In a effort to get on top of the list of books I have read, intend to review, but have not reviewed yet pile, here is a short review lacking my normal wittering preamble, you will probably not be disappointed to discover…

The Forging of Lady Ghast by Roz White

This is very much a book of two half’s. I enjoyed both, but the second half stands out as the half of the book I enjoyed most. In fairness to Roz, this makes sense, and is a good thing.

Having said that it would be remiss of me not to explain why the first half of the book didn’t entirely ring with me personally. While I found the latter half of the book more to my taste as a reader there was plenty in the first half to keep me reading, the style and quality of the writing is excellent. My problem was simply I did not like Cora Ghast, the central character. She was, for my taste, far too much a woe is me, upper class, objectionable snob. As a character I found it hard to identify with her, or perhaps more importantly care what happened to her.

In effect Cora was a certain kind of cardboard cut out of a steampunk Lady with a capital ‘L’ , that I have always found irritating. Its a character that turns up in other writers work quite often, though generally as a secondary character, who just annoys me as they seem to be there more to represent the upper echelons of society as a back drop than as a character of real depth. Good writers can pull this off, and Roz manages to do so admirably, but it is still not a character with whom I find any natural affinity. And as a main character in particular I found her labour-some.

But I kept reading, because the story was intriguing and there was a lot going on…

The title of this novel is however ‘The Forging of Lady Ghast’ and there is a clue in the title. The main character is not whom she appears to be. And who she is in the beginning is perhaps exactly the annoying snobbish objectionable upper class woe is me character she needs to be, in order to go through the transformation the character undergoes in the second act.

This is because Lady Cora Ghast did not start out life as a lady. She married well, but now widowed she is forced to return to her roots which are among the seedier side of London. Her father is a major player in the criminal underworld of the city, whom unexpectedly (to her) welcomes her back into the fold, and helps her plan her revenge. It is then we start to see the real Lady Ghast, a far more interesting and likeable character. Some one you can invest in, cheer for and fear for. Which is why the second half of the book shone for me.

There is a lot going on in Lady Ghast’s world. A lot of threads are left deliberately loose at the end, and there is a lot of odd strangeness and oddities. Roz has given themselves a large sand pit to play in in later novels. And Forged a central character in this one that is involving and fun. There is also some very well researched snippets in here, a young HG Wells turns up briefly having go himself in a tricky situation over a woman and some debts… There are other little gems berried in here as well which made me smile.

All in all its a fun read I can recommend and the rest of the series is intriguing after this.

One small note, the typesetting on the paperback version is not ideal, if that is the kind of thing that puts you off a book then I advise you get the kindle version.

Normal wittering preambles will be back next time, probably, because the lack of a good witter about something to start with just seems wrong…