Hey folks! I’m migrating my reviews from Banned Bitches that were originally on thisiswickedfierce.com here, so they aren’t in any sort of uniform format or…

Well, basically this is all just a mess.

Apologies and all my wicked fierce love,
Ginny Lurcock

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Jack the Ripper might be in town. But is marriage more terrifying?

In an alternate Deep South in 1890, society reporter Adele de la Pointe wants to make her own way in the world, despite her family’s pressure to become a society wife. Hoping to ruin herself as a matrimonial prospect, she seizes the opportunity to cover the recent Jack the Ripper-style murders for the newspaper, but her father’s dashing new intern suggests a more terrifying headline—marriage.

Dr. Phillip Rawley’s most daring exploit has been arriving at his new home in America in a hot air balloon. A tolerable sacrifice, if it means he can secure the hand of his new employer’s daughter in a marriage of convenience. But Adele works, she’s spirited, and she has an armored pet monkey running her errands. Not only does she not match his notions of a proper lady, she stirs up feelings he’d rather keep in tight control.

With Adele hunting down a headline and Dr. Rawley trying to protect and pursue her, a serial killer is spreading panic throughout Mobile, Alabama. Can Adele and Rawley find the murderer, face their fears, and discover true love?

Ginny’s thoughts: The beginning of the book is as stifling as the humidity it repeatedly mentions, even with a daring balloon landing, but by the time I read the awkward proposal I was all in. (Chapter three, for those of you wondering).

With a romance that pits an investigative journalist in the making who refuses to be tied down against a cosmetic surgeon (of sorts) who just wants a quiet life after escaping a crazy mother you know you’re in for a heck of a ride, and Steam Me Up, Rawley delivers. These two characters are just wonderful. Both claim to know what they want while not really knowing themselves at all, discovering as they go that the things they thought were truths are actually pretty lies they’ve been hiding behind. And Rawley is … well he’s just so clueless about somethings that it makes me squeal with delight. How could a woman possibly want to work instead of getting a husband, he puzzles.

But not in a dick way.

Add in a mystery complete with a psycho killer hunting down blonde doxies and slashing them open and I am tickled pink. (Jack the Ripper is a minor obsession of mine). Top with steampunk, submersibles, and a pet monkey that has a mother of pearl helmet? *wistful sigh*

Get a copy for your Kindle now!

A review copy was provided via Netgalley for a fair and honest review.

Oh, and just an FYI … totally picked this one up because the title is a play on “Beam me up, Scotty.” Or, at least, I hope it is.