Beauty and the Clockwork Beast

This pick reflects changes to speculative fiction that had taken place by the 2010s, including common publication by smaller publishers and frequent mashups of multiple genres. With robots (okay, so they’re called automatons), werewolves, ghosts, and a steampunk 1800s feel, the story is quite different from others in my list, but it shares the mystery, the fun adventure, and the proper romance.

Lucy Pickett comes to a dark manor house, ala Jane Eyre, and must use all her deductive skills and biological knowledge to solve a mystery and perhaps exonerate the dark and dangerous Lord Miles. In this story, I… show more.

This steampunk retelling of Beauty and the Beast has a delightfully dark humor perfect for gothic romance. Our heroine, Lucy, accepts her cousin Kate’s invitation to visit, a strange request for a newlywed who should be in the throes of wedded bliss, but Kate fears she’s being poisoned. When Lucy arrives, however, there is much more to contend with than her ailing cousin: the house is haunted, her in-laws are rude, and the man of the house—Kate’s new brother-in-law, Lord Miles—is rumored to have murdered both his sister and his late wife. But Lucy is accustomed to solving other people’s… show more.