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The Diabolical Miss Hyde (Electric Empire, #1)

Viola Carr

Start date: April 1, 2015

Finish date: April 30, 2015

Discussion: Book of the Month

Why we're reading this: Voted as our "Most Popular Books Published in February 2015" April BOM …more
[close] Voted as our "Most Popular Books Published in February 2015" April BOM

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* BOM: Group Read History [2025]
By Steph , Serious series addict · 9 posts · 22 views

last updated Aug 30, 2025 12:41AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 10, 2016 Mandapanda marked it as fantasy-to-read

Steampunk retelling of Jeckyll/Hyde. Dabwaha nominee.

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Jul 06, 2018 Wealie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 1st-of-series, 0-purchased, 0-kindle, 0-series-read, buddy-read, poor-prose, did-not-finish-series

Two stars 🌟🌟 - A confusing mishmash of styles, underused characters and superfluous sub plots - with occasional flashes of brilliance.

I read this book over the month of June as a buddy read. Had it not been a buddy read, I’ve no doubt it would have gone on my DNR shelf after the first five chapters, which were exceptionally poor. At the end of five chapters I was frustrated with the writing style, with very little to show in terms of the story arc and lots of unanswered plot, world and character Two stars 🌟🌟 - A confusing mishmash of styles, underused characters and superfluous sub plots - with occasional flashes of brilliance.

I read this book over the month of June as a buddy read. Had it not been a buddy read, I’ve no doubt it would have gone on my DNR shelf after the first five chapters, which were exceptionally poor. At the end of five chapters I was frustrated with the writing style, with very little to show in terms of the story arc and lots of unanswered plot, world and character questions. The next 10 to 15 chapters got better, but the introduction of too many characters, lack of substantive world building and cohesive plot development plagued the novel throughout, leaving you at times confused, underwhelmed and with more questions than answers. By the time we came to the final act I really didn’t care for the central character and had zero investment in what happens next - So no reading the sequel for me.

It’s obvious the book was written to have a sequel(s), because apart form some key character reveals and the revelation of the ‘Chopper’s’ identity and their apprehension, very little was concluded in any satisfying manner. Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good series (I read PNR and Urban Fantasy for goodness sake), but the blatant character baiting in the final chapters and lack of key thematic resolutions left a bad taste in my mouth.

The principal concept of split personalities (one light, one shadowed) was good, but woefully unexplored and to a certain extent made moot by the way the characters of Eliza and Lizzie developed to by the end - (view spoiler) Perhaps this was intentional on the author’s part, but it left me confused and cold, without any attachment or strong feeling other than ‘Meh’ to either character. Considering Lizzie is the titular ‘Diabolical Miss Hyde’ she played a mildly disagreeable second fiddle to Eliza through most of the novel and was not very diabolical at all.

The novel has flashes of brilliance, such as the banter between Eliza and Lafayette, the creepy gentlemanly behaviour of the serial killer Mr Todd and his back history with Eliza, and the steampunk gadgets. These remain flashes though, as for the most part they were not fully explored or realised in the novel. The possibility of of a love triangle between Eliza, Lizzie and Lafayette was there for the taking, but the author never took the bait - perhaps that will be in the sequel 🙄

There were far too many characters, so every character (including the titular Lizzie) was under-used and under-developed with the exception of Eliza, who I went from being non-plused about at the beginning of the novel to really disliking by the end. In the cuminating chapters of the book I really couldn’t care if she lived or died.

So, in conclusion I couldn’t give this a 1 star review as it is not terrible, but it had the potential to be so much more so I can’t reward it with a 3 star review for being mediocre to middle of the road when it had flashes of brilliance, which in the end annoyed me more for showing what this novel could have been with a bit more work and forethought. ...more

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