Heartless by Gail Carriger
Nov. 28th, 2011 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Lady Alexia, Soulless, is at it again – only this time the trouble in the air is not her fault.
When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband’s past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux’s latest mechanical invention and a plague of zombie porcupines – and Alexia barely has time to remember she just happens to be eight months pregnant.
Will she be able to figure out who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it’s too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf’s clothing? And do they really have to take up residence in Lord Akeldama’s second best closet?
Reunited with her husband, Conall, Lady Alexia Maccon is eight-months pregnant and irritated by both the disruption caused to her life by the infant inconvenience and particularly her doctor’s recommendation that she confine herself to bed. Confinement is out of the question however when she’s visited by a ghost driven insane by impending degeneration, which warns her of an attempt on the life of the queen.
It’s Alexia’s duty to investigate as mujah, but this is difficult when her awful sister, Felicity, is thrown out by their parents for her activities with the suffragettes, Alexia is targeted for assassination by zombie porcupines controlled by vampires opposed to her ever giving birth and she can’t even turn to Madame Lefoux for help because the investor’s locked herself away on a secret project.
As Alexia races to identify and stop the mystery assassin, it becomes apparent that there’s a traitor within her inner circle, a traitor who seems intent on selling out Alexia’s secrets to her enemies ..
The fourth in Gail Carriger’s enjoyable Parasol Protectorate Series was, for me, a disappointing affair. Carriger’s maintained her light touch and there’s plenty of humour derived from Alexia’s adventures and particularly her irritation at the limitations posed by her pregnancy. There’s also plenty of Lord Akeldama, who I love and who comes to an accommodation with Alexia and her pregnancy dilemma, which I won’t spoil but does involve his second best closet.
The problem for me is that there’s no urgency to the plot at all, with Alexia frequently diverted by other matters, including Biffy’s failure to adjust to his werewolf status and Felicity’s flirtation with the suffragette movement. The twist was easy to guess and I felt the absence of Madame Lefoux, the reason for which becomes apparent in the last quarter and which seemed entirely out of her character not least because of the forced lack of conversation between them.
All in all this book is essentially a set-up for the next in the series. Certainly there are major changes within Alexia’s world, which should make TIMELESS a good read when it’s released in 2012, but the process of establishing these changes resulted in a meandering read which wasn’t in keeping with the quality of the first three books in this series. I’ve got high hopes for TIMELESS but HEARTLESS was a blip (albeit an okay read) for me.
The Verdict:
Having greatly enjoyed Gail Carriger’s previous three books in the Parasol Protectorate series, I found this a bit of a disappointment. There’s a lot of set up here, which made for a plot that meandered a little too much but my main problem was the Madame Lefoux sub-plot which just seemed entirely out of character for her based on the previous books. I think that the changes that are in place by the end of the book are interesting and I’ve got high hopes for the next book, TIMELESS, but this book never rose above okay and it left me a little disappointed.
When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband’s past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux’s latest mechanical invention and a plague of zombie porcupines – and Alexia barely has time to remember she just happens to be eight months pregnant.
Will she be able to figure out who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it’s too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf’s clothing? And do they really have to take up residence in Lord Akeldama’s second best closet?
Reunited with her husband, Conall, Lady Alexia Maccon is eight-months pregnant and irritated by both the disruption caused to her life by the infant inconvenience and particularly her doctor’s recommendation that she confine herself to bed. Confinement is out of the question however when she’s visited by a ghost driven insane by impending degeneration, which warns her of an attempt on the life of the queen.
It’s Alexia’s duty to investigate as mujah, but this is difficult when her awful sister, Felicity, is thrown out by their parents for her activities with the suffragettes, Alexia is targeted for assassination by zombie porcupines controlled by vampires opposed to her ever giving birth and she can’t even turn to Madame Lefoux for help because the investor’s locked herself away on a secret project.
As Alexia races to identify and stop the mystery assassin, it becomes apparent that there’s a traitor within her inner circle, a traitor who seems intent on selling out Alexia’s secrets to her enemies ..
The fourth in Gail Carriger’s enjoyable Parasol Protectorate Series was, for me, a disappointing affair. Carriger’s maintained her light touch and there’s plenty of humour derived from Alexia’s adventures and particularly her irritation at the limitations posed by her pregnancy. There’s also plenty of Lord Akeldama, who I love and who comes to an accommodation with Alexia and her pregnancy dilemma, which I won’t spoil but does involve his second best closet.
The problem for me is that there’s no urgency to the plot at all, with Alexia frequently diverted by other matters, including Biffy’s failure to adjust to his werewolf status and Felicity’s flirtation with the suffragette movement. The twist was easy to guess and I felt the absence of Madame Lefoux, the reason for which becomes apparent in the last quarter and which seemed entirely out of her character not least because of the forced lack of conversation between them.
All in all this book is essentially a set-up for the next in the series. Certainly there are major changes within Alexia’s world, which should make TIMELESS a good read when it’s released in 2012, but the process of establishing these changes resulted in a meandering read which wasn’t in keeping with the quality of the first three books in this series. I’ve got high hopes for TIMELESS but HEARTLESS was a blip (albeit an okay read) for me.
The Verdict:
Having greatly enjoyed Gail Carriger’s previous three books in the Parasol Protectorate series, I found this a bit of a disappointment. There’s a lot of set up here, which made for a plot that meandered a little too much but my main problem was the Madame Lefoux sub-plot which just seemed entirely out of character for her based on the previous books. I think that the changes that are in place by the end of the book are interesting and I’ve got high hopes for the next book, TIMELESS, but this book never rose above okay and it left me a little disappointed.
