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.

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.