Jon Del Arroz

I picked up this book in an effort to find some new and awesome steampunk reads. This book was not that book. I ended up not finishing this primarily because the narration for the audiobook was awful, but also because the storyline was very slow and a bit awkward.

The narrator for this audiobook was awful. She sounds like a robot without any inflection. When she did try to do characters voices but they ended up sounding unnatural and really distracted from the story.

The horrible narration made it hard to really judge the story but as I listened closer to the writing I found that the turns of phrase used and dialogue was also very awkward. It felt like maybe the author was a non-native English speaker and could have used some help to edit the story better. I listened to the first couple hours of the audiobook and then stopped, I was seriously annoyed by this every time I turned it on in the car and kept thinking “Why am I listening to this? It is awful!”

Overall I do think the storyline has potential. I loved the idea of Zaira, a farm girl, inheriting her father’s airship and being able to go on adventures. However, the story takes a long time to get moving and never really drew me in. I would have given this 3 stars because of the potential the story had, but the awfulness of the audiobook put it down to 2 stars. Not recommended, especially not on audiobook.… (meer)