Thursday, March 10, 2011

Review: Blameless (Parasol Protectorate #3) by Gail Carriger

Blameless by Gail Carriger

Amazon Product Description:
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.



My thoughts:
I love this series!  I completely enjoyed the first two books and was looking forward to this one!  I was not disappointed!  I was less than thrilled with Lord Maccon's behavior, but of course I was supposed to be.  I was thrilled that Professor Lyall gets to play such a large role in this book.  He has been one of my favorite characters throughout the series and it was great to see him get so much print in this book.


The author once again builds an incredible story that is both believable and too much "the thing".  She continues to create characters that the reader can truly sink their teeth into.  The relationship dynamics between many of the characters are so balanced that it seems one could not stand without the other.  In this third book of the series, suddenly these interdependent characters are playing strong, independent roles - it is pleasantly surprising.


The thing that stands out the most for me is the spectrum of emotion in this story - the reader is sent on a roller coaster ride throughout the story.


I love the end - I am always excited when a series is not over at the end of a book - no one really wants a book to end in a cliff hanger, but I get so involved in the lives of the characters that I just don't want the series to be over.  So, on that note - can't wait for the next one!