10 Books You May Have Missed This Summer

Crop of the cover of Beauty and the Clockwork Beast, by Nancy Campbell Allen. Image via publisher, Shadow Mountain

7. Beauty and the Clockwork Beast

Sometimes it just takes putting a fairy tale into a steampunk setting to make it feel fresh and new again. Yes, in case the title didn’t tip you off, this one’s all about Victorian-era steampunk romance with plenty of paranormal entities as well. (Think Gail Carriger’s The Parasol Protectorate series, and you’ve basically got it.)

However, this book is also part of Shadow Mountain’s “Proper Romance” series, which means that you could probably rate it as PG, romantically speaking. That’s right, no steamy love scenes with various euphemisms for body parts and lots of sighing and whatnot.

Our heroine is Lucy Pickett, who’s recently arrived at Blackwell Manor to take care of her sick cousin, Kate. Unfortunately, she didn’t know about the ghost, the werewolves, the vampires across the border, or Lord Miles, who’s already lost a sister and a wife and who just so happens to hate visitors.

Be warned, though: vampires and werewolves mean that there is some violence.

Goodreads also notes the Jane Eyre parallels littered throughout the book, and reviewers praise Lucy as a proper heroine for her proper romance as well as author Nancy Campbell Allen’s pacing.

Shadow Mountain Publishing; paperback, 352 pages.

Next: 6. The Gate of Sorrows