Barbara’s rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Series: Glass and Steel #4
Publication Date: 9/5/17
Period: Fantasy Victorian London
Number of Pages: 338

If you are reading the series in order, you know India, Matthew, and their friends finally found Chronos at the end of the last book. Will he and India be able to repair Matthew’s life-giving watch? Is Chronos India’s grandfather? If so, why did he disappear all of those years ago and allow his family to believe he was dead? We get answers to all of those and more in this fast-paced book.

Yes, their quest to repair Matthew’s watch continues because Chronos’s magic, even when combined with India’s is not enough. They learn they need to find a diary kept by a magical physician who has been deceased for almost 30 years and a living magical physician. The diary contains the original spell used in the creation of Matthew’s watch, and the magical physician must then speak the spell.

The hunt begins with trying to solve the 30-year-old murder of Dr. Millroy who kept a diary where he had written the spell – and by solving the murder, they would find the diary. The twists and turns of their hunt will keep you glued to your seat – and the revelations will knock your socks off. There is a particularly interesting twist toward the end where the murderer is revealed.

As seems to be standard in this series, we are left with a cliffhanger. Did Matthew find the location of the magical physician? We’ll just have to wait for the next book to find out who and where he is. I was happier with the plotlines of this book because Aunt Letitia and Willie have less on-page time. By this time, I was hoping for a resolution to the watch issue and the romance between India and Matthew, but we are still spinning our wheels on both. While the stories are interesting, the series isn’t exactly taking the path for which I was hoping. I hoped the romance and the watch would be resolved within the first three books and the remainder of the books in the series would be the two of them working together to solve mysteries. If some or all of that isn’t resolved within the next book or two, I will probably discontinue reading the series. Perhaps, for those next two books, Matthew could quit Purring and Growling as that is evidently what he does best – and the cousins and Matthew’s uncle can just crawl under a leaf somewhere. Oh! And Sheriff Payne needs to join the rest of Matthew’s family under that leaf. We’ll see.

At any rate, I think this was a good read with an exciting, fast-paced mystery – and I can recommend it as a good read.

Barbara’s rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Series: Glass and Steele #3
Publication Date: 4/4/14
Period: Fantasy Victorian London
Number of Pages: 352

This third book in the Glass and Steele series has Matthew’s plight becoming more dire. The magic in his watch is failing more quickly and he has to use it more and more often to stay alive – but, even then it doesn’t fully rejuvenate him. They are desperate to find Chronos, the watchmaker who saved Matthew’s life and imbued the watch with the magic properties that keep him alive. Finding a magical physician will help as well, but those are the rarest of magicians. So, imagine their elation when they read a newspaper article talking about a medical miracle – a doctor who has brought a patient back from the dead.

When India and Matthew rush to the hospital to speak with the doctor, they find the story isn’t exactly as it was presented in the article and the doctor can be of no help to them at all. When that doctor is murdered, Matthew is Detective Inspector Brockwell’s chief suspect – and Brockwell doesn’t seem to be inclined to look any further. It is, therefore, up to India, Matthew, and the crew to uncover the actual murderer. That won’t be easy because they’ll be fighting on two fronts. One front is the number of suspects, magic, and the Guilds, and the second front is the detective who has been swayed by American Sheriff Payne, whose sole purpose in life is to end Matthew – without coming under blame himself.

I switched between reading this book and listening to the audio version. The narrator does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life with a separate and distinct voice for each character. The pacing was excellent and the presentation was so deep, rich, and immersive that I could hear the narrator’s voice even when I was reading rather than listening.

I have enjoyed the mysteries presented in each of the books, and I have enjoyed seeing India discover her magical abilities and begin to try them out. However, I fear I am going to lose patience and give up on the series long before it is finished. The romance between India and Matthew seems to be an excruciatingly slow burn. I’m already tired of it and I believe there are several more books before we see any movement. I’m also tiring of one – possibly two – of the main supporting characters. I thought Matthew’s Aunt Letitia added a nice bit of humor to the books at first, but her interfering, snobbish ways have already begun to wear thin. The second character which may or may not become tiresome is Matthew’s American cousin Wilhelmina (Willy) Johnson. Her character is just too over-the-top and outrageous. While she’s tolerable so far, I can see her becoming a detriment to my reading pleasure.

I enjoyed reading the book and can recommend it as a quick, fun read that mixes fantasy, romance, and mystery in Victorian London.