People often made the mistake of thinking that just because Justine Makepiece was paralyzed, she was a sweet, childlike waif, as pure of spirit as she was in body. They walked into her room and saw her delicate pale face – the only part of her visible inside the metal cylinder that was her prison and her lifeline – and thought of her as a lucent, disembodied mind.
Yet even though she spent most of her day lying prone in an artificial breathing machine, listening to the rhythmic pulsing of a vacuum pump, Justine was far from being some angelic creature. Untouched, yes. Innocent, no. After a mysterious childhood illness left her with weak lungs and wasted legs, Justine’s father had become obsessed with curing his only child.
Back in her old room at Ingold, her father kept her isolated in an attempt to protect her from any possible breath of miasmic air. As the head of engineering, Professor Makepiece had invented the negative pressure ventilator that helped his daughter breathe. For at least twenty-one hours out of every day, she had to lie inside the metal canister that forced air in and out of her lungs. There were only a few hours each day she could spend on the outside, free to sit up, use her arms, and speak to people without staring up their nostrils.
Agatha DeLacey is a poor probationer nurse who is studying nursing at Ingold’s East End hospital in London. She definitely is not in the same social circles as Professor Makepiece and his family, but she and Justine end up with some friends in common.
Official synopsis:
But the Artful Dodger is barely a step ahead of his underworld rivals, the menacing Bill Sykes and mercurial Oliver Twist, and Aggie’s association with him soon leads her into danger. When a brutal attack leaves her blind, she and the Dodger find themselves at the mercy of an experimental Bio-Mech surgery. Though the procedure restores Aggie’s sight, her new eyes come at an unnerving cost, and the changes in Dodger are even more alarming—instead of seeing Aggie as the girl he fancies, he now views her as a potential threat.
As war between England and Germany brews on the horizon and a sinister medical conspiracy threatens to shatter the uneasy peace in Europe, Aggie and the Dodger must find a way to work together so they can protect their friends and expose the truth…even if it means risking their own survival.
While this was the second book in the series, after Cadaver & Queen, it read fine as a standalone. There were a couple references to events from the previous book, but enough detail was given to make events in this book understandable.
Aggie DeLacey knows her position as a probationer nurse is wholly dependent on the approval of her supervisor. As long as she continues showing an aptitude for what she’s learning and keeps the favor of those in charge, she can avoid returning to her mother’s house. Ensuring the favor of those in charge has also come to mean keeping their secrets, as the Ingold East End hospital is also serving as a research hospital for bio-mechanicals, but they of course don’t want the community to know about it.
The book was a fascinating combination of historical and speculative fiction, culminating with a bio-mechanical battle between the creations of Germany and England under Queen Victoria. It was a fun young adult read that would be enjoyed by those who enjoy historical fiction or speculative fiction, also described as "Victorian-era fiction with a steampunk flair." It earns 4 out of 5 stars from me.
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Becki Bayley is a reader who enjoys a variety of genres of books and loves to let her mind escape to other words. See more of what she’s read or done on her blog, SweetlyBSquared.com.
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