merchant airship, they jump on the opportunity. However, their employer forgot to mention the box's military escort and the Morlock mercenaries who would slit throats to get their hands on it. Oh, and if made public, the contents could engulf Europe in another devastating war. Stealing the box was the easy part. Now, with a target on their back and some of the toughest characters in the skies after them, if the crew of the Desire doesn't polish their pistols and prepare for a hell of a fight, they'll end up worse than grounded. After all, everyone from the Brits to the Morlocks will kill for the contents of that box, and no one survives an airship crash.
An Airship Named Desire was most definitely an impulse read for me. I was thinking that it had been a while since I read anything remotely steampunk, and then I saw this on Netgalley. I'm glad I did though, because it was an enjoyable read...because well, sky pirates! Who doesn't love sky pirates!
On the genre though...I'm guessing I'm right with steampunk, though it isn't set in the Victorian era. From what I could gather it's set in the future after a European war (well that does seem realistic the way things are going at the moment). The dress and technology are a mix of modern and old, but I think the main thing about it is to say that it all worked really well. I bought into the setting and the story from the beginning.
Bea was an interesting character. She was sort of a tomboy, but had her moments where she was girly. She very much owned who she was (though she was a little bit of an idiot when it came to love...then again, the story wouldn't be the same if that wasn't true). She was strong, but had her weaknesses, and all round I thought that she was a very well rounded character.
There was a fairly large cast in this book, and I found myself yearning for some more background on them. While this is the first book in a series (one that I very much look forward to continuing), sometimes it felt as if there was more behind the scenes of some of the characters. Most notably Isabela.
There were a couple of twists in the book that I pretty much saw coming. One was a betrayal, and I don't think it was obvious as such, but I did have a bad vibe about the character. The other one was far more obvious, there just wasn't the resolution before the thing happened for it not to happen (sorry it would be a spoiler to say what it was!)
This was a good read, I really enjoyed it!
Series: Take to the Skies (#1)
Author: Katherine McIntyre
From: Netgalley
Genre: Steampunk, Adventure
Release Date: 18th October 2012
Challenges: 2016 Netgalley & Edelweiss Challenge
Links: Goodreads - Amazon
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Airships, sky-pirates, smugglers, and soldiers...An Airship Named Desire will take you for a thrilling ride. Ever since their last botched smuggling job, First Mate Bea and the crew of her airship can barely afford fuel, let alone a barrel of grog. So when a gentleman from Old Germany offers them a fortune to steal a locked box from a British merchant airship, they jump on the opportunity. However, their employer forgot to mention the box's military escort and the Morlock mercenaries who would slit throats to get their hands on it. Oh, and if made public, the contents could engulf Europe in another devastating war. Stealing the box was the easy part. Now, with a target on their back and some of the toughest characters in the skies after them, if the crew of the Desire doesn't polish their pistols and prepare for a hell of a fight, they'll end up worse than grounded. After all, everyone from the Brits to the Morlocks will kill for the contents of that box, and no one survives an airship crash.
An Airship Named Desire was most definitely an impulse read for me. I was thinking that it had been a while since I read anything remotely steampunk, and then I saw this on Netgalley. I'm glad I did though, because it was an enjoyable read...because well, sky pirates! Who doesn't love sky pirates!
On the genre though...I'm guessing I'm right with steampunk, though it isn't set in the Victorian era. From what I could gather it's set in the future after a European war (well that does seem realistic the way things are going at the moment). The dress and technology are a mix of modern and old, but I think the main thing about it is to say that it all worked really well. I bought into the setting and the story from the beginning.
Bea was an interesting character. She was sort of a tomboy, but had her moments where she was girly. She very much owned who she was (though she was a little bit of an idiot when it came to love...then again, the story wouldn't be the same if that wasn't true). She was strong, but had her weaknesses, and all round I thought that she was a very well rounded character.
There was a fairly large cast in this book, and I found myself yearning for some more background on them. While this is the first book in a series (one that I very much look forward to continuing), sometimes it felt as if there was more behind the scenes of some of the characters. Most notably Isabela.
There were a couple of twists in the book that I pretty much saw coming. One was a betrayal, and I don't think it was obvious as such, but I did have a bad vibe about the character. The other one was far more obvious, there just wasn't the resolution before the thing happened for it not to happen (sorry it would be a spoiler to say what it was!)
This was a good read, I really enjoyed it!
