re3 - Soulless

I'm not sure what made me desperately wanted to reread the first book in the Parasol Protectorate, Soulless, by Gail Carriger. It's been on my mind that I wanted to reread it for the last year or two but I seem to become desperate to find time to reread this and see if it was as fun as when I first read this back in 2013 (I had to backtrack through the blog to double check my dates but yes, I first read this nearly ten years ago!)

So, for those of you curious, Soulless is set in an alternative, steampunk London where vampires, werewolves and Alexia Tarabotti exist. Alexia Tarabotti has no soul - literally, though you wouldn't see it. All you would see is a spinster with Italian blood and speaks her mind. How very unladylike. 

But when Alexia is attacked by a vampire and accidentally kills it, breaking all social etiquette, she thinks it can't get worse. Boy oh, it does, as the handsome, gruff (and Alpha werewolf) Lord Maccon is sent to investigate by Queen Victoria. 

For you see, vampires are disappearing and new, rogue vampires are appearing. For some reason that no one seems to understand, Alexia keeps herself in trouble because of it. Something is afoot and whether Lord Maccon wants her help or not, Alexia is going to get to the bottom of it with her trusty brass parasol and a good cup of tea.

GoodRead - Soulless

I went away for a week earlier this month. And as I knew I wanted to read from my Kindle, I went to Twitter and asked them to choose my next read. Which was fine... until I got a tie between Soulless by Gail Carriger and Demon Eyes by Scott Tracey. So, after slight panicking, Twitter saved me and picked Soulless (though I am reading Demon Eyes now) so I read this while I was away from real life. 

In a steampunk Victorian London, Alexi Tarabotti has a lot to deal with. Not only does she have to deal with the social etiquette of being a spinster and being half Italian, she's also soulless. And then a vampire tried to attack her. All she did was defend herself, but now she has a dead vampire on her hands and Lord Maccon (loud, Scottish, sexy, and, oh yes, an Alpha werewolf) has to investigate this and investigate unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing on behalf of Queen Victoria. With Alexi always seem to be caught in the middle of this weird mess and the strange heat between her and Lord Maccon, the next few days are going to be interesting. But first, tea and treacle tart.

This was a fun read! I completely adored it! It was the perfect read for a holiday - it was sexy, fun, fluffy. It just worked. It might take a few pages (or, as I read this on my kindle, a few clicks) in for some readers to get the formal language as most of the characters were always full name. 

But, I completely enjoyed it. I got halfway through the eBook, knowing I was going to read the rest of this series and Gail's YA series, Finishing School. Yep, that's how much I enjoyed reading this. It was steampunk that didn't take itself seriously compared to other steampunks I have read (and would I really lass this as steampunk? I know some of you would, but am on the fence on how to class this). 

Anyway, I loved it! And I have already bought the sequel, Changeless, on my Kindle and a few weeks ago, Atom sent me a copy of Gail's first YA series, Etiquette and Espionage (why, thank you Atom!) so, yeah, I might get a bit obsessed with this author in the coming year. Sorry in advance, loyal readers. 

Tiny sidenote, but will trying to Google image a image of the author and the book cover, Google threw up an image of the actor Jamie Dornan (aka the Huntsman from Once Upon A Time). Is he fan's choice for Lord Maccon? Anyway, will show you the pic as... well... because this is my blog and I can!