Finally time for another Sunday Salon blog post.
At the same time this wil also be my entry for the awesome Big Fat Contest Gail Carriger has going on on her blog. So here we go:
From the back:
Alexia Maccon, 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 investigastions take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only a soulles can.
She might even find time to track down her wayward husband – if she feels like it.
Just like Soulless, this book grabbed me by my throat, pulled me in and did not let me stop reading until I finished the last sentence. Changeless is more about the steampunk and less about the romance, although we do hear some disturbing news from Miss Hesselpenny, feel sorry for Mr. Tunstell and want to smack Alexia’s sister Felicity on the back of her head for her disturbing behaviour.
In the book we meet some new characters but we also find the trusty voices of Lord Akeldama, Professor Randoph Lyall, Tunstell and off course Miss Ivy Hisselpenny. One of the new voices is that of Madame Lefoux. I liked her from the beginning. She was so “my kinda girl.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Alexia, but she is still a lady, with her dresses, manners and decorum. Genevieve Lefoux does not wear dresses, or not very often, she is an inventor and she has a hat shop. I love hats. A few years ago when I was under the influence of the miniature-bug I made lots and lots of 1:12 scaled hats. And Madame Lefoux does what Madame Lefoux likes, and does not give much about the decorum. I like that.
My favourite scene from this book was however when Alexia met Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings. It was hilarious, tears from laughter kept going down my cheeks. That man! Dan_e and me have made a sobriquet out of Laurell K. Hamilton’s character Richard in the Anita Blake series. Because we don’t like Richard very much. So every whining, complaining but also pathetic and/or prejudiced man, we call a “Richard.” Angel is a Richard until he got his own series, Riley is a Richard and yes, Channing Channing is also a Richard. Again I say: That man! In this scene I so loved Alexia. Way to go girl!
I’ve read several reviews for Changeless and the one thing they all have in common is being flabbergasted by the end. The cliff hanger that made them all feel in awe. I was not. I am one of those people who read the last pages of the book after I finished a few in the beginning. Have you seen the film Alex and Emma with Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson? I’m like that Emma. If I don’t read the end globally I tend to read too fast and I skip sentences just to know how it ends. If I know the end, I can read more slowly, enjoy the book and the path the author has taken to get me there. In this case, Gail Carriger put me on a roller-coaster en made me read on and on, until I finished it. Kudo’s for Gail, because its the way I like to read my books.
In Dyer Consequences Kelly has finally admitted she really likes Steve more than just a friend and she and him are making plans to build a whole new house up on the hills, but it seems someone does not agree with those plans. Kelly finds the windshields of her car cracked and her little cottage stained with red paint. She is scared but hopes it’s random vandalism by some gang from up north.
