The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason (ARC)

The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason
Series: Love in the Time of Global Warming, #1
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Format: ARC
Pages: 356
Source: Won

Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes never meant to get into the family business. But when you’re the sister of Bram and the niece of Sherlock, vampire hunting and mystery solving are in your blood. And when two society girls go missing, there’s no one more qualified to investigate.

Now fierce Evaline and logical Mina must resolve their rivalry, navigate the advances of not just one but three mysterious gentlemen, and solve murder with only one clue: a strange Egyptian scarab. The stakes are high. If Stoker and Holmes don’t unravel why the belles of London society are in such danger, they’ll become the next victims.

I was so excited for this book. Go on, read the description, sounds amazing right? I thought it would be too. I was extremely disappointed, maybe my hopes were just too high going into this but I just couldn't love it.

I thought following the adventures of the niece of Sherlock Holmes and the sister of Bram Stoker would be completely interesting but for the first half of the book I was extremely bored. The mystery doesn't really pick up much in the first half of the book, but we are introduced to a murder pretty quickly. The mystery, when it does begin to pick up, is very Holmes-esque and contains quite a few twists that leave you guessing.

The two main characters, I just couldn't bring myself to connect with. Mina Holmes was obnoxious and constantly looking down on people. She was the stereotypical smart girl who had pretty much no friends and a severe lack of social skills. Evaline Stoker was not much better. She was extremely boring and for a vampire hunter that was pretty sad. I just did not connect with either of these characters.

The two characters I did enjoy immensely were Pix and Officer Ambrose Grayling. Pix was a thief and he was witty and had some of the best dialogue. Officer Grayling was obnoxious, but in a way that didn't bother me. He was trying to solve the case and constantly had the two main characters interfering. He was a complete gentleman and I adored him.

The writing style really was difficult to get into. It read like a novel from the time period it's set in. I found myself having to go back and re-read paragraphs just to fully understand the language and that really interfered with my overall enjoyment.

Despite the faults that I had with this novel, I really did like the second half of the book and I will probably be reading the sequel at some point.