Agamemnon Frost and the House of Death by Kim Knox

I love this cover.  It's just so pretty.  I was a little concerned by the blurb because aliens aren't really my thing.  Here's the cover and the Goodreads blurb:

Book one of Agamemnon Frost

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.

This book has a definite feel of steampunk up until the alien bomb drops.  There is a healthy dose of Victorian and the technology lends a steampunk feel to the book.  Frost and Mason meet early in the story and from almost that moment, it feels like you're going over the first hill on a rollercoaster.  It just rushes.  I would have liked to have had more interaction between Mason and Frost outside of the action scenes.  A better explanation of the martians might have improved it as well.  I liked the chemistry between Frost and Mason but the story felt like it was moving too fast.  It was an interesting read for sure and I plan to read the next one but it was far from perfect.

The trilogy continues with Agamemnon Frost and the Hollow Ships.  Kim Knox can be found on her website and on Facebook.  I give this book 3 Fairies for a book that I enjoyed but that lost me at the aliens.