Literature / The Girl in the Steel Corset

Feel the Steampunk vibe yet?

The Steampunk Chronicles are a Young Adult series by Kady Cross, in Steampunk England in the year 1897.

1. The Girl in the Steel Corset
2. The Girl in the Clockwork Collar
3. The Girl with the Iron Touch
4. The Girl with the Windup Heart

Accompanied with little novellas.

• The Strange Case of Finley Jayne
• The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy
• The Wild Adventure of Jasper Renn

Described by the author as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets X-Men.

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This Book provides examples of:

• Abduction Is Love: Leonardo Garibaldi tries to do this to the ghost of Griffin's mother.

• Battle Ballgown: The eponymous steel corset is to be worn under fancy dress, and it doubles as light armor:
  A steel corset—thin, shiny bands with embossed flowers and leaves, held together with tiny hinges to allow ease of movement. Little gears and other decorative pieces of steel were soldered over some of the larger gaps between bands. The garment looked like an industrial metal flower garden. "The spaces are small enough that bullets and most blades won't be able to get through, and if someone hits you the bounder's going to break a knuckle or two."

• Clockwork Creature: Emily's mechanical cat fills this role rather nicely.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Each main book's title has some of this. They all start with "The Girl", the first two books have 'in the' and involve pieces of clothing, a "Corset" and a "Collar", respectively, while the last two have 'with the'. Each odd-numbered-book's title involves some metallic object, "Steel Corset" and "Iron Touch", respectively, and each even-numbered-book's title involves clockwork mechanisms, "Clockwork Collar" and "Windup Heart".
  • Each novella's title is The X of Y:
    • The Strange Case of Finley Jayne
    • The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy
    • The Wild Adventure of Jasper Renn

• Symbol Motif Clothing: Cordelia's nose-ear rings.
  Delicate strands of six silver chains ran from a piercing on the right side of her nose to one in the same ear—one chain for every year without her husband, the Marquess of Marsden, who had gone missing during a mission. It was a blatant symbol to any man who might approach her that she was not available, no matter what the gossips might say.

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