Review: Blameless - Gail Carriger

The Parasol Protectorate book 3

Genre: Steampunk romance
Published: September 2010
Pages: 355

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.

I have been waiting for this book since that evil cliffhanger in book 2, the one that had me craving this book. It may not have been an evil cliffhanger in this book, but I still want book 4. But the wait, oh so long.

Spoilers from previous books will follow.

Alexia has moved in with her horrible family after Conall threw her out, that wicked beast, but then he is dead, and she is pregnant. To get to bottom of this she heads to Italy and to try to get some answers from The Templars, who hunts all paranormal things, and thinks she is an abomination. She is also hunted by vampires who wants her dead.

Alexia is as fun as ever, she barely escapes an attempt on her life, and what does she do, well duh, she goes to drink tea to calm her nerves. In this book she spends most of her time of Madam Lefroux, who flirts with her, and loyal servant Floote who has some hidden talents. Sadly not much of the book is between Lord Maccon and Alexia for obvious reasons, though it is fun to see him drunk and upset. And to my uttermost sorrow, almost no Lord Akeldama! He is missed for sure.

The Templars, those Italians, tsk. Not the nicest of people.

It is a fun book as always, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Miss Carriger is sitting there giggling while writing. How could she not. She is so witty.

There is adventure, there is teadrinking, and manners. A lady cannot forget her manners even if attacked. I do love this series, and it was a good book that kept me reading, but I did miss Akeldama. And Conall and Alexia meeting again was in my head as it should be, because those two are not normal.

Favorite quote:

"He wore no cravat, to Floote's obvious dismay. Alexia was, perhaps less shocked by the missing cravat than she should have been."

Blodeuedd's Cover Corner : Love

Reason for reading: Won a pick your book at Janna's Blog, yay. She made my day

Final thoughts; If you haven't started this series then do.

"A Novel of vampires, werewolves and afternoon tea"