Soulless, My New Obsession

Listen up all of you steampunk fans: Gail Carriger's Soulless is your new obsession. Just out last week from Orbit Books (one of my true loves) in mass market paper, it's a fast read and cheap to boot. It's also the start of a series, aptly titled the Parasol Protectorate. Just imagine if Jane Austen, Emily Post, and Bela Lugosi had a lovechild. Voila! Gore, but with gloves on and a chaperone.

The story centers on Alexia Tarabotti, a whipsmart firecracker of a character. She inhabits Victorian London but in a world vastly different than our own: Vampires and Werewolves, amongst other things, are a part of civilized society. Alexia becomes very rudely involved in a vampire murder and is then thrown into the company of the (AMAZING!) Lord Maccon, who just happens to be a close associate of the Queen, as well as a strikingly handsome werewolf. Hijinx of the best kind ensue: espionage, flamboyant vampires, uninvited advances, and streetside groping, oh my!

Alexia is my new favorite character in fiction right now. She breaks the mold much like Austen's beloved Elizabeth Bennet (sp?) did because of her unwillingness to be anyone but herself. She is on the verge of becoming a spinster and has nothing left to lose by becoming involved in the paranormal underworld (she's already soulless!) is smart, sassy, has no "filter", and is a refreshing new voice in literature. Think Sookie Stackhouse with a corset and shot-filled parasol.

There is nothing like it out right now (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters may come close but not quite) and I dare you not to giggle like a schoolgirl (and guffaw like a loon) when you read it.