BOOK REVIEW - STEAMPUNK ROMANCE

The Gadgeteer

(Arabeth Barnes #1)

by Gin Hollan

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My Review - 2.25 stars

I tried, I really tried with this book. I liked the story and the characters but, for reasons I will outline below, just could not finish it

I got 61% of the way through this book before I had to step away from it. This was like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle with no edge pieces and some of the other parts missing too. 

Facts were spoken/thought of as though we already knew that information, which totally threw me out of the story on several occasions. Then there were the jumps in time line from one sentence to the next that had me flicking back and re-reading pages to see if I'd missed some. I'm sorry but going from an acquaintances house to a formal dinner at your parents home, literally from one sentence to the next, is not good. Sometimes these seemed more like continuity errors. One example was when we had Melanie (a side character) returning to her room, then a couple of paragraphs later Arabeth is wondering when she will return home!??!

I read an arc copy so perhaps the final version will have been corrected but mine contained quite a lot of incorrect or missing words, along with words in the wrong order. This also didn't help with the flow of the story.

It's a crying shame because I found the "writing voice", for want of a better word, easy to read. The actual prose flowed smoothly, the dialogue worked for me, the descriptions were overall good and I really liked Arabeth and Sam, the main characters. The plot idea was fabulous, though the steampunk detail was a little lacking and descriptions felt too vague. The author has great potential and with the help of some good beta readers and editing this could be a 5 star read.

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Synopsis

Gadgeteer Arabeth Barnes must follow her instincts - and an invading automaton - in order to stop the violence that is tearing her city apart. The fine folks of Blastborn have just had their first murder in over 200 years and some say it's a precursor to war. Arabeth thinks it's bigger. 

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A simple problem should have a simple solution. Working as a bail enforcement Tracker in order to have someone test her gadgets crosses no ethical lines, as far as Arabeth is concerned. 

Besides, she can't be the only one who sees the threat at hand. An automaton has invaded their peaceful little city, and an invisible force has turned its citizens against each other causing deadly acts of violence. 

When her cousin is murdered, Arabeth becomes determined to track down the hand behind this unprecedented violence. Calling in family favours and using her status to persuade gatekeepers isn't something she is comfortable with, but no one else sees what she sees. Plans for catching an unseen assailant are hard to explain and harder for others to accept.

If she doesn't, no one is safe, but if she does, she may have to marry the next man her highborn parents throw at her. Society would rather see her fail. Still in her mid-twenties, the only way to keep her independence is to fight for it, and the only way to do that is to prove she's just fine on her own, thank you very much. If they push it, she'll marry Sam.

Her best friend since childhood, Samuel Hicks, is a Police Detective who has learned to trust her hunches. Refusing to let her walk into this danger alone, he insists they team up. Trust isn't easy for either of them, despite their history, or perhaps because of it. 

Together they'll attempt to solve a mystery that's turning the people of her city into cold-blooded killers. What they discover is much worse.

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This is book one in the Arabeth Barnes series.


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Amazon -  http://a.co/d/03RPKyX


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Ratings

5 stars - This is a book I will not forget and would definitely read again.

4 stars - I really enjoyed this book, I might not read it again but I would definitely recommend it to others.

3 stars - This story was good but either forgettable or just very typical of its genre.

2 stars - Whilst the book was readable I either didn't enjoy parts of the plot or just could not connect to the main characters.

1 star - This is a book I simply could not finish for reasons listed in the review.

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