GAIL CARRIGER - SPOTLIGHT SATURDAY # 6 - ADULT STEAMPUNK ROMANCE - ORBIT

SPOTLIGHT SATURDAY # 6

GAIL CARRIGER

PARASOL PROTECTORATE SERIES

GOODREADS

Watch this vid. It really explains a lot that I haven't. 

The Parasol Protectorate series is abso...lute...ly brilliant.

Victorian era , steampunk.

Funny, clever, sub characters totally rock.

Lord Maccon is growl worthy and he has some very funny moments.

Alexia Tarabotti is a brilliant female lead. 

When I first started reading Soulless, I had to start again.

Why?

Gail is a very clever writer. She really puts you inside her Victorian steampunk world she has built and she has this voice on Alexia that at first I had to go back and reread the first couple chapters.

You see, I needed to slide into Alexia's head with how she talks. In the end I was walking around the house talking like Alexia. 

Alexia is very proper, but also...

She is an extremely likable character that keeps you turning the pages.

Alexia really is a 3D character. 

Lord Akeldama is the most hilarious character, he is a gay vampire lord who has the funniest lines. I love him so much.

This is a series you could read over and over. It is very colourful and Alexia and Conall Maccon will make you laugh at what they get up to. 

Alexia is simply brilliant how she handles all the shenanigans thrown at her.

Here is a snippet from my Soulless review :

What a funny, witty tale about a half Italian spinster named Alexia Tarabotti ..... her parasol.... werewolves, vampires , steamy advances including neck nibbling.... * waggles eyebrows* . Throw in a rather flamboyant rove vampire with a fashion sense to outshine the cleverest Parisian designer, Biffy and some well built Lord Akeldama worshipping dandies, a scientist or two... a plump Queen of the Westminster Hive , a professor, a dash of steampunk and a rather embarrassing family and you have a cleverly written story.

Gail had me laughing out loud, smiling a great deal and fanning myself at the very Scottish, Lord Conall Maccon, Earl of Woolsey.

I did chuckle out loud when Lord Maccon swore, behaved in a most serious manner around Alexia and quite frankly felt he needed to sit her upon his lap on more than one occasion. HA!

The supporting characters were so much fun . Floote is a must have. I want a butler like him, he is more proficient than Alfred attending to Batman. To have a knowledgeable friend like Lord Akeldama, he was such fun to be around and Professor Lyall, Lord Maccon’s Beta was a fitting second to his Alpha....after all a Beta has to be able to be forthright and tell his Alpha when he is in need of grovelling.

Alexia Tarabotti is just one of the most intelligent, witty and brave, never dull for one moment female characters. Her banter and forwardness with Lord Maccon, only she could get away with talking to the Alpha like she did. Alexia was never one to shy away from her opinion. They are one of my favorite couplings.

You can read my reviews HERE just scroll down to read in order.

I have read the first four books, but I just realized I only wrote reviews for the first three. I must go back and recap Heartless and write my review. 

I liken Gail's writing to , throwing Kristen Ashley's Rock Chick - Indy Savage into a Victorian steampunk world and letting her run about with vampires, werewolves getting up to all sorts of mayhem with a Parasol for thwacking.

Both authors know how to bring so much humor and wit to their clever writing, whilst juggling a pile of sub characters that paint the pages with color.

I have yet to read Timeless the conclusion to this fantastic series. It is one of my end of series phobias I have. This year my personal challenge is to read 2 books each month that are the last books in a series to get over my list of last books I need to read.

This series is a smashing good time and I highly recommend it. I put quite a few readers onto it when I was reading it at the time and they loved it. Even one of the guy bloggers gave it a read and loved it. 

Gail really has class when writing this series and her wit is outstanding.

Gail also has a YA series titled, Finishing School. I have both books to date in the series, I just need to read them.

Check out the trailer below
So cool!!

FINISHING SCHOOL

GOODREADS

I knew at one stage she was writing another series with Alexia's daughter being the main character. I just saw the cover for book one in The Custard Protocol series titled - Prudence.

