Yzabel

A nice, light and entertaining read, clearly geared to a younger audience, of course, but that even an adult can appreciate. The characters' behaviour and the way they often find themselves in humourous situations made me smile more than once, and I found the novel's overall tone delightful.

I also feel compelled to mention that for once—that is, for once among the other books of the same genre I read in the past months—the label "steampunk" is more justified. I'd file that novel as steampunk with a few supernatural elements, rather than supernatural with a couple of cogs and gears slapped here and there, if you get my drift. There are dirigibles, steam-powered mechanimals, sooties, highwaymen in flying machines, inventions, prototypes and contraptions, and to me, this time, the label didn't just look like some excuse because it's the trend or whatever.

If anything, I'd have liked some things to be better explained, though—the ending was a little too rushed to my liking. For instance, who were the people after the prototype? And what's going on in some of the characters' families? Since this is the beginning of a series, I do hope the author will answer those questions in the upcoming books.