Author: Colleen Gleason
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Rating: WARTY!
Note: this is not to be confused with The Clockwork Scarab by David Lantz (which I have not read).
Some opening issues to ponder: is drassy really a word! Maybe dressy! Not drassy. But that's a minor issue compared with this conundrum: Should the phrase be "There is a limited number" or should it be "There are a limited number"? I go with the first, but there are people who argue for the second, so I'm not going to get into this. I'll leave it for you guys to fight over!
I gave this novel the old college try, but I didn't like it. It's a YA novel but it felt to me like it was written at middle grade level with adult word choices! Hmm! The novel presents as a steam-punk wannabe (it's set in London in 1889), but it's really a paranormal romance.
It's also the increasingly inevitable first in the increasingly inevitable series. I mean why write one novel when you can rework the same story over and over, and get a whole series, instead of having to do the work of coming up with something brand new each time? Seriously, if you can find suckers who will buy it, where's the incentive to give more or do better? What it translates to, in effect, is that this whole novel was nothing more than a massive prologue. I don't do prologues. Nothing happens, nothing is resolved. What's the point?
So, Evaline Stoker and Alvermina Holmes, the nieces or whatever, of Bram Stoker and Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, bin there dun that. The problem here is that neither character is remotely likable. Stoker could have been - had she not been so ready to get jiggy with a disrespectful guy she just met and knew nothing about. Holmes is - how did Professor Snape put it? Oh yes: an insufferable know-it-all. Nothing to like here. Both characters sounded pretty much the same in each of their own chapters.
I knew I was going to be punished for wanting to like this steam-punk novel the minute I read that one character had amber flecks in his eyes. This was a guy about whom the author was sharply rapping us on the head to make sure we got the telegraph that Alvermina had the hots for him. The trope is gold flecks, so I don't know if the author thought there was something new, or fresh, or original in going for amber, or if she had read so little YA that she didn't know what a massive and very tired cliché that is.
I was hoping this didn't signal a down-turn in the novel to match the down-turn in my mouth, but I was robbed of that hope very shortly afterwards, when the other main female character, Evaline (sounds like a brand of motor oil doesn't it?) was literally man-handled by a character and didn't even whisper a complaint. She was too busy swooning. Be still my fluttering heart! Oh how my delicate skin is flushed! Oh how moist is my valley!
Of course the standard cliché male was strong and broad-chested, had a stalker's knowledge of her, and had no idea what the term 'personal space' means. Of course he gave every indication that he was lower class, but gave every other indication that there was more to him than met the eye. And suddenly, you're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of stomach and churn, but of gag; a journey into a nauseous land whose boundaries are that of a complete lack of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead; your next stop: the Promethazone.
Why do authors do this to readers? Especially: why do female authors do this to their female characters? Here we have two characters who hold the promise of being strong, engaging, significant female characters, and who are already fighting against stereotyping in a Victorian era, and what does the author do to them? Rapes them. Forcibly stereotypes them. Demeans them. Belittles them. Makes them dependent upon a man even as we're told - not shown, but told - how strong, independent, and smart they're supposed to be.
I actively dis-recommend this cynical and exploitative excuse for a story.
