Soulless

Gail Carriger

Oct 2009 · Sold by Orbit

About this ebook

Buffy meets Jane Austen in the first book of this wickedly funny NYT bestselling series about a young woman whose brush with the supernatural leads to a deadly investigation of London's high society.

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Soulless is the first book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

Ratings and reviews

This book brings a lot of wit, and its style is charming, but after a while, it feels like drinking a gallon of diet soda. The characters lack depth and they overflow with cliche--the gay characters so much so with their limp-wristed fabulousness that borders on offensive. The plot line was deft enough to surprise me, but not intriguing enough in itself to overcome the flat characters.

Gail Carriger creates an intriguing world of colorful characters, enthusiastic side-kicks and a brilliant heroine. She has become a must-read-calendar-the-next-book authors.

This is basically just setup for book two. There are parts that I love and parts that I just skipped over because they seemed to ramble on forever.

About the author

New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London.