Due Release - 17th March 2015

I can't wait to read what antics Prudence gets up to.

If she is anything like her mother. 

HA!!

And if she has Lord Maccon's personality... it should make for a very memorable ride.

Prudence - Blurb

From New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger comes a new novel in the world of the Parasol Protectorate starring Prudence, the daughter of Alexia Tarabotti.

When Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama (Rue to her friends) is given an unexpected dirigible, she does what any sensible female would under similar circumstances - names it the Spotted Crumpet and floats to India in pursuit of the perfect cup of tea. But India has more than just tea on offer. Rue stumbles upon a plot involving local dissidents, a kidnapped brigadier's wife, and some awfully familiar Scottish werewolves. Faced with a dire crisis and an embarrassing lack of bloomers, what else is a young lady of good breeding to do but turn metanatural and find out everyone's secrets, even thousand-year-old fuzzy ones?

GAIL'S WEB PAGE

Her page is always good fun. 

She loves the era. 

You will see what I mean when you check her page out .

FACEBOOK

Check out the images she has on there. 

She adores the era she writes in.

Michelle

BOOK REVIEW - BLAMELESS by GAIL CARRIGER - THE PARASOL PROTECTORATE # 3

By : Gail Carriger
Published By : Orbit Books
Released : Available Now
Details : Paperback, 355 Pages

RATING : 4 SLOSHED STARS!!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

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.
 

BOOK REVIEW:

Thwack ! Thwack! Thwack! .....I’m imagining a certain person and family getting a thwacking from me.... well they all deserve a good thwacking...

Lots more shenanigans going on in ‘Blameless’, no homing pigeons needed just look for Fatty , ladybugs abound, Lord Maccon is rather pickled and Professor Lyall has his hands full babysitting a broken heart. Emmet Wilberforce Bootbottle – Fipps has a message and Madame Lefoux and her mustache take a liberty. There’s a bit of swarming going on and Biffy is in a bit of bother. Mudslinging is a nasty business that would be dealt with best head held high, whilst controlling an epileptic pink hat box.


The infant, inconvenience, is well, being inconvenient, whilst its father is downing formaldehyde and crunchy bits, singing bad Opera and being rather a nuisance to Randolph. Word has got around and a challenge has been sort for the title of Alpha that poor Randolph must protect, whilst solving the conundrums that are popping up, left , right and centre. Cravats are in need of straightening and Lord Akeldama is nowhere to be found.


Magpie is left in charge with a new fashion garnering attention and a craving for pesto is a must and bloomer showing Ornithopter seating can’t be helped.


The female specimen is well..a specimen that some nightgown embroidered wearing Italians need observed, ya!

Vampires are in a tizzy being rather insistent , whilst a masked rescuer who is sometimes a hairy beasty, slips in and out of diabolical situations in the name of keeping Alexia and co safe.


When one finally comes to their senses, will it be too late.....?

I can't wait for 'Heartless' to arrive in the mail. I just adore this series as it is a lot of fun to read, just a great time had with all the characters and their personalities.

I think loyal to the core, dependable Professor Lyall needs a vacation after his efforts in 'Blameless'.

FAVE QUOTES:

“My darling Chamomile Button!” he wrote. “I received your card, and given recent intelligence, it has occurred to me that you may be in ever-increasing need of accommodation but were far too polite to request it openly. Let me tender my most humble offer, to the only person in all of England currently thought more outrageous than myself.”


“Na drunk,” insisted his lordship, throwing one substantial arm across his Beta’s shoulders and leaning heavily upon it. “ Jush a tiny little slightly small bit’a squiffy.”



“You managed to break back into my specimen collection, didn’t you? Really, my lord, those were the last of my samples.”

“Ish good stuff, fermaldathdie.”



Lord Maccon came over slightly sober once more. “ That pansy. Missing, is he? Good. He reminds me of a limp custard filling, all cream and no crust. Never could understand what Alexia saw in that pointy-toothed ninnyhammer. My wife! Cavorting about with a crustless vampire. Least I know he isna the father.”



