Author, R.S. Hunter sent me an e-copy of his steampunk odyssey, The Exile’s Violin.

Description from Goodreads:
Why hire mercenaries to kill an innocent family just to obtain one little key? That question haunts Jacquie Renairre for six years as she hunts down the people responsible for murdering her parents.

Not even accepting an assignment to investigate a conspiracy that aims to start a war can keep her from searching for the key. Armed with her father’s guns and socialite Clay Baneport, she continues her quest for answers abroad.

With the world edging closer to disaster, Jacquie is running out of time to figure out how the war, the key, and ancient legend are intertwined. The fate of the world hinges on her ability to unravel both mysteries before it’s too late.

Review (with spoilers):
The first thing I want to say, before even addressing the story, is that I love, love, love, love, love the cover. It’s awesome. I thought the airships where largely made of metal instead of wood, but who cares. The cover rocks. The story was pretty good.

For me, the tag team comedy of Jacquie and Clay really made the book. In fact I would read the whole thing again just for Clay. His ability to blithely flaunt and disparage his wealthy upbringing at the same time was endearing and his obvious affection for the brash Jacquie admirable. There was no rushed romance here, but you just knew. I adored him.

While I greatly appreciated Jacquie’s strong backbone – no delicate, wilting heroines to be found here – I did wonder why there so often can’t be any sort of middle ground between a soft, genteel, mannered woman and a tactless, violent, loose cannon like Jacquie. This is something I’ve noticed before, not just here in Hunter’s book. It’s as if in order to emphasise how not useless a female character is (thereby suggesting that normally behaved women would be useless) they have to exaggerate their lack of female characteristics. They all HATE dresses, don’t wear makeup or make any effort to be pretty, eat more than would be expected in an ill-mannered fashion, speak roughly, and are quick to anger. This is more of a theoretical observation than any real complaint. I really liked Jacquie, foibles and all…or rather, most especially because of her foibles.

Where the book fell down was in logic. There were a few things worth mentioning in this vein. First, the book was staunchly linear. Once a challenge was surpassed it was never revisited. Example: After successfully stealing a pair of expensive artefacts from an important auction-house, in the company of a person whose face would be well known to the patrons and employees, not a single police officer, private detective, or even admonishing relative came to ask questions about it. Jacquie even spent the rest of the book carrying these items about, practically on display. Still, no fear of arrest for possession of stolen property or accusations of theft. It’s like some referee threw his arms out and declared the two of them “SAFE!” I don’t know. Maybe the law of their country says a person has to be caught in the act to be arrested. 

Second, the antagonist seems to purposely invite Jacque into his plans. Seriously, why bring himself to her attention at all? If he hadn’t employed her she wouldn’t have been traveling to all of the exotic places she did and wouldn’t have put the pieces together or figured his plan out. I never saw any purpose for this. Even plain old arrogance doesn’t cover it.

Lastly, Jacquie spends most of the book looking for her key. That’s it, she’s after information about a black key with broken teeth. I don’t care how extensive a library is or how talented the researcher, that isn’t enough information to differentiate it from any other key in the universe. She doesn’t even suggest drawing a picture of it to someone until ~60% through the book. Then there is the question of why Jacquie’s family had both the key and the alchemically altered guns in the first place. This isn’t really addressed at any point, making it feel like a convenient coincidence in the end (even if it wasn’t meant to be).

All-in-all I liked The Exile’s Violin, but really had to suspend a lot of disbelief to get into it. Mr. Hunter is a talented writer though. There were a few editorial mishaps (mostly missing particles), but the language flowed wonderfully and I don’t remember even one example of stiff dialogue. I’d have no trouble recommending the book.