Riveted (A Novel of the Iron Seas) [Paperback]

Meljean Brook (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 4, 2012 | Series: A Novel of the Iron Seas (Book 3)

The New York Times bestselling author of The Iron Duke and Heart of Steel returns to the Iron Seas with a riveting new adventure of steamy romance. 
A century after a devastating volcanic eruption forced Iceland's inhabitants to abandon its shores, the island has become enshrouded in legend. But the truth behind the legends is mechanical, not magical--and the mystery of the island a matter of life and death for a community of women who once spilled noble blood to secure their freedom.
 
Five years ago, Annika unwittingly endangered that secret, but her sister Källa took the blame and was exiled. Now Annika serves on an airship, searching for her sister and longing to return home. But that home is threatened when scientific expedition leader David Kentewess comes aboard, looking to expose Annika's secrets. Then disaster strikes, leaving David and Annika stranded on a glacier and pursued by a madman, with their very survival depending on keeping the heat rising between them--and generating lots of steam...

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Iron Duke

 

“Meljean Brook has brilliantly defined the new genre of Steampunk Romance.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz,New York Times bestselling author

 

“A stunning blend of steampunk setting and poignant romance.”

—Ilona Andrews, New York Times bestselling author

 

“With adept writing and a flair for creating believable worlds, Brook’s first in the Iron Seas series showcases her masterful storytelling.”

—Booklist

About the Author

Meljean Brook is the author of the Guardian paranormal romance series and Iron Seas steampunk series.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (September 4, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425256049
• ISBN-13: 978-0425256046
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #207,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Meljean was raised in the middle of the woods, and hid under her blankets at night with fairy tales, comic books, and romances. She left the forest and went on a misguided tour through the world of accounting before focusing on her first loves, reading and writing-and she realized that monsters, superheroes, and happily-ever-afters are easily found between the covers, as well as under them, so she set out to make her own.

Meljean lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#64 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

#64 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Steampunk Romance! September 16, 2012

By Lethia01

Format:Kindle Edition

Firstly, I would like to point how how much I like the UK cover over the US cover for this book. The heroine of this book, Annika Fridasdotter, is described as being a Liberé or "a descendant of the Africans". In my mind, this means that there's a good chance that Annika is biracial. The person I pictured in my head while reading this book looks closer to the UK cover model than the US. Both are lovely looking women but, the UK one follows closer to the book's description. The image of David Kentewess is pretty much spot on...except I don't think David would have his shirt open like that. Just doesn't follow with how the character acts.

One aspect of this book that I want to touch upon is the village that Annika is from and their unique culture. I'll try to touch on this without giving too many spoilers away but, I really was surprised (in a good way) about this village. Annika's village is basically the Scandinavian Amazon's. I village of both tough and nurturing women only raising girls. The boys are either left with their fathers or the mother's permanently leave the village to raise their sons. This village is described in a way to make the women seem very vibrant. You have the mothering type women and the fierce type women that protect the village. Sexuality in this village is very open and accepting. If you fall in love with someone of the same gender or a man, there is no condemnation. This could have been really hokey and fairly hippie sounding but, I thought this village was very well done and really added to Annika's motivations and character.

Annika is a vibrant and hard working young woman that is trying to find her sister, Källa. By finding jobs on air ships, Annika is able to visit various ports throughout this world and attempt to contact her sister.... Annika has a passion for clothing and style and is very talented at understanding and working the inner systems of the airship. She meets David Kentewess on one of the air ships stops and there's an instant interest between the two. David recognizes similarities between Annika and his deceased mother. Annika is David's only hope at find his mother's people and honoring her last request.

The romance between Annika and David slowly develops. Both characters are fairly guarded about their privacy and have a difficult time accepting another on an intimate level. The emotional aspect of their relationship is really well developed and it helps to make the physical aspect more passionate. I mean, WOW!!

This was a fantastic book and I highly recommend reading it! Read more ›

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Urban Fantasy and romance September 6, 2012

By Jessie Potts TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Riveted is part of Brook's Iron Seas series (the third book, in fact) that is known for its fantasy, its scorching heat and its steampunk adventure. You have a timid heroine who is looking for her sister, a man made of metal and nano agents, an Icelandic setting and two people who don't fit anywhere but fit together. How can you ask for a better plot?