“Given that our Alpha is pursuing a new and glorious career as an imbecilic twit, we must prepare for the worst.”



“You are becoming, shall we say , of the biscuit inclination, my lord. “Lord Maccon took a deep breath and then sucked on his teeth, “ Gone loopy , have I ?”



“Necessity sometimes demands a sacrifice, young Randolph. Can I call you Randy? Or would you prefer, Dolphy? Dolly, perhaps? “ Professor Lyall flinched noticeably. “Anyway , as I was saying, Dolly....”

Michelle

BOOK REVIEW - CHANGELESS by GAIL CARRIGER - THE PARASOL PROTECTORATE # 2

By : Gail Carriger
Published By : Orbit Books
Released : Available Now
Details : Paperback, 374 Pages

RATING : 4.5 THWACKING STARS!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

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.




BOOK REVIEW:


I must start by saying what positively priceless character names, Ms Gail uses in her books. After that rather classic introduction to Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings , ( I just like to say his name over and over..hee..hee.), ‘Changeless’ just got better and better. Alexia never one to back down had Tunstell ready to enact a swoon...Ha!... and Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings ( it just rolls off the tongue) ready to..... well .... I’m not sure truly what he was about to do...but it wasn’t going to be earning him any brownie points with Lord Maccon. I tell you what though that Parasol comes in mighty handy for ‘thwacking’....Ha!


Ms Gail made me laugh many times with her characters. Biffy of the frivolous persuasion, always seems to be around when Lord Maccon is in need of clothing..lol!.. and I think a tad reluctant to oblige him.


I love Madame Lefoux , a new character, she adds a wonderful side dish to the book and someone Lord Akeldama has not been privy to an introduction... this simply must be rectified.


A visit from Alexia’s mama, a bit of discombobulating later and she found herself with Felicity in her charge.


There is a bit of a mystery underfoot that needs Lord Maccon to dash off to Scotland with not so much as a word to Alexia except to go to a Hat shop , leaving her to take matters into her own hands and follow in hot pursuit..afloat a dirigible. ( I did have to google that one).


Oh the shinnanigans on the dirigible with Madame Lefoux, Miss Hisselpenny, Tunstell ( chaperoning of the ladies, highly necessary) , Felicity ( rolls eyes) and Angelique .


Upon arriving in Scotland , Castle Kingair makes for dusty accommodations and unrest amongst the alphaless Kingair pack in residence.


There is a whole bunch of snooping, shooting, canoodling and ...well ....somebody * raises eyebrow* needed a good thwacking with a certain parasol.......*shakes head*.


I highly recommend having all books available ready to read one after the other as once you finish Changeless, you are going to be grabbing for Blameless, if you don’t have it ready to crack open, don’t say I didn’t warn you because the ending is a corker.

FAVE QUOTES:


His approach was unique this time. He was squirming his way up under the covers from the foot of the bed toward where she lay. Alexia’s newly opened eyes met the ludicrous sight of an enormous lump of bedclothes, swaying back and forth like some sort of encumbered jellyfish, laboring toward her. She was lying on her side, and his chest hair tickled the backs of her legs. He was lifting up her nightgown as he went. A little kiss whiskered just behind one knee, and Alexia jerked her leg in reaction. It tickled something dreadful.

She flipped the blankets and glared down at him. “What are you doing, you ridiculous man? You are acting like some sort of deranged mole.”

“Being stealthy , my little terror. Do I not seem stealthy?”He spoke with mock affront.



“Miss Hisselpenny is always upset over something. You are a different matter. You don’t do these kinds of things, wife. You are not that feminine.”



He lay back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head, looking at her out of predatory eyes. There was no denying it – impossible man her husband, but also a terribly sexy beast.



“Oh, good,” said his wife, “ you are awake. What took you so long?”

“Hello, my dear. What have you done now?”

