Cards & Caravans

Cards & Caravans (2013) Cindy Spencer Pape

THIS IS ANOTHER BOINKING BOOK. Although there is less boinking here than in the Bloodhounds series.

The fifth book of the Gaslight Chronicles finds Connor McKay coming to the rescue of Belinda Danvers who has been convinced of murder by witchcraft and sentenced to burn at the stake.

But of course we also get to spend time with Wink & Liam and all the others.

I can’t say that Connor is one of my favorite characters in the series, but after Wink falling for Liam, he needed something sooner–rather than later–I suppose. But I did like Brenda. She was in a bad situation but refused to sit and scream and allow herself to be rescued without helping herself.

The other slight negative was that the resolution to Brenda’s proble was beyond anti-climatic. Really, it was brushed aside in a single sentence. I found myself thinking. “Really? After all that?” It wasn’t the worst thing, but considering everything that had gone before, it was just weird that the resolution of her problem got only a single sentence.

That said, I did appreciate her ability to rescue herself.

And of course, there were lots of fun tidbits scattered throughout the story, such as

…Lovelace College for women in the sciences. The renowned Lady Lovelace, who had invented the machine code to operate Lord Babbage’s famous analytical engine…

That one made my particularly happy. Especially because it makes sense that if the steampunk were built upon Babbage’s engines, then Ada Lovelace might well have had enough power to open Oxford to women.

It’s a nice logical bit of worldbuilding as well as a hat tip to Ada Lovelace.

I also found the description of the bigger cities powered by coal and steam quite interesting.

Taking his seat across from Belinda, he removed his breathing mask–necessary in a large industrial city like Newcastle due to the overwhelming coal smoke.

The famous London smogs are something that is frequently glossed over in historicals, but in a steampunk world, that smog would be worse than it was historically. So that’s another realistic bit of worldbuilding I especially appreciate.

And of course I’m enjoying the Order and the series in general. So although this wasn’t my favorite entry in the series, there was still much to like, and I look forward to the next book.
Rating: 7/10

Published by Carina Press

 
 

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