For Victoria, an inventor and daughter of a wealthy American entrepreneur, marriage is a means to an end. When she needs to get her hands on a mine of a rare metal for a new invention, she agrees to an arranged marriage with István Farkas, the crown prince of Taliskia, a mysterious kingdom nestled deep in the Carpathians. Her plans are dashed on their wedding day, when a bomb kills her father and leaves her gravely injured. Victoria is determined to find the murderer. All clues point to Taliskia, and Istvàn himself is the prime suspect. Under a false identity, she travels to Taliskia to investigate.
Narrow Mountain is a good easy read. It was enjoyable and quite short, but I think that lends itself well to the book.
For the most part I enjoyed Victoria/Emma as the MC, she was a bit weird at times but it added to her character. I think the characters and story could use a bit more refinery, some things seemed abrupt while others dragged on, and some character traits and actions seemed to contradict the characters themselves.
I really enjoyed the steampunk industrial world, and the FMC being an intelligent engineer. Very interesting! It had a few touches of romance and also fantasy to give it a magical edge which was enjoyable. Overall I think it was good, if not a bit choppy.
I do think Narrow Mountain could benefit from another edit round, I saw a bunch of instances where it said ‘he or him’ instead of ‘she or her’ when talking about Victoria, as well as a few other grammar mistakes.
If there is going to be a second one, I would read it to see what happens next. However, I assume the ending was the end. It was a bit abrupt too, I had 15 minutes left and felt like everything quickly wrapped up all at once – the drama of the ending could have stretched out in more detail a bit.
Overall, Narrow Mountain by Alex Evans was enjoyable and has really great bones.
Not worthy of a re-read.
*This book was gifted to me in exchange for an honest review*
See what books I think are worthy of a re-read here.
