"Of Clockworks and Daggers" by Sarah Everest

This is the second book in the Games of Greed and Ruin series -- the first was One Must Die, which Sarah Everest co-wrote with five other authors.

Of Clockworks and Daggers follows the adventures of Zenith, a young assassin-for-hire whose beliefs about his entire existence are challenged when he meets a mysterious fellow assassin who has a dangerous offer for him.  Zenith has been trying to live an honest life ever since the events at the mysterious sky mansion in One Must Die.  He's also been trying to help support the orphanage run the Jessie, the young woman he is falling in love with.  But he gets sucked back into his old life, and more is jeopardized than just his relationship with Jessie. 

This book ponders some pretty deep issues, like being the adult child of abusive parents, how to deal with the wrong in your past when you want to change for the better, and personal sacrifices big and small. It starts a little slowly, but builds to a really thrilling climax.

I really like the steampunk world of this series, a sort of Dickens-meets-H.G. Wells vibe with some fantasy twists here and there.  I'm looking forward to more of this series, including the next book, which drops in October!  

Particularly Good Bits:

Something about the pretentiousness of lawyers who live a life bending the law to fit the needs of their benefactors makes them believe they're untouchable.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some violence, memories of child abuse, thieving, and a scary sequence involving fire.

"Deep in the Heart" by Gilbert Morris

I picked up this book and its two sequels on a whim at a used bookstore a couple months ago.  I can remember my mom reading Gilbert Morris books when I was a teen, but I hadn't read him before.  

On a whole, I liked this first book in the Lone Star Legacy trilogy pretty well. I loved Clay and I liked Jerusalem Ann.  I liked most of the characters, actually.  And the history of Texas always fascinates me.  Though that ended up getting in my way a bit here.

Morris sets this during the time leading up to the Texas Revolution in the 1830s, and he has a whole lot of scenes where real-life people like Colonel Travis and Jim Bowie discuss why they are trying to separate Texas from Mexico.  Scenes that really have nothing to do with the book's characters.  They're just there to explain things.  It wasn't necessarily a bad way to explain Texan history... but it also made the actual story come to a screeching halt every now and then, especially in the last third of the book.  And, you know... if I, who love Old West history, got increasingly annoyed by having history lessons inserted that way, I am betting most readers were downright vexed.  

I can see what Morris was trying to do, but it would have been way more effective and enjoyable to have the book's main characters themselves discuss these things!

So, that left me feeling like this is a four-star read.  I'll try the next book, which I suspect won't have that issue so much because the Texas Revolution should be over pretty early in the book.  We'll see.

Particularly Good Bits:

"I wish things would go wrong one at a time, but they never do" (p. 214).

"I found out one thing after all these years.  And that's never to run away from problems.  As sure as you do, a worse one will meet you" (p. 350).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for allusions to men consorting with prostitutes, drunkenness, a family with illegitimate children, women worrying about being captured by Native Americans and assaulted, and scenes of frontier violence.