Brook is a good author. I say that because The Iron Duke blew rival urban steampunk romances out of the water with its action adventure and hot relationship. One would think that would make a good formula for the next novel, but no, Brook then writes a completely different hero/heroine and creates an even more chemically explosive couple than ever before. Each of her books are unique and yet compatible. If you love steampunk (real steampunk, not just clockwork everywhere) and, of course, true love, then pick up Riveted.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A RIVETING Read!!! September 17, 2012

By Maryland reader

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is perhaps the best book so far in the "Iron Seas" series. This story has humor, love, pirates, monsters, trolls, good guys, bad guys, scary guys and poor sots stuck in the middle! The main characters, Annika and David are quirky and kind, lovable and awkward, and both are very resilient, though they may not see themselves this way. I will caution you that the story starts a bit slowly, but that's because these characters are so rich and I think the author HAD to spend the time so that we could clearly see where these two are coming from, and where they think they are going. Annika thinks that she is going to keep sailing the seas and putting her life on hold until she can find her sister, and David thinks that he is going to fulfill a promise to his mother and go on a volcanic expedition in Iceland. After a fashion they may accomplish their goals, but its what happens to them on the way that makes this a wonderful love story first and foremost, and an excellent steam-punk adventure.

One reviewer complained about the subplots with same-sex love story(ies), saying that she just wants a nice boy-meets-girl story. Rest assured, at the heart of this story that's just what it is. Having said that, Annika comes from a culture of all women. I couldn't help thinking of the Amazons. If "Wonder Woman" were written today, what would we be thinking of the women on HER island? I think that the situation in Hannasvik is a reasonable one to draw given the premise of an all female culture, and Annika loves her mother and her sisters, and so it naturally flows that she would want those people she brings into her life to accept them.

All of the characters were very human.... To her credit, even her bad guys had reasons for doing what they did and you could see where they were coming from.

This was a lovely, fun and exciting read. Read more ›

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Seriously? An Amoral Morality Tale With Secondary Adventure and Romance October 22, 2012

By Lola Jane

Format:Paperback

There will be a few spoilers because it is necessary to make my case about the problems in this book.

I'll get this out of the way before people jump to conclusions and yell at me- I have no issues with the homosexuality in this book. None. The author attempts to set up a story revolving around a person's freedom to love where they choose free of prejudice, discrimination and violent retribution. Excellent goal. Except... the author completely fails in the narrative to illustrate the good of her moral thesis and I think that the internal logic of the book is jumbled and that detracts from the central moral. I know these are strong accusations but the book was really conflicted and the plot really revolved around that central moral thesis and it just failed miserably. If you are going to set up a morality tale, then your protagonists should really hold the moral high ground- and they failed to.

This book got two stars (instead of one) because I thought the steam punk aspects were exceedingly well done. They were imaginative and creative and really well described. I had such a vision of the sentinel at the Spanish city in the New World- a creaking and rusty Colossus. The trolls and whale were really cool. I enjoyed how the author described how a troll was operated. It was excellent world-building.

I thought the romance was a bit tepid. I'll be frank, I wasn't a huge Annika fan- she bugged me on occasion. She was written to be a woman who was brought up lacking those restraints that are artificially and superficially imposed by a Victorian society like chit-chat, realizing that sexuality is not an appropriate topic for general social discourse, that homosexuality is bad, that her clothes should reflect her station or some such thing.... There was this whole stranger in a strange land thing going on with her. Except, she came off, to me, like she was xenophobic or just a bit of a block-head. She's been travelling the world for four years and she hasn't learned chit-chat or to weigh her needs against another's or that her rights are not more valuable than another's? She is utterly convinced that the way she was raised is the right way- that her village's teachings are set in stone and she does not question some things that a thinking person would and ought to question. She fails to act like a truly moral person in one particular scene (when she fails to freak out and condemn her sister Kalla). I'll discuss her village and their ambiguous morality in a moment. And David had real potential as a sensitive scientist. But, their romance was completely sidetracked, for me, by all the crazy moral ambiguity.

