The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2) by Kady Cross

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

[caption id="attachment_411" align="alignright" width="219"] The Girl in Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2) by Kady Cross[/caption]

Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due, and Kady Cross has earned enough of it to graduate past The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2) with honors. 

I had more than a few criticisms about Cross’s Girl in the Steel Corset (Steampunk Chronicles #1), but I felt like I needed to give the series another chance. Breakout authors sometimes take a book or two to really get in their groove and series starters aren’t always neat and tidy because they’re focused on the long-term story, not the short-term plot.

The downside of giving it a second chance is that you – or least I – tend to go into the next book with a slight prejudice. Almost like I’mlooking for things to hate. So, it’s quite a testament to say that I not only liked The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, but I finished not even remembering what I didn’t like about its predecessor. 

Finley, Griffin, Emily and Sam travel to New York City to find and clear the name of their friend, Jasper, who was apprehended by a group of men in London and extradited to the United States on murder charges.

The group soon discovers Jasper’s abductors aren’t lawmen; they’re henchmen for a man by the name of Dalton, a powerful gang boss and former associate of Jasper’s (back before Jasper turned his back on a life of crime). Before leaving for London, Jasper had stolen a mechanical device Dalton had desperately wanted, dismantled it, and then hid the pieces in various locations. Jasper doesn’t know what the device is, but it’s obviously valuable enough for Dalton to bring him all the way from London and force him to retrieve the pieces. To ensure Jasper’s cooperation, Dalton kidnapped Jasper’s ex-girl, Mei Xing (whose name Finley finds amazingly amusing). Mei has been fitted with an iron collar designed to contract or even strangle her at Dalton’s will if she tries to escape or Jasper doesn’t cooperate.

Dalton knows Griffin is in town to rescue his friend (after all, the Duke of Greythorne doesn’t exactly fly in on his private dirigible unnoticed), but he doesn’t know about Finley. Using her abnormal strengths, Finley must infiltrate Dalton’s gang, gain his trust, and find a way to free Jasper (even if that means rescuing Mei, too, who’s been nothing but a brat to Finley).

While Finley works from the inside of Dalton’s gang, Griffin, Emily and Sam try to figure out what Dalton’s machine does, why he wants it, and how to stop him before it’s too late.

As a standalone book (not comparing it to The Girl With the Steel Corset), what I liked most was that the plot kept a steady pace and I never felt like I was dragging through parts thinking, “Oh my gosh! Get on with it!” (I’m ADD, so this is majorly kickass). There was enough variety in the components connecting the story to keep it interesting– even when I prettymuch knew what was going to happen, I was still curious to see how the characters were going to get there. Also, there weren’t too many tangents (or characters) watering down the storyline and making it hard to bond with the characters.

Now here come the comparisons. Not that I want bring up the negative, because this was a great book on its own, I just think it’s important to highlight the differences between the two since they are a series (and I don’t think it’s really fair to judge an entire series by one book).

And the “Most Improved” award goes to... the characters!

Finley went from a whiny, immature, unstable nitwit to a character as mentally tough as she was physically. In book one, she ran when she faced conflict (and then moped about it). In book two, she stood her ground and didn’t let herself get emotionally bulldozed by Griffin or anyone else. In fact, he stormed out on her.

One of my favorite examples : Finley learns about Miss Astor-Prynn, a young debutante trying to sink her claws in Griffin (much to his protest). The old Finley would’ve taken off for Dalton’s crew, moaning about how it was obvious Griffin will end up with someone like Astor-Prynn. It’s not like the new Finley didn’t worry a little about Astor-Prynn – I mean, what girl hasn’t had a little twinge of jealousy when a girl is flirting with the guy they like. But she didn’t run and she didn’t let it get the best of her. In fact, she even got some sweet revenge.

Griffin didn’t start with a lot of promise. He seemed to be quite a – for lack of a better word – tool. He accuses Finley of leading on his nemesis, Jack Dandy (who isn’t in this book). He’s furious when she goes out to find out more information about Dalton without telling him (he and Sam were out looking for information when Finley and Emily decided to do the same). He’s outraged that she would develop a plan to infiltrate Dalton’s crew without first consulting Griffin. Most of all, he begins to suffer a melodramatic case of trust issues when it comes to Finley. Despite completely trusting her before and her doing absolutely nothing that would indicate he should distrust her, he’s convinced her dark nature will win over and she will go join Dalton’s gang. Way to have faith in the person who’s saving your ass.

I’m not sure if he realized he was losing control and just accepted it or he went through a random maturity spurt, but Griffin began a dramatic change for the better. He lightened up. He was even, at times, funny. Most of all, he finally began getting it in his skull that he doesn’t need to always be the leader, or the hero or the end-all-be-all of the universe.

And a lot of this was thanks to my new favorite character, Emily.  She didn't get much play in the first book, but she piped up in the second.  Emily is so well rounded. Her intelligence is force to be reckoned with, but Emily proved she wasn’t just book smart when she managed to not only stop a riot closing in on her and Finley, but even managed to make them feel guilty for their actions. She showed her girly side, chatting with Finley about boys and she wasn’t shy to say what she was thinking.

I give Emily most of the credit for extracting Griffin’s head out of his ass. As Griffin sat next to an unconscious Finley as she recovered from having glass shards removed from her back, worrying and blaming himself as usual, Emily let him have it.

“Just so [you] know, it’s not a terribly attractive trait in a man, this brooding and moaning.” .... “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the hero, Griffin. Just see that you don’t end up being a martyr in the meantime.”

Not only did I want to high five Emily for her poignant observation and ability to tell Griffin to STFU, I wish I could carry her around with me and drop her into other books I read with similar martyr-type characters. 

Sam didn’t spend a lot of time in the spotlight, but he seemed rehabilitated from his emo ailment in the previous book (maybe he gave it to Griffin?). Jasper was funny, although he seemed pretty superficial. That’s fine. There was an addition of a few characters, but the only one I feel worth mentioning (and she wasn’t in much of the book) was Wildcat, a former associate and obvious love interest of Jasper. Not sure how they’d write it in the storyline since they’re heading back to London, but I’d like to see more of her. 

In the third book, The Girl with the Iron Touch (due June 2013), I’m actually interested to see where Finley and Griffin take their relationship – if for no other reason than I’m going be seriously irritated if they go back home and begin this whole Jack Dandy love triangle again. Which, truthfully, is unavoidable. A girl can dream.