The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

My first big hurdle with this book was that there was no clear sense of place. The author off-handedly mentions “equiponies” (or whatever they were called) but provides very little description of what they looked like. At one point she mentions blue webbed feet. Okay... that's something. There's also no clear indication of a time period – dungaree and glasses but a gramaphone and an autoduck? Are we past, present, future or some hybrid? I couldn't get into the story for the first half of the book because I didn't know where I was – Old West with a dash of fantasy? The 1950s-esque with less technology and more magic? I just got whiplash from the lack of clarity as to what this world was. And it took FOREVER to be able to piece some of the story together. Its not that I want a story spoonfed to me but sheesh – this is supposed to be fun and I had to white-knuckle through this book trying to figure out WTF was going on. Oh, and there was some romance but I don't really feel like it was central to the plot.