Gear Girl
by JM Davis
Self published by the author in June of 2016
It has a five star average with three reviews.
Awaking in a strange place, Eleanor is afraid, and panicked. Unfamiliar people claiming to be her family nurse her back to health, but their vague answers seem to only stir up more questions. Where is she? How did she get the scar in the center of her chest? And what happened to her memories?
Over time, Eleanor learns she has been fitted with a mechanical heart, and the body she inhabits once belonged to someone else. With the truth finally revealed, depression nearly drives her to her deathbed. After being rushed to the hospital, Eleanor must learn to accept her second-chance at life.
Believing she is less than human with her steel heart, Eleanor needs a reminder that she is more than just clockwork, and gears. Percy Oliver, does just that. But, is her heart capable of love? Or is it just a machine crafted of cold metal?
The Amazon preview has three chapters. Here's the first one.
(Read Chapter)
Before I talk about this chapter I want to say that I had originally planned on reviewing a different book. I saw it advertized on facebook and twitter several times. Based on the book cover and the title, the story sounded like it would be mysterious and engrossing. The story started with a prolog. Fifteen pages in, I was looking ahead to see how much longer this prolog was. I was bored. The story was introducing the characters, their personalities and some of the plot, but there was nothing which was intriguing or mysterious. I realized there was nothing I could reccomend from what I had read, and rather than read it and give a bad review, I would move on to the next book on my list.
I want to give people ideas of books that they want to read, and not which ones to look out for.
A first chapter, or prolog, if the book has to have one, should be gripping and make me want to read more, make me want to move on to the next chapter. Not make me look ahead to see how much longer I have to read.
Gear Girl was this way. Even if it is written in first person present tense.
The author gives us enough information to sympathize with the main character, the feelings of confusion and disorientation, and ultimately of threat and violation from the man who enters the room.
Obviously, if we've read the cover copy, we know our protagonist has a clockwork heart and we can assume that the two people she interacts with in the first chapter are well meaning. But it's clear that Eleanor doesn't know this, and why she doesn't know this is one of the reasons I want to go on to the next chapter to find out why.
The story is clearly steampunk. It looks like Davis has created the environment and setting for an exciting speculative fiction.