Michelle

BOOK REVIEW - SOULLESS by GAIL CARRIGER - PARASOL PROTECTORATE # 1

By : Gail Carriger
Published By : Orbit Books
Released : Available Now
Details : Paperback , 357 Pages

RATING : 4.5 Nibbling Lord Maccon Stars!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

Without a morsel of exaggeration, its publisher describes this debut novel as "a comedy of manners set in Victorian London full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking." At the center of Soulless's "parasol protectorate" is Miss Alexia Tarabotti, a young woman who lacks not only a suitor but also a soul. And those are not her only problems: When she accidentally kills a vampire, it begins a series of events that she must set out to resolve without the help of any proper authorities. A charming mass market original.

BOOK REVIEW:


What a funny, witty tale about a half Italian spinster named Alexia Tarabotti ..... her parasol.... werewolves, vampires , steamy advances including neck nibbling.... * waggles eyebrows* . Throw in a rather flamboyant rove vampire with a fashion sense to outshine the cleverest Parisian designer, Biffy and some well built Lord Akeldama worshipping dandies, a scientist or two... a plump Queen of the Westminster Hive , a professor, a dash of steampunk and a rather embarrassing family and you have a cleverly written story. Gail had me laughing out loud, smiling a great deal and fanning myself at the very Scottish, Lord Conall Maccon, Earl of Woolsey.


I did chuckle out loud when Lord Maccon swore, behaved in a most serious manner around Alexia and quite frankly felt he needed to sit her upon his lap on more than one occasion. HA!


The supporting characters were so much fun . Floote is a must have. I want a butler like him, he is more proficient than Alfred attending to Batman. To have a knowledgeable friend like Lord Akeldama, he was such fun to be around and Professor Lyall, Lord Maccon’s Beta was a fitting second to his Alpha.....after all a Beta has to be able to be forthright and tell his Alpha when he is in need of grovelling.


Alexia Tarabotti is just one of the most intelligent, witty and brave, never dull for one moment female characters. Her banter and forwardness with Lord Maccon, only she could get away with talking to the Alpha like she did. Alexia was never one to shy away from her opinion. They are one of my favourite couplings.


I am looking forward to opening up Changeless and finding out what they are up to.


‘Soulless’ is a most deliciously entertaining read that I highly recommend. I did find getting into the swing of Carriger’s writing style a tad different, at first read. After a couple chapters I was totally immersed in her writing style and looking forward to reading the whole series. ‘Soulless’ was a book to be read in the manner it was intended, a humorous read with a tad of darkness and strong characters with amusing dialogue. She kept with the sensibilities of the era but allowed her characters to roam a bit freer, allowing them to stand out. I can only assume that Gail Carriger has a most humorous personality that has flowed over into her writing. What fun , laughter filled days she must have writing her stories.





FAVE QUOTES:


The earl abruptly looked more livid than tired. “ Do you , by George! What has he been luring you in with? Little pip-squeak, I shall wallop his scrawny hide to ribbons.”





Her landing mattress squirmed and growled. “ Good God , woman! Shift off.”




She jerked back. “What are you....?”

“Only way to keep you quiet,” he grumbled, taking her chin in a firmer grip and planting his mouth atop hers once more.



Silence.

“ I kissed her,” he explained, aggrieved.

“Mmm, yes, I had the dubious pleasure of witnessing that, ah-hem, overly public occurrence.” Lyall sharpened his pen nib, using a small copper blade that ejected from the end of his glassicals.

“Well! Why hasn’t she done anything about it?” the Alpha wanted to know.

“You mean like whack you upside the noggin with that deadly parasol of hers? ......

Lord Maccon looked petulant. “ I mean like attempt to talk to me, or perhaps not talk at all but simply drag me off somewhere....”





“Hello, princess,” said Lord Maccon to the vampire.

“Got yourself into quite a pickle this time, didn’t you?”

Lord Akeldama looked him up and down. ‘My sweet young naked boy, you are hardly one to talk. Not that I mind, of course.”

Michelle