Title: Agamemnon Frost and the House of Death
Series: Agamemnon Frost 01
Author: Kim Knox
Genre: Historical (Liverpool 1891), Steampunk/Science Fiction
Length: Short (77pgs)
Publisher: Carina Press (19th August 2013)
Heat Level: Low
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥4 Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: Liverpool, 1891
Decorated artilleryman Edgar Mason was forced to find new work when the British Empire replaced its foot soldiers with monstrous machines. Now he waits on the Liverpool elite as a personal servant. He has just one rule: he won’t work for fashion-addled dandies.
Agamemnon Frost, however, is far from the foppish man-about-town he appears to be. He’s working to protect the Earth from an alien invasion being planned by a face-changing creature known as Pandarus. And on the night he plans to confront the aliens, he enlists Mason to assist him.
For a man to love a man is a serious crime in Victorian England. But when Mason meets Frost, his heart thunders, and his blood catches fire. And when Pandarus drags the two men into the torture cellars beneath his house of death to brainwash them, Mason’s new passion may be all that stands between him and insanity.
The trilogy continues with Agamemnon Frost and the Hollow Ships.
Review: Edgar Mason was forced out of the army when the British Empire replaces its foot soldiers with monstrous machines. Now he is working any jobs that he can find as a personal servant to the elite of Liverpool. When he finds himself as the personal servant for Agamemnon Frost he thinks the man is a dandified fop who gets his blood racing, but he soon discovers that not everything is as it seems. Agamemnon Frost has an important task to complete, he hates that he has to allow Mason to fall into the well placed trap, but his mission to protect Earth must come first and the attraction he feels toward Mason second. And when they fall into the hands of Pandarus, their attraction to each other might be the only thing that keeps them alive.
This is a great historical science fiction/Steampunk story that has aliens trying to take over the British Empire. Mason is a great character who gets drawn into a war that he never knew existed, a war with alien beings who want Earth. Agamemnon is working with a secret movement to stop the infiltration, but it is far from easy when the very Beings he is fighting have developed the technology the British Empire is using to fight their wars. The men have to work together when they are set on being brainwashed by Pandarus, and they try to bring down Pandarus’ home base.
Kim Knox has written a story that combines history and science fiction giving it very Steampunk feel and giving us the beginning of a complex relationship. Agamemnon is a man who has to hide behind foppish behavior to keep his real agenda, that of an agent who must stop the aliens. Mason is just a soldier who gets pulled into a secret war because of his birth date. Mason just humors Agamemnon at first until he realizes that the man really isn’t nuts and that he is telling the truth about aliens. Mason has a forbidden longing for Agamemnon and it seems to be reciprocated, but first Mason has to follow Agamemnon’s lead if he wants to leave the house alive.
This really is a great start to the series, it leads you in but has you grasping for information and Agamemnon is stingy with dishing it out. We are left with anticipation for the future books and what is going to happen with both Mason and Agamemnon. We don’t find out everything we want but we are left with a good idea of what has happened to both men and what they have become, and thankfully, their attraction is still fierce.
I will recommend this to those who love something a little different, aliens and history mixing, a budding relationship and an ending that leaves you reaching for the next book.