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Earth is dust, humans are looking for new planets to settle. Generation ships travelling for thousands of years, genetically engineered spiders, failed terraformed planets, first contact, a look into an alien society evolving through the years. Even though there are wars and the classic conflicts for power, I liked the optimistic ending.

A stand-alone romance novella set in Gail Carriger’s steampunk universe. Lady Preshea Villentia, a deadly, accomplished assassin, is hired for a job in a country house party. The plot is simple, so the story is self-contained, and the focus is the romance between Lady Villentia and Captain Gavin. Delightfully entertaining and cute.

I’m truly enjoying these historical romances with a modern twist. In this one the main character, Annabelle, is a bluestocking in 1879 studying in Oxford, who joins the suffragette movement. They are fighting to get the “Married Women’s Property Act” amended, so that women can keep their own property after marriage. Annabelle is tasked with getting the Duke of Montgomery to back the cause, and romance ensues! It has a rich plot with believable political background. Beautiful romance story with a strong female character.

This was not the book I was looking for. The blurb mentions it is French Revolution-inspired in a fictional world with magic. The magic system is interesting: a few seamstresses can cast charms into their stitches, making charm protected garments. The protagonist, Sophie, is one of those expert seamstresses and has her own business. Her brother, Kristos, is a revolutionary that wants to overthrow the monarchy (hence the French Revolution inspiration). But the revolution didn’t seem convincing. It was a bit of a slow burn towards political revolution from the POV of someone who is connected to it (Sophie) but doesn’t really want to get involved. Sophie was so reactive and her lack of agency annoyed me at times. There was not enough texture in the story to make it a compelling revolution inspired story.

Getting back to this series a few years after I read the first one. I enjoyed the thought experiment about transfer of consciousness and identity. It gets into these themes in an easy-to-understand way, and I had fun reading it. I want to read the next book, I think there are interesting things to be explored in this universe.

I feel like this third could have closed the arc with the war between Solis and Atlantia, but the author leaves the conflict for the next book. I think I got enough of this world already, and this book reveals and explains Poppy's background, and we finally discover who she really is. The world building keeps on adding more creatures and beings that were supposedly legend, but they turn out to still exist. The good thing about this one is that there are some relaxing moments where Poppy and Casteel are just having a great time together and enjoying life a little. So it's less dark than the previous ones for a while. The ending is again shocking, but this time I didn't want to continue to next one just yet.