Nyssa Glass and the House of Mirrors by H.L. Burke

[ALynnPowers]

I’ve never read a steampunk novel before, so I really had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book. But I’ve read other books by H.L. Burke (including fairy tales, dragon tales, and one of my all-time favorites, Beggar Magic) and love her writing style in general, so I figured that it would be a nice introduction to the genre for me. It’s no surprise that I was not disappointed at all.

Nyssa Glass is a reformed cat burglar who has obtained a good education, thanks to her caring employer. But when he is attacked and Nyssa is framed, she has no choice but to help out the assailant’s competitor in order to make a clean getaway. She’s brought to the abandoned home of the famous electronics designer, Professor Dalhart, with a mission to retrieve data about his inventions. With the help of the house computer, Nyssa begins to uncover a lot more secrets about the professor and his inventions.

To put it mildly, I did not want to put this book down! I loved Nyssa right from the beginning, and I can’t wait to read about more of her adventures. The computer, also known as Hart, was also such a fun character, and it’s killing me not to be able to talk about him more without giving away spoilers. With such an amazing cast, a fast-paced story, and thrills and suspense around every corner, I couldn’t come up with a single thing about this book that I didn’t like.

One more comment: this might be a rather strange thing to point out in a review, but I also really liked how the majority of the story takes place within a very brief period of time. The biggest chunk of the story (I would guess around 95%, if not more) happens over the course of a single day. I LOVE that, and not nearly enough writers are willing to take a chance with writing what I like to call “short-term stories” – even more extra points go out to Burke for that one!

A well-deserved full-star rating!