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Book Review: The Parasol Protectorate (#1-3), by Gail Carriger

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This post isn’t quite a normal book review post in the sense that I put reviews (if only short ones) for The Parasol Protectorate books on Goodreads. However, despite being a series I very much enjoyed and leading me to read several more of Gail Carriger’s books, I can’t see that I ever posted them here on the blog. I’m baffled. So, I’m bringing the reviews from Goodreads to the blog to patch the hole. (I’m approximating dates too.) This is a compilation of the first three books (not the only copy of them I own); I’ve, in fact, read all five.

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Book 1: SOULLESS
Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire — and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Review:

Except for some annoying head hopping, I found this an amusing read of the totally ridiculous type.

Book 2: CHANGELESS
Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears – leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can.

She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

Review:

Still enjoyed the book—Alexia, her batty friends/family, the steampunkness, the narrative tone, etc. However, what I most enjoyed about Soulless was the byplay of Alexia and Conall and you just get so very little of that here. I missed it a lot.

Book 3: BLAMELESS
Quitting her husband’s house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London’s vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires — and they’re armed with pesto.

Review:

Conall: “So, yeah, like despite doing nothing wrong, sorry, I immediately distrusted you, called you horrible names, disparaged your character, rejected you, threw you out of your home such that you were then turned away by your family, shunned by society, dismissed from your position, insulted, emotionally devastated, captured, experimented on, narrowly avoided vivisection and had to fight off numerous attempts at assassination. Tee-hee, my bad. But I’ve forgiven you now. So, hurry up and get naked so we can have some of that ‘bed sport’ you know I love so much.”
“Alexia: “Sure, ok.”

Really Carriger, this is what you offer us? No, thank you.

I still enjoyed Alexia, her friends (Floote & Lyall were the primary redemptive qualities of the whole book), and the sarcastic humour of the series, but Conall has proven himself to be such an ass I may not even continue with the series. And I do not at all feel that he in any way made up for the harm he caused (let alone the potentially fatal position he placed the woman he is supposed to love in).

Nope.

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Book Review of Clockwork Heart (Clockwork Love #1), by Heidi Cullinan

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Clockwork HeartClockwork Heart, by Heidi Cullinan, is one of many books I bought in the sale Samhain Publishing had last year, when they claimed to be closing.

Description from Goodreads:
As the French army leader’s bastard son, Cornelius Stevens enjoys a great deal of latitude. But when he saves an enemy soldier using clockwork parts, he’s well aware he risks hanging for treason. That doesn’t worry him half as much, however, as the realization he’s falling for his patient.

Johann Berger never expected to survive his regiment’s suicide attack on Calais, much less wake up with mechanical parts. To avoid discovery, he’s forced to hide in plain sight as Cornelius’s lover—a role Johann finds himself taking to surprisingly well.

When a threat is made on Cornelius’s life, Johann learns the secret of the device implanted in his chest—a mythical weapon both warring countries would kill to obtain. Caught up in a political frenzy, in league with pirates, dodging rogue spies, mobsters and princesses with deadly parasols, Cornelius and Johann have no time to contemplate how they ended up in this mess. All they know is, the only way out is together—or not at all.

Review:
It kept me entertained for an evening, but I didn’t love it. I struggled with the first half a lot. I felt like the challenge of narrating a story in English, with one character that spoke French and another that spoke German left Cullinan no choice but to tell everything and show almost nothing. Honestly, I almost just gave up on the book. But eventually, after the two men had lived together for months, one finally mentioned he spoke English and the other went, “Oh, I do too.” As if you wouldn’t try every language you know, especially if you speak several, to communicate with the person you’re living with!

Basically, that is the level of believability with this story. I had to suspend a lot of disbelief as either irrational, overly convenient, or just basically unbelievable things happened over and over. This extended to the characters too. I couldn’t get down with Conny’s kinky side. I actually really like that Cullinan allowed a main character to be a slutty, exhibitionist, submissive and allowed a successful romantic pairing that didn’t end in monogamy, but was still presented as good. However, outside of the bedroom (or wherever they were getting down) he came across as a fairly staid, straight-laced sort of chap. So, when he broke out the dirty talk and kinky sex it was jarring. Similarly, I struggled with Johann’s age. He felt much older than 18, but having been in both the army and a pirate, I couldn’t really believe him to have been as oblivious to sex as he is presented as. The villain is evil just because he’s evil. Side characters make amazing sacrifices for unknown reasons, etc.

Again, my point is just that there were a lot of things I had to consciously tell myself to overlook in order to enjoy the story. I did enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. The writing is good, outside of the clunky language issues. The characters are likable, even if their love for one another is a little too solid a little too easily. I like the pairing that was set up for the sequel. I’d read it, happily. But the book didn’t stand out as stellar.

Book Review of Beasts of the Walking City, by Del Law

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You know I love books. I love everything about books. I really do. I have thousands and thousands of them. (Thank you e-readers for making that possible.) But there is a challenge inherent in having so very much of something you love. There are days when I just cant decide what to read. I spend more time scrolling through my To-Read list than I do reading whatever I eventually pick out.

And given this difficulty, sometime I’ll take any little nudge toward a book I can get. So, when my daughter came out of her bedroom recently in a new T-shirt her Nana sent her and I thought, “That looks oddly familiar. I’m sure I have that book,” a decision was made.

T-shirt

Here, have a look. Tell me I’m wrong. I mean, I know it’s not exact. But close enough for jazz, right?

Beasts of the Walking City

Anyhow, I picked up Beasts of the Walking City, by Del Law from Amazon when it was free. It’s been sitting on my Kindle for ages. Sometimes it takes an injection of randomness to bring something to the fore.

Description from Goodreads:
It’s not easy being a color-shifting, bourbon-loving Beast, even when you can travel between your own world and Earth’s past. Even when you’re working for the gangster Al Capone.

Now, Blackwell is on a one-way trip into the ruins of a flying city to steal an ancient craft from one of his world’s biggest gangster families—a family you just don’t want to cross. But the ship is just the beginning, and Blackwell isn’t prepared for everything that comes next. First, he’s hunted by a cult who wants to wipe his race out for good. Then, he’s a pawn stuck between powerful gangster families at each other’s throats. Who can he trust? There’s the beautiful and seductive double-agent named Mircada who will steal his heart? A huge fire-belching family kingpin named Nadrune who wants him for her pet? The mysterious woman Kjat, who loves him—and who’s filling up with crazy demons from another world? The crazed general who’s after him for revenge? (Not him, at least that’s pretty clear.) Then there’s the mystery of a legendary flower that once belonged to his race, a flower that might change the world—if only he can find it.

Review:
Hmmm, so-so; more good than bad, but not stellar. I generally liked this story. The bulk of the writing is fine. I certainly liked the idea and I think the characters. But it’s that, “I think” that is the problem. The author somehow managed to write a (mostly) first person, present tense book and still allow me to finish it feeling like I didn’t know the characters well. How is that even possible?

I say mostly because there are a lot of slip ups where the author dropped into third person or past tense writing instead of first person, present tense; sometime hitting all the variations in one sentence. There were also other copy-editing mistakes. The editing needed quite a bit more work.

I also thought the book felt overly long and I wasn’t always certain what was happening at any given moment. Plus, the whole inclusion of earth and earth items/people was awkward, distracting and not particularly well integrated into the story as a whole.

I’d read another book by Law, but this one felt a bit disjointed and cobbled together on the whole.