Interesting world, but way too perfect heroine

Okay, steam-punk setting, handsome aristocrat haunted by a dark secret, main characters are rich and beautiful, sinister going-ons in the old family mansion ... sounds promising.

And the writing is good too, so it took me a while to figure out why I couldn't quite get into the story. And also why the "oh noes, nobody takes my accomplishments seriously because I'm a woman!" from the heroine scratched on me - I mean, it's not like that was so unrealistic (even if any writer has the option to create a world where it's not a thing; Girl Genius never bothered with that, and it's not losing anything by it).

Until I realized: sweetie, _I'm_ not taking your accomplishments seriously, either. Because you didn't work for them, you just got them for being the main female character. together with being beautiful, so amazingly charming that nobody can resist you, so clever that the men who teach you a new card-game immediately regret it when you start beating them within the hour ... oh, and of course this perfect heroine also dances perfectly, and, chances are, does every possible thing perfectly, but by then I I really wasn't paying attention any more.

To make it worse:
All of this is NOT because the author is showing her respect for and belief in the abilities of females, because THE HEROINE IS THE ONLY ONE showing any such abilities. Seriously: All other women are just silly or shallow-minded, with the exception of her sister, who's only function is to be sweet and dangerously sick so the heroine has some problems to solve. At some point, _one_ other female authority actually turns up to help the two main characters solve a problem, and what do you know, she's utterly useless because she has zero experience or confidence, and has to be saved by, of course, the heroine, from immediately being kicked out of the mansion.

So no, this is not the sort of story where _women_ have skills, advance the plot, solve problems and so on. It's a story where the two romantic mains can do all that; the only other person with some relevance for the plot is the villain, because you can't quite do without.

apart from that, at least two thirds of the characters serve to be shallow-minded or useless only so the two mains look even better by comparison, and if anybody else is allowed to be likable and/or useful, it's going to be their closest friends. (Who're probably the main characters of another book.)

The other problem for me: suspense, absence off. Okay, it's a romance novel, so by the end there'll be a solution and a happy couple. But I'd like the characters to work for it, and maybe even for me to be shocked or surprised now and then. But the Dreadful Dark Secret of the hero is revealed about three chapters in, and by chapter ten it's pretty clear that he heroine in an expert on anything she could possibly need to solve whatever problems come her way.

Never mind, the reading is very good, and if steam-punk with a byronesque hero is your thing, go for it.

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