The Clockwork Scarab (Stoker and Holmes)

by Colleen Gleason

[wyvernfriend]

I did want to like this book but I felt that there was a lot pushed into the story some of which felt somewhat forced.

And then I lost the suspension of disbelief when on page 242 we have this eyebrow exercising sequence:
".. I smelled the essence of bitter almond..."
"Cyanide."
... "yes I suspect it was arsenic."

Cyanide and Arsenic are not the same thing, nor have they ever been known by the same name, cyanide is the one that smells of bitter almonds. This sequence bounced my disbelief to critical and somewhat ruined my enjoyment of the book.

Yes, the gadgets were funny, and the peril of electricity making it illegal was funny too and a good hook for creating an electricity dependent world (though how our timetraveller with an iPhone expects to be able to plug a modern gadget into any power system of the period when it's a unreliable source, even looking back from our time. The modern 3-pin UK plug dates from 1946, and good luck trying to explain why your iPhone blew up in the past! (see this for plug info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets - what? I'm a geek)

Also, why didn't Irene Adler get the girls to get to know each other better, teams need team building and help with planning. The two of these girls get themselves into situations that could both ruin them or get themselves in harms way and don't appear to think that maybe, just maybe, they could communicate occasionally with someone else.

Yes, I had frustrations, mostly because I'm convinced there was a better book hidden under this book, one with a better plot and possibly without the time-traveller. Using Bram Stoker's sister, Evaline Stoker - a vampire hunter, something like Buffy, with the added strength and powers of sensing vampires and Sherlock Holmes' Niece - Mina Holmes, as characters is interesting and there were moments where I was very interested in what was going on but there were also times I wanted to shake the characters and make them realise that reporting it all would be more important and appearing clever, particularly when girls their age are dying and they could be next.

The romances were interesting but, again, our time traveller felt tacked in as a source of conflict. He seemed to be the maguffin to create tension and act as deus ex machina for the plot.

Readable but there were moments I groaned because of predictability. Somewhat wasted potential.