DNF Audiobook Review – For Steam and Country (The Adventures of Baron von Monocle, Book 1) by Jon Del Arroz, Narrated by Katie Wright (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Steampunk
Length: 10 hours and 1 minute (307 pages)
Publisher: Rislandia Books
Release Date: February 27, 2018
ASIN: B07B3LMQ6J
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Adventures of Baron von Monocle
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“As a an ordinary farmgirl, Zaira von Monocle is in way over her head. She’s inheriting Rislandia’s most deadly weapon of war, the airship Liliana. Her modest life couldn’t prepare her for flying the massive vessel, let alone protecting her ship and homeland from invading Wyranth soldiers.

Even as her whole world turns upside down from war, Zaira learns her presumed-dead adventurer father, the legendary Baron von Monocle, might still be alive. It’s up to her to take the Liliana into Wyranth territory and see if the rumors are true.

Can Zaira learn how to command an airship and gain the respect of her new crew?”

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.