Caged Princess

Whispers of Steam #1

by Caylen McQueen

At age fourteen, Princess Mayra saw her entire family murdered in front of her. Now she's holding on to a secret that could destroy the world.

For five years, Mayra's enemies have been trying to force the secret out of her. She's been bullied, tortured, and caged like an animal. Only one man, Captain Jun Shiraishi, has ever been kind to her. His kindness is betrayed when Mayra commits and unspeakable act to escape her captors.

Mayra sneaks aboard an airship with an eclectic group of bounty hunters. Some of her new companions are slow to trust, and for good reason. A hostile fleet, led by Captain Shiraishi, is hunting her.

Caged Princess is the first book in the Whispers of Steam series, a steampunk-inspired fantasy where friends become enemies, enemies become lovers, and the most unlikely characters form bonds.

Genres: Dark, Steampunk, Fantasy

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 15, 2020

Reviews

[Lucie V. · Rating 1 out of 5]

🆗❌ World-building
❌❌ Plot
❌❌ Characters

Let's just say that the only reason I finished this book is that it is only 120 pages long.

Everything in this story feels rushed and does not always make much sense. The whole royal family was killed 5 years ago except the princess. Since then, she has been tortured weekly so she could reveal the location of the royal vault. Why not keep other members of the royal family alive if they were after the vault? Why do they keep torturing her after 5 years of silence, what do they expect? According to the book, everything has been done to her and she still refused to talk. Even worse, it has become a kind of game and an initiation for the new captains... "Hey welcome to the club, here is an innocent girl for you to torture because apparently, we are still hoping to get some results after 5 years, good luck!"

Even if we forget this weird part, the storyline as a whole is weird and awfully convenient. Everything falls right into place for princess Mayra. First, she manages to get ahold of a sword and escape. Nobody sees her escape, nobody asks any questions and she then finds a group of bounty hunters and manages to escape with them. They dress her and feed her for free and of course, she tells them exactly who she is because she trusts the bounty hunter to protect her and not be interested in the money they could make by turning her in...

That brings me to the characters. Bland. Unoriginal. Unidimensional. Stupid. Mayra is just dumb, she tells her story to everyone and trusts the first people that show her kindness. She goes from a traumatized girl to laughing and weaving flower crowns after a few days with them. The captain looking for Mayra is also boring, he is the cliché young and overconfident officer on a cliché revenge quest (because Mayra killed his brother to escape) and having mixed feelings because he does not really want to hurt her, but a the same time he does. The rest of the characters are not even worth mentioning...

Some parts of this book are dark because of the torture sessions, but then again as soon as she escapes, Mayra seems fine. No big trauma or trust issue, the character development, the plot-line, the world-building... everything in this story felt half-done. Really, this book can use major improvement so it does not feel like a jumble of ideas that are not well linked to each other.


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[Ellie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Watching paint dry is better than reading this

[Lana]

This steampunk novel is very dark and be warned there is the torture of a young girl involved, however Princess Mayra's story is one of great courage and not to be missed. She had seen her family all killed before her very eyes whilst still very young, left orphaned, and on her own she tries to escape the Alymane assassins to no avail. She is caught and taken to their enemies' country, stuck in a dungeon, and only taken out to be taken to the torture chamber where horror upon horror where inflicted upon her by both the king and his sick royal cronies, and the captains of his army who took turns in inflicting as much pain as possible to discover a secret she kept on hiding. Until one day a new captain, Jun Shiraishi acts kindly towards her but is repaid with her own betrayal, and from a friend he turns into the biggest hunter out to seek vengeance for her cruel act. She takes up with a group of bounty hunters who take her to the clouds in their airship but even this was not far away enough to keep her from the wrath of the Alymane King and his army. I absolutely love Mayra, she is a strong heroine character, love the steampunk aspect of the novel and would love to go on reading this very dark series which I hope will gain some redemption as we read further!

[Kenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was something so fun about this book. I know i only gave it a two star, but i for some fell in love with the characters. The plot had many holes, the world building was not great, and i needed more from the writing. I wouldn’t recommend people to go out and buy it. I got this book from a stuff your kindle. If you see it at the library i would say pick it up. Overall it’s absolutely fun, and short read.

[OldBird]

Just to say the trigger warnings about abuse are there for a reason. Yikes. Too dark for me.

[Mark Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

This was quite a good book. I look forward to seeing more from Ms. McQueen. I really enjoyed it, most definitely.

[Keila Butler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could have been great. The author throws in some shocking moments but overall it’s so blandly written that it becomes comical.

[Glitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pick it up! Read it! I don't know why the overall rating isn't 4+, but this one is really fantastic.