(Also, I'm only going to talk about the Parasol Protectorate books - I reread the Finishing School books more recently, so they'll get a separate review. Not sure if I'm going to do them individually or together yet, though.)
Photo cred: here
Do you like vampires, werewolves, Victorian romances, and alternate historical timelines? Then everything about this series is for you.
The protagonist is Alexia Tarabotti, a preternatural. Preternaturals are basically the opposite of supernaturals like vampires and werewolves - they have no soul, while supernaturals have an excess. (The excess of soul is what allows people to become supernatural in the first place.) Alexia can turn a vampire or werewolf human if they make skin-to-skin contact, though no one really understands how or why that occurs. Since she's a woman of decent social standing, the Bureau of Unnatural Registry mostly just wants to keep her out of the way of their day-to-day operations.
Which is all well and good until they remember that Alexia is awesome at not following instructions.
Alexia is also naturally curious and very well-read on current scientific theories, making her an almighty pest to Lord Conall Maccon, the head of BUR. (Can you tell where this is going?) They fight, banter, and bicker like an old married couple, yet somehow manage to have some spectacular miscommunications about their true feelings for each other. It also doesn't help that Lord Maccon's an Alpha werewolf, and thus has different protocols for courtship than Alexia is used to.
On top of all the romantic turmoil, Alexia's being followed around London by strange automatons that no one can seem to trace back to their owners. BUR can't send their usual agents to watch over her on the night of the full moon, naturally, so she goes to visit her vampire friend Lord Akeldama then. He's one of the oldest vampires around, so she figures it'll be a pretty safe visit.
Until the automatons strike, kidnapping both of them. When Alexia awakens, she's in an unfamiliar house full of mad scientists who'd like to use her preternatural abilities to terminate supernatural beings for good, starting with Lord Akeldama. Oh, and they've also kidnapped Conall and the rest of his pack, too. Alexia's options are limited, but with a little ingenuity, she manages to get to Conall and work together to save their loved ones.
And that's just book one.
Books two through five take Alexia all over the world as she discovers new facets and limitations of her abilities, such as her reaction to the mysterious God-Breaker Plague and what exactly happens when a supernatural man and a preternatural woman have unprotected sex. Even when she'd like them too, the adventures just never really stop for Alexia and her friends.
So there's the rundown of the plot. Still need convincing?
How about this: basically none of Alexia's friends are heterosexual. Lord Akeldama's gay and keeps a coven full of handsome dandies, as is Professor Lyall, Conall's Beta. Alexia's own father had affairs with both men and women, though she never actually knew the man, and Alexia's close friend Genevieve Lefoux is a lesbian who is not subtle about her attraction to Alexia. (Heck, Alexia even experiences a little attraction of her own to Genevieve, but she quashes it down because she's married.) There's also a love story that develops between Lord Akeldama, his favorite coven member Biffy, and Professor Lyall, though not until a little later in the series.
What's best, though, is that none of the tension is caused by someone realizing they're gay and then spiraling into a shame crisis because of the era. While I wouldn't say any of the homosexual characters are announcing their sexualities from the rooftops, they're also not using each other as beards to keep up any charades. More of the problems are caused by vampire-werewolf relations than anything else, and I love that.
All of the characters are genuinely entertaining, too. Alexia's best friend Ivy speaks in malapropisms constantly, Lord Akeldama uses the most ridiculous endearments, and Alexia's mother and stepsisters can be almost caricatureish in their adherence to proper standards of behavior sometimes. The mishmash of characters and settings is set aloft by Carriger's writing, too, which is reminiscent of actual Victorian novels but with a decidedly modern sense of humor.
The final thing I want to mention about these novels is how cool I find the concept. Instead of keeping the supernatural in hiding like in every other vampire/werewolf novel, Carriger puts them at the forefront of society. Vampires dictate what's trendy. Werewolves are the premier military leaders. Ghosts can be used to investigate crimes. There's also some pushback from more conservative groups like the mad scientists I mentioned earlier or the Knights Templar, who fear the supernatural and want to send them back into hiding/eradicate them as is God's will. It's really interesting to me to see how Carriger reinterprets actual history to include supernatural creatures and how that would change things, and I'm hoping her upcoming Custard Protocol series expands more on that.
Overall, the Parasol Protectorate novels are a flurry of fun, adventure, and romance, and I want them to become movies already. Five stars.
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