Review: Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen

Expected publication:
August 2nd 2016 by Shadow Mountain

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen is a Gothic, steampunk Beauty and the Beast retelling with elements of the paranormal.

Our heroine, Lucy, is smart, attractive and works for the Botanical Aid Society seeking a way to combat the Vampire Assimilation drug which allows vampires to walk among people undetected. Her brother served with Miles in the war. Cousin Kate has married Miles brother, Jonathan. Where she has rarely been ill in the past, Kate is now taking on the appearance of an invalid. With her experiences with the Botanical Aid Society, Lucy is hoping to find a cure for Kate. Lucy looks forward to a restful sleep, but is denied that when a ghost visits her in her room.

Miles is hiding something. He is rightfully bothered over the recent deaths of his new wife, Clara, and his sister Marie. Clara died of an unknown illness, much like Kate's illness. Marie died a violent death at the hands of an unknown and possibly paranormal assailant. He broods and snaps at anyone who dares enter his space.

Miles and Jonathan have an Aunt Eustace and a couple of cousins, the Charlesworths, that descend on the manor and further disturb the peace.

Will Lucy be able to save Kate? Will Miles and Lucy connect in spite of his foul temper and tendency to brood? Will Lucy be able to love the man in spite of his beastliness?

I enjoyed this retelling and give it 4 out of 5 stars. It's well plotted and moves along quickly. Lucy and Miles are well developed characters, the others a little less so. It's an interesting retelling with the paranormal and steampunk elements. The steampunk is less of an issue than the paranormal, but it is still important character wise. The book has book club questions at the end as well. If you like Gothic tales, this is a good one for you. Also it works well for people who enjoy a bit of the paranormal in their tales.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Teaser Tuesday: Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"After leaving the library and its surly master the night before, sleep had been a long time coming. And she hadn't retrieved a book from the library, which had been her goal in the first place." 

~16% through on my Kindle

This tale is a version of Beauty and the Beast in a steampunk setting. I'm about 55% through the story now. It reads like a gothic tale with steampunk dressing. There are shifters and vampires as well. So far, I am enjoying it. 

What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our ever-growing TBR list. Hope you're enjoying your read!

Review: The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo

The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo was published July 8, 2014 by Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy. It is as it says a trilogy of sort of steampunk short novels or novellas. If you like your steampunk really bizarre, then this might be the book for you. Unfortunately, it wasn't the book for me.

I did like the first novella in the book entitled, "Victoria." The second novella, "Hottentots," I found increasingly difficult to read. The main character is not at all sympathetic. He is racist and sexist. I just found it very unpleasant to read about him. In the third short novel, "Walt & Emily," the author got several details about Emily Dickinson right at first, but I had a great deal of trouble imagining this famous recluse going on such an adventure when she finds it difficult to make it to her brother's house next door. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief quite that far.

So, while I know there are other people out there who enjoyed this book and I am sure there will be others in the future, unfortunately I am not one of them. If you enjoy your steampunk really bizarre, perhaps you should give it a shot. I gave it 2 stars. It was okay, but I didn't really like it.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Teaser Tuesday - The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of 

Should Be Reading.

Rules:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t    give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR    Lists if they like your teasers!

The ebook version of The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo was published July 8, 2014 by Open Road Media. This is the version that I read. My teaser comes from 4% into the book, during the first story entitled "Victoria."

Only when they were in the shuttered landau driven by McGroaty, rattling across the nighted town, with the womanly newt Victoria seated damply between them, a veil demurely drawn across her elongated features, did Copperthwait think to tell Melbourne about the peculiar diet of his charge.

"Flies?" said the Prime Minister dubiously.

"Fresh," said Copperthwait.

So, What are you reading this week? What's your teaser?

Review: Six Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher

Per Goodreads.com:

This title will be released on January 22, 2013.

"Buffy meets Deadwood in a dark, wildly imaginative historical fantasy

Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. A banker’s wife belongs to a secret order of assassins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fingers are in everyone’s business, may know more about the town’s true origins than he’s letting on.

A haven for the blessed and the damned, Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient evil is spilling into the world, and unless the sheriff and his posse can saddle up in time, Golgotha will have seen its last dawn…and so will all of Creation."

My first thought was that the book was a little bit busy. There were too many main characters, too many religions/mythologies, and too much action all at once towards the end. But then when I really thought about it, I felt that somehow it all seems to balance out. Each person involved represents one of the ideologies. Each area of town also seems to have its own belief system. And as for the fight scenes, fights do happen all at once and not so much in a linear fashion. As such, I thought that R.S. Belcher handled the fight scenes well after reflection.

You meet the main characters at a slow enough pace and with enough background to make them memorable and well developed. Some are so memorable, like Maude, that I would love to see more of them in future books. And some of them there is so little, that I would like to learn more about them in future books, such as Deputy Mutt and Sheriff Jon Highfather.

When trouble begins, Maude's neighbor asks her when Maude returns home muddied from an incident in town, "Is it regular trouble or Golgotha trouble?" The townspeople have experience with this sort of weirdness, so it's not surprising when they work together to battle the evil that is threatening to end all existence. I do wonder if H.P. Lovecraft is one of the authors that influenced R.S. Belcher. The monster itself is reminiscent of Lovecraftian horrors. 

The book is aptly called a "weird western" by Mike Resnick. I think it's weird in a good way - part western, part steampunk, part coming of age story, part horror. The characters are interesting and well written. The world is built well and will stand up to repeat visits. I hope that R.S. Belcher visits Golgotha again.
I give this book 4 stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for my unbiased opinion.