Romancing the Inventor

by Gail Carriger

[celinenyx]

Romancing the Inventor has a fantastic premise: parlor maid falls in love with brilliant lady inventor. Yet I feel like this is a case where I wanted to enjoy a book more than I actually did.

This novella is set within Gail Carriger's larger steampunk universe. While I found the book perfectly understandable after having read only one other book previously, Soulless, I wouldn't recommend it if you're completely unfamiliar with the world, as its rules are not introduced or explained in Romancing the Inventor. One of its issues, actually, is that it leans too heavily on the main canon and established characters.

Imogene Hale has never had any interest in men. Women, however... She goes to work at a vampire hive, hoping that within their atmosphere of depravity she might find an outlet for her own perversions. She is not expecting to meet the trousered inventor Lefoux, whose green eyes and dimpled cheeks sweep Imogene off her feet.

As a romance, I'd say this novella works. There is a lot of interaction between Imogene and Genevieve, and I found their attraction believable and endearing. At the same time, the surrounding story didn't suit the cute romance fluffiness. Imogene is bullied by other servants - she is physically abused and sexually harassed and assaulted both by a footman and a vampire. This constant sexual threat, to me, was too horrifying to fully buy into the romantic atmosphere of the story. She gets away before things get worse (read: before she is raped) mainly by coincidence or deus-ex-machina interventions.

The main intervention being that Lady Maccon, main character extraordinaire from the core series, keeps popping up at convenient moments in the plot to save the day. If this truly were Imogene and Genevieve's book, I wish they would save themselves. It is as of the plot is taken away from them, leaving them powerless to the machinations of the household.

Finally, although it is believable and realistic, I wish historical queer romances didn't position the queerness as depravity, perversion, or unnatural. It makes sense, and the novella itself never condemns lesbianism, but the inner monologue of Imogene was occasionally painful to read. All I want is some queer romance where the fact that the main character's aren't straight isn't the problem.