Gaslight Hades by Grace Draven

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Wanting a little bit of a change of pace in the Romance Takeover Readathon - Light v. Dark, I decided to pick up Gaslight Hades by Grace Draven next. This is the first book in her Bonekeeper Chronicles series and worked to cover both second change and fantasy. Gaslight Hades also worked perfect to cover the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo prompt steampunk and Summer of Swoon 2nd board prompt indie romance.

Lenore has just lost her father and is waiting to make sure his body in properly interred by the graveyard workers. As she waits, the Guardian of this location shows up to observe the proceedings as well. She is frightened by him, but also intrigued. She approaches him to make sure he will be on the lookout to keep her father's body from being stolen by the ressurectionists. Lenore gets a feeling of familiarity with the Guardian, but writes it off. What she doesn't know is that when her former lover Nathaniel died, his soul was moved into a new body and created to be a Bonekeeper Guardian. As they find themselves drawn together again and again, Nathaniel, going by Colin, joins Lenore on an airship test run to watch over her.

This is the first steampunk fantasy I've read in a while and this was so much fun! I loved really getting into this new world by Grace Draven. It was a little bit info-dumpy at times, but it didn't feel too dry for me. Maybe because I read a lot of historical and have read some steampunk before some of it felt more of a refresher. I can see if you are new to either of those sub-genres that it might be a little much, so I just want to put that little warning out there. Otherwise I thought the magic behind the Bonekeepers was super unique and I'm intrigued to read more set in this world. I hope all of the Bonekeepers end up with books (even though we really only meet one or two others). Honestly, the only reason I didn't give this the full five-stars is I wanted more from the romance department. I just wish we saw more of the little moments between them. This is more long novella length though, so maybe if we got a little closer to the 200 page mark I might've gotten everything that I wanted.

This was super fun and I can't wait to read more in this series. There's already a cover for the second book in the series but it hasn't been posted yet. I will pick up anything that Grace Draven writes, but I loved how unique this felt compared to her other works. I can't recommend her enough! If you are working your way through her backlist as well, don't put Gaslight Hades off. I myself am sad I didn't pick it up earlier this year during FaRoFeb.

Have you read Gaslight Hades?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Gaslight Hades, Grace Draven, 4.5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 144 pages, published in 2015, indie published