***The Starry-Eyed Revue***: the peculiars

Awhile on the Pile/From the Review Pile is a meme hosted by Stepping Out of the Page every Thursday but was also inspired by Rachel at My Reading Pile/Fiktshun. The aim of this meme is to showcase books that you've received for review -- or any book that you own and really want to read/review -- but haven't yet got around to reading in order to give the book some extra publicity.

Here's the book I chose to give some extra love this week:

Title: The Peculiars
Author: Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Series: n/a
Publisher: Amulet
Publication Date: May 1, 2012
Source: ARC

This dark and thrilling adventure, with an unforgettable heroine, will captivate fans of steampunk, fantasy, and romance. On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if she, too, is Peculiar. On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House. A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to confront her deepest fears.

I think I haven't gotten around to 80% of the books that released on my birthday. There were just too many, and my main focus at that time was Insurgent. But had my ARC come with this cover instead of the plain, cartoonish one it did, I might have read it immediately instead of sticking it on the bookshelf to collect dust. [Figuratively, I mean...my books don't collect dust. ;0) ]

Have you read this one? If so, what did you think?