Book Review: The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Synopsis (from Goodreads):  In 1897 England, 16-year-old Finley Jayne is convinced she's a freak. No normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch. Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special . . . that she's one of "them."

My Thoughts:  I have read a lot of good and bad reviews of this book.  I was a little hesitant to read it and put it off for quite awhile.  Yeah....I am pretty sorry I did that!  The only good thing is that the sequel is out on NetGalley so I can read it right away instead of having to wait!  I really enjoyed this book!

Finley is a great character!  The story starts out with Finley fighting for her virtue as a housemaid.  The young man of the house has decided that he deserves to get whatever he wants from the young housemaids...and I do mean WHATEVER he wants!  As he tries to assault Finley, we find out how unique she really is. 

Finley has a good side and a "dark" side, much like Jekkyl and Hyde.  When her dark side emerges, she has incredible strength and is very sarcastic.  As she is running away from her job, she gets hit (literally, she gets run over) by Griffin King.  Griffin and his friend, Sam, take Finley home so they can tend to her.  Once there and awake, Finley learns that she is not the only one with "special" powers.  She quickly makes friends with Griffin and Emily but Sam is hard to win over. 

While at Griffin's, the four try to solve the case of "The Machinist" and stop this madman from harming the Queen and taking over England.  He has sent his automatons after Griffin, Emily, Finley and Sam and they must discover who he is, how he is controlling the automatons and how to stop him!  With the help of an unsavory character, Jack Dandy, and an American cowboy, Jasper Renn, the group attempts to take down this madman.

I really liked Finley.  She wasn't a wimpy character at all and she really loved to fight!  I enjoyed how she spent time with Dandy even though he wasn't an appropriate person to hang out with.  I liked how sarcastic and witty she could be and her dark side was fun too.  She really wanted to fit in somewhere and she wanted to understand what was going on with herself.

Griffin was a charming character.  He cared about Finley and really wants to help her "merge" her two selves together.  He was jealous of the time she spend with Dandy but put his feelings aside a few times when the moment called for it.  He was very loyal to his friends and family and hiw power was also fun. 

I absolutely loved Jack Dandy and his cockney accent!  He was really a likeable character despite the fact that he was a "bad boy".  I loved his boldness and how he interacted with Finley.  He was by far my favorite character!

I loved the mystery and I didn't think I was going too.  I didn't think I would enjoy a book about automatons and Organites but it really kept my attention.  I am really sorry that it took me so long to read this book but I am glad that I finally got to it!  It was definitely refreshing to read something so different!