Barbara’s rating: 3.7 out of 5 Stars
Series: Glass and Steele #5
Publication Date: 3/6/18
Period: Fantasy Victorian London
Number of Pages: 270

Naughty nuns, promiscuous priests, disappearing babies, lifegiving magic, and sheriffs run amok keep this book barreling toward its exciting end. Matt’s life is slowly ebbing away and if they cannot discover the physician magician soon, it will be too late for him. They learned the magician’s name and where he was taken as a baby – but when they get there – he and his records are gone. After twenty-seven years they didn’t expect him to still be at the convent – but they thought surely there would be records of his adoption and that the nuns would share information. They do learn about some strange goings-on at the convent at that same time – are they related to the baby’s disappearance? Somehow, they have to find someone from the convent who will speak to them – and it will have to be someone who was there twenty-seven years ago. However, the point may be moot when Matt is injured, India is kidnapped, and Matt’s watch is stolen.

In the meantime, Sheriff Payne has figured out what the watch does for Matt and wants it for himself. Yes, he knows what it does, but doesn’t understand how it all works. Frankly, he doesn’t care. He wants the watch because it can be sold for a small fortune. He doesn’t care what he has to do to get it, he will have it. Goodness, he is a nasty piece of work!

This was one of the more exciting and fast-paced books in the series and you could feel Matt and India’s sense of urgency because it is now or never for Matt. Aunt Letitia was as annoying as ever and I cannot wait for her to get a grand epiphany finally. For me, there just isn’t any reason to have let her hang around this long if she isn’t going to have some sort of grand epiphany and discover what a bigoted, selfish, prejudiced person she is – and fix it. We’ll see.

Still not much of any movement on the romance front and I’m pretty tired of that. It isn’t that we (and they) don’t know that they love each other. It is that India is so filled with self-doubt she can’t believe that Matt could care for someone so far beneath him – and that Matt knows he loves India but is so eaten up with feeling responsible for the mistakes and choices of others that he can’t act. In my more aggravated moments, I picture each of them with a blinking sign on their foreheads – it reads – “DOORMAT – come wipe your muddy boots!”

I can recommend this book if you are looking for a lively chase, an interesting mystery, and you don’t care about the romance of it one way or the other. I will also say that none of the books in this series would make a good standalone read as there is an overarching plot to the series and each book builds upon the previous books.