Rating: WARTY!
This was an advance review copy, so I don't expect it to be perfect. Nevertheless I have to point out issues with it in case they've been missed. These turned out to be numerous as it happens, and caused for the most part, I suspect, by a failure in the process of translating the author's original typescript into Kindle format. I read this in the Kindle app on an Android smart phone, and I find that I'm seeing this kind of thing a lot in Kindle app ebooks. The first one of these issues was on one of the front pages where other works by this author are listed. Something had run the titles together on one line instead of listing them one under another. I also found several examples of unclear text or conflated text such as "cagedlion" and "tryme". Presumably these were not in the author's original either.
Once I began reading, one of the first phrases I read was "...the warmth of our affection had been tepid at best" and it sounded really odd to me. Had it read, "the temperature of our affection...", or simply "our affection had been tepid at best" it would have made better sense, but this is just personal preference.
Maybe it's just me being dumb and everyone else had no problem with this, but here's one example of the unclear text for you to judge for yourself: " I am persuaded you could travel quite easily with a single bag. I mean to." Initially, I thought she was correcting her allusion to a single bag, and suggesting two instead, and the word had been misspelled, but immediately I realized this was wrong. She was simply saying that she planned on traveling with a single bag, as she advised him to do.
If she had used 'intend' in place of 'mean', or had said, "I mean to do so" or, "I mean to do exactly that," then it would have been more clear. I know this sounds like I'm being amazingly anal, and for one or two instances in a novel, this is fine - everyone writes a muddled sentence now and then, but what's clear to the writer may or may not be clear to any given reader. The problem isn't one or two instances, it's a series of instances of various issues such as I've described here that really lets the novel down and makes for a trying reading experience.
kindle issues were the worst problem however. In chapter eight, for example, the first few words of the opening sentence were in a much large font than the rest of the novel, breaking in the middle of the word 'journey' before resuming normal size! Weird! Another Kindle issue was that the lines did not go to the full width of screen on some pages - as though there are hard carriage returns in the text. There were issues with words being run together, too. When Badger, a boy who delivers mail shows up, we read of him that "...his eyes shone with intelligence and- whentheylightedonme- curiosity." Clearly some spaces are missing! Again, I assume this occurred during the transfer to Kindle format rather than being in the original.
There are several examples of a handful of sentences being run together in this manner, requiring careful reading and re-reading to make sense of it. Here's one example:
"Do not tell me I disappoint you?" he challenged.
"Oh, indeed you do," I said evenly. "But probably not in the ways you
expect."
"I already know you find me a boor. Rude and ill-mannered." I shrugged. "That we have already established . Your frightful manners do not surprise me. The fact that you are a liar does."
He started.."
The first sentence made no sense - not with a question mark after it. This was not a problem caused by transferring text to Kindle format! The rest of it, run together as it was, and with odd line breaks, was indeed a Kindle transfer problem and it rendered the text uncertain at first glance as to who was saying what. There were other minor issues such as one where Veronica observes, "He seemed to have forgot his tea." That felt wrong to me. Someone as educated as Veronica, and living in Victorian times would surely have said, "He seemed to have forgotten his tea." In another instance, "affright" was missing an 'f' in the text.
The story was written in first person which I typically detest. Why authors routinely seek to write detective stories and YA stories (I don't know if this was intended as a YA story but it sure read like one!) in the unnecessarily limiting first person is a mystery to me. Some authors can manage it, and while this author didn't do too badly in the technical writing of it, her main female character really made this voice obnoxious to read.
The story is historical detective fiction set in 1887, and it gets off to a good start, but then it goes downhill rather quickly. The problem with this voice with this character is Veronica's rather strident tone, which is arrogant and supercilious. She comes off as a...how did Professor Snape put it, of Hermione Granger? Oh yes, "an insufferable know-it-all" and a self-promoter, and this does nothing to endear the reader to her - or at least in my case it did not; quite the opposite in fact.
