Since I’ve loved this entire series, now, and can’t wait for the next installment to come out (according to Amazon, that won’t happen until June 28, and I’m having a hard time containing myself in my excitement over its release!), I can’t avoid this third book in Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series–despite my hesitation due to potential spoilers… I have to figure, though, that if you’re looking for a recommendation on whether to continue reading, that you already know Alexia had been settling into happily married life with the Earl of Woolsey until the very end of the last book. At which point she’s thrown out on her ear.
So this book starts with Alexia re-acclimating herself to living with her silly mother and sisters and the scandal attached to her rather public disagreement with her husband.
As usual, events accelerate quickly from the sour domesticity that introduces the tale, and soon Alexia is having to rely on friends from the previous books to help her find an explanation for the “inconvenience” brought on by her husband’s enthusiastic pursuit of marital relations.
We learn more about the politics of vampires and werewolves, as Alexia is restored to the Shadow Council in absentia, but the bulk of the story deals with the supernatural community’s obsession of what the result of the mating might be. Through the device of an unsavory scientist we learn even more about the “science of soul”.
This book cements Carriger’s status as a talented author with a unique (and British-dry humorous!) tone and style, who offers a tale with fascinating implications about the nature of soul. I’m absolutely hooked, and again have no hesitation recommending the book for anyone interested in alternate history, steampunk, or urban fantasy genres.