The morality morass. Spoilers! A large portion of the plot revolves around an all-women village, founded a century ago, by a murderer-fugitive and refugees- some of whom were homosexual. At the time of the villages formation, I will assume that discovery of the village would lead to certain punishment and even death (because of the murder and refugee statuses). Okay. Now, a hundred years later, the women in the village- some of whom are also homosexual- equate discovery of their village with outing of their sexual orientation which will lead to... what? This is where the logic gets unclear. Absolute secrecy is interwoven with the freedom to live as a homosexual undisturbed by society's judgement. Except those are two very, very different things. They are not the same thing- secrecy and sexual freedom. It would not be a blow to the plot if all they were doing was keeping a secret. Nope. A fundamental tenet of the village is that secrecy is all- they will murder intruders and exile natives who threaten their secrecy. We are supposed to assume (I presume) that discovery equals death so that they are acting in self-defense- except the narrative never supports that assumption. When some lesbians are outed, only one single secondary character acts in a bigoted way and they were just words rather than any threat of violence. The other characters act supportive, understanding, protective, disinterested, or ignore that thing they prefer not to deal with. So, discovery of a homosexual orientation- a century later- does not equal death or even violence. The intruders we are told about, in a back story, are not an actual, imminent threat to the women or village- they may or may not be. Yet, the characters stalked them ready to murder them in case they stumbled onto the village. So, their right to total privacy and secrecy outweighs the lives of intruders- whether or not those intruders mean any harm or actually act in a harmful way. Yeah, I don't agree with that. The right to love where one wishes is a laudable goal. But, the author actually sets up the right to love as one wishes IN TOTAL PRIVACY even when some potentially innocent person's life is forfeited for that right. It was morally ambiguous.

That wouldn't bother me so much if there were not a pattern of morally ambiguous actions that are supposedly done in defense of the village's right to love where they wish IN TOTAL PRIVACY. There is a second homosexual village- an island of "virgins" who were likely banished to Iceland for some religious reason, likely because they were homosexual. Rather than a punishment, the island comes off as a sanctuary where women could live in peace. They do not live in utter secrecy- they are just discreet. Okay, the villain is totally amoral and kills out of convenience- because his victims are an obstacle, because he is curious, because he is testing a theory. He is a slaver. He is a pirate who is taking ships and killing the entire crew. He never once makes a single bigoted remark- probably because he is amoral and you have to have some moral before you can be offended by some random stranger violating your morals. Kalla, the heroine's sister, lives with/helps the villain's father. She is from the secret village and is a warrior/shieldmaiden whose job was to protect the village. She recognizes the villain is a really bad guy, but for reasons that are unclear to me, she promises not to kill him. The author totally indicates that she is absolutely capable of killing the villain- her promise is the only thing that stops her. Okay, that is the set-up.

The villain gives Kalla a choice- I'll kill the virgin island or I'll kill your village. She chooses the virgin island. And he kills every last woman living peacefully there. She chooses to honor a stupid promise to a villain over the lives of women JUST LIKE HER FAMILY AND VILLAGE. We are never told why her promise is so much more important than the lives of a bunch of innocent women. In addition, the author indicates that Kalla is aware of all of the villain's deeds. She knows about the slavery, she seems to know about the pirates. She ought to be aware the villain is killing people frequently. The hero and heroine both know that Kalla chose a promise to a villain over the lives of other peaceful lesbians. Does anyone ever call Kalla out on it? Does she suffer shame, guilt, any moral backlash? Nope. Not a single moment. Not a single character says that the women on virgin island deserved protection just as equally as the secret village's women. So, Kalla isn't much interested in protecting a person's freedom to love where they want or in protecting the innocent. Kalla clearly weighed her promise as more valuable than a bunch of human lives. Her people are more valuable than strangers. Ack- she was a little monstrous.

And, then, in the end the characters are all like "I guess the village will have to drop all this total secrecy" and some of them move into or visit the closest village where they live openly as homosexuals. Any backlash? Nope. So, at what point was their policy of murdering intruders morally indefensible? Because the book pretty much makes it absolutely indefensible by the actual conduct of other characters in the narrative.

I find it hard to give the village or any of its residents any moral high ground. They seemingly act in support of their freedom when all they are doing is valuing their particular freedoms over everyone else's. Do I think that the right to sexual freedom free from society's judgmental constraints outweighs potentially innocent life? Not really. The author gave us a rocking example in virgin island- they lived openly but discreetly and took NO human lives to protect themselves or their right to practice sexual freedom. They don't fit in society? Then, they took themselves voluntarily to a remote place where they could escape society. Ideal? Absolutely not. But, I think, better than killing people who may or may not be a threat.

That said, the author had a pretty heavy hand with her morality lessons. There were more than the one I talked about. But, it became jumbled and inconsistent and downright contradictory. I didn't like the book. Read more ›