It would have been far better had this information come from a third party rather than directly from the protagonist herself. Having trapped his- or herself into first person, all an author can do from that point onwards is to try and mitigate this life-sucking limitation by having the character presented in a much less vociferous and self-promoting manner, and endow to them with more endearing traits. Neither of these ready palliatives was in evidence here.
While we can ascribe many matters to problems with the translation to Kindle format, and others to personal preference, there are yet more issues which are down to how this novel was written, as opposed to technical problems. It took only four chapters before we met Stoker, a shirtless man with corded muscles, which pretty much caused me to choke on trope. Seriously, if you've come up with a feisty female character, the very last thing you should do is mire her in trope and cliché, unless the very purpose of this is to show how she vigorously and determinedly eschews such stock story-telling.
'Chiseled' and 'corded' are two words which, in my opinion, are way-the-heck over-used in young adult literature where there's any romance involved. They really ought to be banned, and are especially tedious when coupled with this ostensible ruffian having a soft mouth, and delicate or skilled hands, both of which we encounter here. I found myself dearly hoping that Veronica would be self-possessed enough to avoid going the wilting violet route, and speed well beyond it, but at that point it seemed unlikely.
It was also sad, given Veronica's unusual nature, that we were so readily plumbing the deep well of teen trope: the corded-muscle, brooding ruffian with poor manners, shirtless, in front of the young and rather gentile girl. Gag! Can you say Lady Chatterley? Or is it Beauty and the Beast? But it got worse. This guy has a beard, an eye patch and a gold ring in his ear - in short, he's practically a pirate. At this point I could no longer take him seriously as a character, much less as a leading male. I'm always seeking something dramatically more original than this lowest common denominator YA stock male can ever offer. It was not delivered here.
Veronica notes that Stoker puts an ungodly amount of sugar in his tea, yet he's supposed to be a pauper - or near enough. Sugar was an expensive luxury back then. It's hardly likely he would have access to so much and be so profligate with it. Honey might have been a better choice here, but who knows? Stoker is working on a project for a lord - maybe he's paid in sugar! That said, I must offer kudos to this author for mentioning explorer/traveler Isabella Bird and Marianne North. It's nice to see real female icons properly championed in fiction. Veronica comes off very poorly in comparison with these women, however, so it rather backfired here.
After the baron dies, Veronica is at the mercy of Stoker, whom she hardly knows. He insists that she accompany him - that they must leave immediately, and he's practically hauling her bodily out of his accommodations. Never once does she ask him to define exactly what this danger is or why it applies to her, a deficit which given her dire circumstances was truly pathetic at this point, but it got worse.
Despite his swearing, sometimes literally, that she was in grave danger, he allowed her to wander off by herself at Paddington station where another man accosts her. Edmund de Clare not only knows who she is, but he evidently knew also where to find her, yet none of this raises any suspicion or desire for information in Veronica. He insists that she's in peril, but never once does she demand that he explain what this peril is. At this point I was completely convinced that Veronica was misnamed. Mary Sue would have been a much better choice for her. it was also at this point that I lost all interest in her story. I have no desire to read yet another story about a woman who evidences no propensity towards pro-action and literally allows herself to become a drag-along toy of a guy. There are far too many tired stories of that nature, written by far too many female authors.
It was also at this point that I realized that Veronica Speedwell was not the sharpest tack in the box. The more the story went on, the more she alienated me with her attitude and her appallingly clueless and endless prattling. After her escape from de Clare, and despite the obvious fact that Stoker is grappling with grief over the baron's death and evident fear for Veronica's safety, she rattles blithely and selfishly on, and she evangelizes annoyingly about every insignificant little thing as though no one should have a thing to do in the world except to hang on her every utterance.
It became so annoying that I seriously wanted to see Stoker throw her off the moving train in short order. If he had done so, I have absolutely no doubt that she would have pontificated in tedious detail on the most efficient way to eject someone from a moving train. This was less than a quarter of the way through this novel and I couldn't stand to read any more of it. I cannot recommend it unless you go for stories featuring intensely self-centered female characters who adhere themselves to tediously trope male characters. It was indeed a curious beginning, and one which I was glad to bring to an expeditious end.
