Review by Blind_Beth -- The Engine Woman's Light
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Blind_Beth
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- Latest Review: The Engine Woman's Light by Laurel Anne Hill
Review by Blind_Beth -- The Engine Woman's Light
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Engine Woman's Light" by Laurel Anne Hill.]
3 out of 4 stars
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The Engine Woman’s Light by Laurel Anne Hill is a compelling combination of steampunk, alternate history, spiritualism, and spunky-heroine romance. It also has a lot of DNA from the magical realism tradition, and I find that I keep wanting to call the narrator “Renata” because she reminds me of a character from 100 Years of Solitude.
Her real name is Juanita—Juanita Elise Jame-Navarro-(spoiler redacted). One of her names is a spoiler because she grows up as an orphan, with only partial knowledge of her family history. One of her great-grandmothers rescues her from an asylum train as an infant, and she grows up in a remote village with adopted parents. She has a powerful ability to connect to the spirit realm, and is trained by a village elder to be a “mystic traveler,” someone who confers with spirits on behalf of her people. Her ascetic but predictable life is completely changed by a particularly wild spiritual revelation, and soon her connection to the spirit world is her only source of guidance as she pursues a dire mission to put a stop to the asylum trains.
This book really attracted me as a reader because I enjoy fantasy stories, including steampunk and magical realism. I also liked the extensive use of spirituality in the plot, with many major characters being deceased ancestors of the narrator. In fact her ancestors, collectively, very much drive the story. I imagine that writing a cast of disembodied characters is pretty challenging, but Hill manages very well by assigning colors, scents, and distinctive voices to the recurring ghost characters. I particularly liked that Juanita senses the arrival of spirits by scents that defined them in life—chocolate, tobacco, beer, etc. It made the ghostly characters feel very grounded.
There were no editing errors in my copy, and frankly I find very little to critique about the book on a structural level. The characters are well developed and the pacing was overall very good, though for me it tended to drag when the adventure became very train-oriented or otherwise concerned with detailed descriptions of steam-era technology. But readers with a strong interest in trains and machinery will probably love those parts.
On a subjective level, I didn’t enjoy one of the romantic arcs. (There are a few different ones in the story, and only one bothered me). For a large part of her quest, Juanita is helped by a much-older man. He doesn’t push himself at her sexually at first, but they form a very close relationship, partly due to his medical help, and she sleeps next to him for a large part of her journey. It felt kind of creepy to me, especially as she is 15 at the time and describes herself as actually looking prepubescent due to her mystic-traveler custom of fasting. The relationship doesn’t develop sexual tension until she is older and interested, but it still felt creepy to me. Readers who are bothered by large age differences in relationships or by the “he falls for her while she’s underaged” trope should bear this in mind.
Another thing that bugged me was how extensively the spirit world and ancestors seemed to control Juanita’s life without her having any say in things. They tend to give her just enough information to get her to do what they want, but not enough for her to actually know what is going on or to be able to make real decisions. Given how much Juanita must sacrifice over the course of her quest, it feels very problematic and not really how loving ancestors would ideally behave. But The Engine Woman’s Light is set in a harsh world, so ideal relationships are pretty thin on the ground.
One thing I did appreciate was that one of her ancestor guides is not a blood relative, but someone who had a close relationship to one of her family members. That such a relationship is taken seriously and qualifies the character as family in the eyes of Hill’s spirit realm was really enjoyable for me.
Overall I give this book three out of four stars. Three stars for being very interesting and well-crafted, with one star taken off because I personally felt pretty uncomfortable with the older-man dynamic as well as how little agency Juanita seemed to have as a character. Readers who are also bothered by that kind of thing might not enjoy this, but otherwise those who enjoy steampunk, romance, alternate history, and magical realism will find a lot to enjoy in this novel.
******
The Engine Woman's Light
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3 out of 4 stars
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The Engine Woman’s Light by Laurel Anne Hill is a compelling combination of steampunk, alternate history, spiritualism, and spunky-heroine romance. It also has a lot of DNA from the magical realism tradition, and I find that I keep wanting to call the narrator “Renata” because she reminds me of a character from 100 Years of Solitude.
Her real name is Juanita—Juanita Elise Jame-Navarro-(spoiler redacted). One of her names is a spoiler because she grows up as an orphan, with only partial knowledge of her family history. One of her great-grandmothers rescues her from an asylum train as an infant, and she grows up in a remote village with adopted parents. She has a powerful ability to connect to the spirit realm, and is trained by a village elder to be a “mystic traveler,” someone who confers with spirits on behalf of her people. Her ascetic but predictable life is completely changed by a particularly wild spiritual revelation, and soon her connection to the spirit world is her only source of guidance as she pursues a dire mission to put a stop to the asylum trains.
This book really attracted me as a reader because I enjoy fantasy stories, including steampunk and magical realism. I also liked the extensive use of spirituality in the plot, with many major characters being deceased ancestors of the narrator. In fact her ancestors, collectively, very much drive the story. I imagine that writing a cast of disembodied characters is pretty challenging, but Hill manages very well by assigning colors, scents, and distinctive voices to the recurring ghost characters. I particularly liked that Juanita senses the arrival of spirits by scents that defined them in life—chocolate, tobacco, beer, etc. It made the ghostly characters feel very grounded.
There were no editing errors in my copy, and frankly I find very little to critique about the book on a structural level. The characters are well developed and the pacing was overall very good, though for me it tended to drag when the adventure became very train-oriented or otherwise concerned with detailed descriptions of steam-era technology. But readers with a strong interest in trains and machinery will probably love those parts.
On a subjective level, I didn’t enjoy one of the romantic arcs. (There are a few different ones in the story, and only one bothered me). For a large part of her quest, Juanita is helped by a much-older man. He doesn’t push himself at her sexually at first, but they form a very close relationship, partly due to his medical help, and she sleeps next to him for a large part of her journey. It felt kind of creepy to me, especially as she is 15 at the time and describes herself as actually looking prepubescent due to her mystic-traveler custom of fasting. The relationship doesn’t develop sexual tension until she is older and interested, but it still felt creepy to me. Readers who are bothered by large age differences in relationships or by the “he falls for her while she’s underaged” trope should bear this in mind.
Another thing that bugged me was how extensively the spirit world and ancestors seemed to control Juanita’s life without her having any say in things. They tend to give her just enough information to get her to do what they want, but not enough for her to actually know what is going on or to be able to make real decisions. Given how much Juanita must sacrifice over the course of her quest, it feels very problematic and not really how loving ancestors would ideally behave. But The Engine Woman’s Light is set in a harsh world, so ideal relationships are pretty thin on the ground.
One thing I did appreciate was that one of her ancestor guides is not a blood relative, but someone who had a close relationship to one of her family members. That such a relationship is taken seriously and qualifies the character as family in the eyes of Hill’s spirit realm was really enjoyable for me.
Overall I give this book three out of four stars. Three stars for being very interesting and well-crafted, with one star taken off because I personally felt pretty uncomfortable with the older-man dynamic as well as how little agency Juanita seemed to have as a character. Readers who are also bothered by that kind of thing might not enjoy this, but otherwise those who enjoy steampunk, romance, alternate history, and magical realism will find a lot to enjoy in this novel.
******
The Engine Woman's Light
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Latest Review: The Engine Woman's Light by Laurel Anne Hill
