Armed with only her father’s stories of a forgotten da Vinci workshop, a mechanically enhanced falcon, and an Italian cook, Amelia takes flight for Florence, Italy. But her quest is altered when her kitecycle crashes into the air ship of ex–Air Marshal—and scandalous dime novel hero—Tucker Gentry.
Challenged by political unrest, a devious sky pirate, and their own sizzling attraction, Amelia and Tuck are dragged into an international conspiracy that could change the course of history…again.
Starred review from September 24, 2012
Contemporary romance author Ciotta’s first steampunk series blasts off with this exhilarating riff on bodice-ripping romance, hurling 20th-century technology into an alternate Victorian England. Spunky airship mechanic Amelia Darcy is smitten with an obsession for flight and a longtime yen for Tucker Gentry, the Sky Cowboy, an American penny-dreadful antihero of “notorious and scandalous reputation.” After Amelia’s father blows himself and the family fortune to smithereens while attempting to travel to the moon, Amelia abandons her tizzied mother, leaps upon her homemade kitecycle, and tears off to win a hefty scientific prize. She promptly crashes into an encounter with Tucker. The two pursue an airborne quest for Leonardo da Vinci’s fabled ornithopter while fending off sky pirates employed by dastardly and lascivious Lord Bingham, cavorting through a hectic skytown pubcrawl, and putting lovemaking at the top of Amelia’s “must-do-or-die” list. With Darcy twins Jules and Simon poised for their own adventures, Ciotta (the Cupcake Club books) has the start of a delectable series. Agent: Amy Moore-Benson, AMB Literary Management.
Starred review from October 15, 2012
In Ciotta's (Evie Ever After, 2009) imaginative steampunk tale, in the 1970s, the ironically named Peace Rebels time-traveled to mid-nineteenth-century England, bringing technological marvels that Queen Victoria declared forbidden. Three decades later, inventor Amelia Darcy enters a competition in which she has five months to discover a legendary, now-lost technology; donate it to the British Science Museum; and take home the 500,000 prize. Amelia's brothers, also invited to enter, set off to win the reward, forbidding Amelia to leave home. But she takes off on her kitecycle, convinced that the best forgotten invention was built by da Vinci. On her way to Italy, however, she collides with the Maverick, the airship of Tucker Gentry, the Sky Cowboy. Despite the damage to his craft and the superstitious mutterings of his crew, Tucker takes Amelia onboard and is soon smitten by her spunk and intelligence. Freaks, mods, Vics, flatliners, cowboys in airships, evil scientists, nefarious flying pirates, and time travelVictorian England was never so much fun. Ciotta's whimsical steampunk romance, the first in the Glorious Victorious Darcy series, is too good to miss. Watch for book two, His Clockwork Canary.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)