A review by etoiline
A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz

4.0

Steampunk alchemy: what's not to like? For the most part, I enjoyed this story, until it became a story about destiny. The world is well imagined, with fairy elements alongside interesting steam-powered machinery (the steam/magically-powered helicopter was pretty nice). It degenerated a little bit into cliche when we find that our heroine is the only one who can save the world, and of course, due to previous circumstances, she doesn't want that responsibility. There is the requisite love interest, which is actually handled well, and the recruitment by both good and evil. The MC is betrayed by the men in her life, sometimes in obvious ways. She does experience strange dreams, and these sequences are handled well. The romance is a little underwhelming, but certain gestures make it worthwhile (like the picnic). The secret society is at times overbearing and their ritual at the climax of the book veers into the ridiculous, but the story is fun, overall. The mixture of fairies and steam technology is a winning world-building mix, and even though the MC can be too stubborn for her own good sometimes, the characters have personality, so the dialogue is snappy. I'll keep an eye out for the next book in the series.