This was a largely underwhelming read. While there were elements I liked about it, there were others that just rubbed me wrong. I felt like while you learned a decent amount about Beatrice there was little learned about the others. And for all her insistence she can't fall in love again, and is fine with a loveless marriage, she starts to have immediate feelings for the first man to smile at her - not even the man she's supposed to marry. We don't learn anything about the man she's supposed to marry or the man she's falling for either aside from he has a mother and sister he cares for which is not much of anything. Ultimately, the story feels rushed to achieve its ultimate goal of seeing her fall in love before the baby comes on that expected day.

I liked Beatrice, and her potential husband and love interest were enjoyable enough, but I wanted to know more - why was her potential husband so closed off? Why just a marriage of convenience? Why did he refuse to acknowledge her pregnant state or show any concern for her well-being there? Why choose a woman who is pregnant in the first place? As for the love interest, there was little about him that didn't feel like he wasn't a cardboard cut-out with the necessary important pieces ticked off to make him acceptable for Beatrice.

And as I sit here, I struggle to even recall their names as they didn't feel like characters in their own right which is a big issue.

I know this was a novella, but I've read others that were far more developed than this one so the length shouldn't be the issue. The characters need to all be their own characters and the story can take its time a little more to let us know them. The writing was enjoyable enough, and I loved the premise, but the execution just fell flat, sadly.

--- story contained a bunch of free other mail order bride stories, however I will not be reading them. I am now aware that this is a book-stuffing tactic which is a no-no. I would not have purchased it if I'd known. Since I could not return my purchase, I've deleted my copy instead.

My policy with reviews is generally to find something positive to say to go with the negative; add a balance given that a book can't be as terrible as to have nothing positive about it, and then I read this book where it became one of those rare cases. When the only positive thing you can say is that it had a premise full of hope and expectation then there's no point trying to paint it in a different light. This book was just bad. I adore Steampunk. Powerful and sexy women in Steampunk even more! Quite a deal of unbelievable things go on in this book though including one that is just downright insulting to women. This book was intensely disappointing overall. I had really hoped it would be executed well, but that was not the case. I could've even overlooked some other stuff had the execution of the plot and the character development been better, but that just wasn't meant to be.

SPOILERS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK:


However, these women are just so unbelievable as to make you want to rip out your hair. There's one point where, in an effort to be all girl-power-how-dare-guys-tell-us-what-to-do, these women who have been doing missions for their Queen and Country for YEARS disobey cause two men are put in-charge of this particular mission(and one makes their beloved leader cry at the drop of a hat over every little thing it seems!) that they decide to go rogue. . . and fail miserably leading to them getting ambushed and said leader getting captured. Later on in the novel, the one guy actually apologizes for doubting their ability! Apologizes when they literally screwed up and made things more difficult by just not following the orders of their Queen, and got caught, but how dare he — a man! — call these women out on having been wrong, right? And then there were the oppressed harem women who suddenly became powerful warriors practically overnight to achieve their freedom from their highly trained male guards though they had no training and never thought to want that for themselves until the leader woman is held captive in their harem for an extremely short time. Look, I love powerful women in stories who might go rogue to prove someone wrong that is awful — the one guy who they were so offended(not the one that made the leader cry) barely qualified by the way — when it actually works. Having them apologize for doubting them when they did wrong and messed up just cause they're women is insulting. Call them out on their nonsense! Do not excuse it.

A more detailed review to come. For now, I'll say this: Brandon Sanderson is utterly brilliant. The detailed complexity of his world and characters are absolutely breathtaking. The way he weaves a story leaves you hungering for more with each page. . . and when the reveals come? Oh man, do you ever feel it. This is fantasy at its best.

When a book turns out to be a disappointment it's hard to continue onward, but in an effort to merit being worthy (to myself) of writing a review I continued through the pages. I'm not going to paint a pretty picture here. Instead I'll say straight up that it was really hard to make myself keeping going beyond the 10% marker (as I read the e-book version) yet I did, and it did not get any better. This story had such potential. Generally I enjoy re-tellings of fairy tales, but this one I found highly unsatisfying.

Perhaps it was the fact that it didn't stick to the rules of a re-telling. Usually when you are doing a re-telling of a fairy tale the goal is to make some changes to make it your own while keeping the general structure and not utterly destroying the tale in itself. This does the latter in every way imaginable. From altering the details of the fairy tale in the first place (we don't get to see this part just the aftermath) to destroying it altogether with the book itself. At which point you begin to wonder why it's even a Cinderella story when the story has enough elements to be something of its own in its entirety.

On top of that something that is a fairy tale is shot into a mix with the real world. Now, at times this isn't so bad to do. . . so long as you do it well. In this instance though it turned out extremely poor, and cheesy, as not only is it added with certain historical elements (at one point, as a small example, they actually mention being in a newly discovered America with a "John" who has visited the shores many times) yet at random intervals tossed into the far future. Out of nowhere you suddenly find yourself just jumping around in a way that is highly unpleasant as there's not much in the way of truly logic explanation beyond the naivete and desperation of this "Cinderella" or the manipulation of the antagonist due to naivete of the main character. Something that still does not change even as the book continues to progress toward the end of the bar. I didn't even get a sense of this as a true change in the end, honestly.

Though a lot of this could be attributed to how the story was told. When doing diaries or journals it is important to have consistency; along with a creative way to write them that is more interesting than straight story-telling. The method used here was not entertaining in the least. Some were short, some were long, some came at consistent intervals, some came at random intervals, some were not Cinderella due to magic, and some were just plain not diary entries at all. The last ones were more normal ways to write a story that doesn't consist with a diary entry in the least. When you suddenly have multiple people all writing in her book and her being able to write out stuff that she shouldn't be able to perceive or even know due to a writing view switch while passing it off as diary entries. . . it becomes rather confusing.

As a whole this book would've been far better for the elements of the story had it been written with brief diary entries then the rest in normal third person story-telling and without trying to fit in everything and the kitchen sink (so to speak). It was as though the author wanted to do everything with her by having her in this historical setting with political situations of intrigue and interest; yet at the same time instead does nothing with her. In the moments where she could've grown as a character (the naive, desperate shtick needed dropped earlier in the story) she tucks tail and runs, and again trusts people it's obviously not wise to all due to these same feelings that have been messing up her life for years already. If someone sneezed she ran, if someone made her angry she got all uppity then she ran, if someone betrayed her she got hurt (and let us not forget the pretending like she doesn't betray when she does - repeatedly) then she ran, et cetera. Some of this even came after promising starts to the character growth. It made the story lacking and the character just not important to me. I honestly did not care if she won or lost (lived or died), and I didn't feel bad for her. I honestly would've cared more to hear the story of her lady-in-wait or the Queen or anyone else other than her after a certain point.

In essence, had the character been more interesting and given more growth, the setting given some reins on broadness while also being used(instead of vastly ignored the majority of the time), and the writing style done better it would have turned out to be a better book. Usually I'm far more courteous with reviews, but in an effort to write an honest one I have done so and here it is. You can agree or disagree. I just know that I won't touch this book again, or any others in the series(as from the preview taste I got of the next book it doesn't seem after all the time that passed, and what happened in this book, she has grown as a character), nor recommend the series to anyone.