Review: God Save the Queen

Title: God Save the Queen
Author: Kate Locke
Series: The Immortal Empire #1
Publisher: Orbit
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: ARC

The undead matriarch of a Britain where the Aristocracy is made up of werewolves and vampires, where goblins live underground and mothers know better than to let their children out after dark. A world where being nobility means being infected with the Plague (side-effects include undeath), Hysteria is the popular affliction of the day, and leeches are considered a delicacy. And a world where technology lives side by side with magic. The year is 2012 and Pax Britannia still reigns.

Xandra Vardan is a member of the elite Royal Guard, and it is her duty to protect the Aristocracy. But when her sister goes missing, Xandra will set out on a path that undermines everything she believed in and uncover a conspiracy that threatens to topple the empire. And she is the key-the prize in a very dangerous struggle.

My thoughts: 

I thought this was a really interesting book! I really enjoyed the world building and the development of the creatures. Locke described it kind of like an evolution and the royal families evolved into the vampires that they are in the present time in God Save the Queen. It’s a very unique take on a world with vampires, werewolves, faeries, goblins and half bloods of everything in between!

I do have to say that Xandra is a pretty awesome main character! She’s part of the royal guard and had devoted her life to protecting the members of the aristocrat. She’s also a halvie so in her case she is half vampire and half human. Or is she? In the beginning of the book, one of her sisters, who has been at Bedlam, the mental institution, has gone missing and it sends Xandra on a mission and she ends up uncovering a lot of secrets about her family and the royals.

Looking for her sister brings her to meeting a very hot werewolf and I believe he is the leader of the werewolves of Scotland. This book became very confusing for me because I didn’t know there was a glossary of terms in the back. Soon, they get to know each other very well and they become lovers which I expected to be really fun because I thought this was an adult novel. But the author just skips right over all the sexy times. I’ve read some YA novels that were more graphic than God Save the Queen.

I also thought the cover was very misleading. The girl on the front is totally decked out in awesome steampunk cloths yet the steampunk is very minimal in the book. I expected more of a Girl in the Steel Corset (same author) feel but it definitely wasn’t there. I really enjoyed the vampire skulls on the cover; those are really awesome!

Overall, I was just a little disappointed. The cover and synopsis of God Save the Queen gave me expectations that were not met in the story. But the world building was interesting enough that I gave it 3 hearts because I will probably continue the series to find out what happened with the characters!