A review by jackiehorne
Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster

3.0

Having taught a class on fantasy and science fiction for many years, I may be more critical of the genre than your average reader. I find McMaster's alternate steampunk London interesting, with vampires (Blue Bloods) the nobles, and human debs not on the Marriage Mart, but hoping to secure a thrall contract with a nobleman, granting him the right to suck her blood on a regular basis. But I find her plotting lacks internal coherence at times. For example: Why do the blue bloods need werwulven Will, our hero, to help them negotiate a treaty with Scandinavia? They SAY they need him, and promise him things that will wreak major changes on their society just to gain his cooperation, but the text never SHOWS why his participation is vital. Will has to do this for the needs of the romance, not because it makes any logical sense in the world that McMaster has created. Things like this happen far too often, and each time they do, my suspension of disbelief becomes less and less willing.

I could also do without the constant putting the heroine in danger so the hero can rescue her. And the changing heroine into a supernatural being without her consent (even if it is an accident in this case, and she would have agreed if she'd been asked). And I REALLY wish Sourcebooks would hire a decent copyeditor. McMaster misuses words or omits words on a fairly regular basis; though this leads to annoyance rather than confusion, each instance again pops me out of my immersion in the story.