If only it were the last necromancer, but alas! There will be more stories about necromancers, I fear.
Despite having misgivings about this, I started reading it because it was a new take on Frankenstein. While we unfortunately get vampire stories up the wazoo, and quite a few sad werewolf ones too, we don't see any of the other classic monsters (Frankenstein, the Mummy, etc.) retreaded very often. So I was curious about this one, especially since it has a girl living as a boy on streets of London.
Technically, Frankenstein is the Georgian period, not the Victorian in which this novel is set, but it wasn't that important to me. What is important is that I get a good, original (even if borrowed from a classic!) story that moves at a decent pace, and which entertains me, and I sensed quickly that I was not about to get any of that from this, as it turned into yet another trope-laden YA romance story.
It started out well-enough in that this girl Charlotte (who goes by the unoriginal and unimaginative 'Charlie' as a boy) has the ability to raise the dead, and she's kidnapped by this guy Lincoln Fitzroy. It was painfully obvious right from the start that he and Charlie would be an item, and it was so telegraphed and pathetic, and so, so inappropriate that I wanted to give up right then, but I read on a little way to see if the author could rescue it or had anything new to offer; once it became crystal clear she did not is when I DNF'd this.
Fitzroy is often a euphemism sort of a name for a king's bastard offspring, but I have no idea if that's the case here or if the author just blindly chose it as a 'cool name' (it really isn't). This guy, as I said, kidnaps Charlotte, and holds her prisoner without giving her any idea of why he's doing this. They butt heads repeatedly, and it became quickly tedious to read at that point.
It turns out that the reason she's kidnapped is that the people employing Fitzroy want Charlotte kept out of the hands of Frankenstein, who is having a problem animating his creation, and since Charlotte can reanimate a dead person's body by calling their spirit back into it - over which she then has complete control - she is of course of inestimable use to him. I don't doubt that happens further down the line in what is probably an inevitable trilogy. Correction: I later learned this is a ten book series! Are you fucking joking? Jesus! But I figured Frankenstein will indeed get his hands on Charlotte, and I have no interest in yet another tedious YA love triangle or a tedious ten-novel series, especially not one written this badly.
I so quickly tired of the imprisonment and the cruelty and the business of treating Charlotte like a child - although she did behave like one often. But there was meanness and cruelty involved in her imprisonment and the author seems not to care a whit about Stockholm syndrome, like this adversarial and punitive relationship is the perfect start to what will somehow magically blossom into passionate and undying love. Barf. Get a clue, Archer, please. You're missing the target by miles.
The last straw for me was when Fitzroy gave Charlotte her wish and freed her in a poor part of London dressed to the nines, and left her to her fate. He was of course following her so he could rescue this poor waif, but that wasn't the saddest part. The saddest part wasnt even that Fitzroy had purposefully hired a thug to threaten Charlotte so that he could "rescue" her and have her even further in his debt. The guy is a complete dick and a jerk.
No, the problem was a complete betrayal of Charlotte, and the most inauthentic part of the novel. Charlotte had been living on the streets for several years before she was captured by Fitzroy, but now she's portrayed as somehow being inexplicably and completely at a loss as to what to do, where to go, and how to keep herself safe. Inevitably she falls into the hands of this ruthless and brutal rapist that Fitzroy hired, thereby forcing Charlotte further into his control and dominance. Way to trash your main character's entire backstory, Archer! I'm done with this atrocious author.
