honeybearbee 's review for:

The Sin in the Steel by Ryan Van Loan

3.0

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I received an uncorrected ARC of The Sin in the Steel from a Goodreads giveaway.

Buc and Eld are a crime solving duo, who get into trouble right away. They are accused of a murder and basically blackmailed by a shipping company to find why their ships are not making port. In the ARC Buc is 16 and Eld is 22, but in the final version Buc is 17 and Eld is 19. So, that will be interesting to see any changes because Buc makes a joke right away about how old Eld is.

The Sherlock influence comes up pretty early. Buc uses a drug called kan to slow her mind and let her focus better. Servenza and the islands that the Buc and Eld go to, definitely has a Spanish/Caribbean inspiration. Buc also seems like Kaz Brekker from The Six of Crows because she has plans within plans and rarely tells Eld.

Her main plan is to bring down the Empire, which who knows how that will work in the long run.

Both Buc and Eld have a past that the other doesn't know about. These "failures", as they call them, are the reason the duo solve crimes. Very early on, a chapter focuses on Eld, and there are graphic depictions of war. There is also some blood during that scene and another later. There are wonderful scenes of navel battles and they were a lot of fun.

It is a little weird to go from Buc, who uses "I" to others who use the third person, but it doesn't happen to much. As I read, I wasn't sure if I liked Buc or not, which might be the point.

The world building is really well done. There is magic (telepathy and shapeshifting), pirates, and Gods. There are two types of Gods; dead ones and one living one. They are at war and have been for a long time. The dead Gods left their blood and bodies behind, which their followers imbue to become more powerful. The dead Gods followers can control the dead, which makes sense. The one living god followers are just very powerful, with something called Sin, which comes into play later.

The world has a vaguely sci-fi background for the Gods, but I'm not sure. Since this is the first in a series, that might be explored in more detail later.

Eld is very weird when Buc wants to wear trousers at least twice and I'm not sure why, since being in a dress doing what they do seems to be a hindrance. Also, "bitch" is used far too much by women against other women. It gets very tiring, especially when Buc and Eld meet the Widowmaker, who Buc dislikes a lot. The Widowmaker, Chan Sha, dislikes Buc just as much.

As the story goes on, Chan Sha explains a bit more, but not everything. Buc is able to figure out a lot of and make it work for her and Eld. I really liked the ending because it wrapped up this story but did also have a  good setup for the sequels.