What happens when you take an alternate history where electricity was outlawed, add in Sherlock Holmes’ niece, turn Bram Stoker’s sister into an actual vampire hunter like Buffy, and throw in a
When Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes find themselves recruited to serve the crown, they never suspect to be investigating the murders of upper crust girls like themselves. Or that the case will lead them down the gullet of a cult seeking to awaken a wrathful Egyptian god. Nor do they expect to run into a teenager from the future who uses electricity in their Steampunk world.
That’s what they get, though, and the ensuing ride takes a lot of twists and turns. Watching the plot unfold as our heroines unravel the mystery, with plenty of bad guy punching from Evaline, makes for an exciting read. The subplot with the time-traveling teenager had the potential to derail the entire story, but it’s handled in a way that improves the narrative instead.
World-building in this novel is done well. Gleason clearly went to a lot of painstaking effort in her research to figure out how a pivotal moment in history could have changed how the world powers itself. London without electricity is really fun to watch, and there were moments when I was almost sad we had to move forward with the story because I wanted to explore some more.
In all honesty, the characters fell a bit flat for me at times. The two heroines’ love stories seem really unnecessary and play out awkwardly. Mina is a cool character in a lot of ways, and far and away the more interesting of the two girls, but isn’t entirely convincing as a Holmes-esque investigator. Evaline, on the other hand, sometimes comes across as simply too thick headed to be believable in order to make the contrast between them clear.
Overall, a solid read if you’re into YA steampunk, or you’re interested in the Sherlock’s niece and Bram’s sister angle. I give it 3/5 stars.
