Last books of June

Just a quick update from my phone (sorry about the messy format. I wish blogger would address this issue) to show you the latest books I have added to my bookshelves.

On Saturday I dropped by a local charity shop and found The Dark Griffin by K.J. Taylor.  This is the first book in The Fallen Moon trilogy.  I've been looking for this book for almost 18 months, but nothing - well, not for a reasonable price anyway - and there it was.  Practically the first thing I saw.  So lucky to find this.

Next, at the same charity shop, I saw a copy of Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey.  Cover is so colorful and stylized that I had to get it.  I'm sure I'll enjoy it as I do love fantasy.

And finally, my postman dropped off my copy of The Quick by Lauren Owen yesterday.  This sounds like an interesting story, a Victorian Gothic mystery from what I remember.

I still have one more book I'm expecting in the mail this week.  A steampunk if I remember correctly.  Then I need to pre-order two books for series I'm reading.  A neverending cycle ;-D

Book Review - Gilded

Gilded
The St. Croix Chronicles #2
Karina Cooper

Published: January 2013

AVON, mass market pbk, 372p.
ISBN: 978-0-06-212766-2

In the gleaming heights of Victorian London, a world of deceptin awaits an uncovnentional Society lady whose taste for adventure makes her a most formidable adversary...

Though Society demands that I make a good marriage, I, Cherry St. Croix, have neither the time nor the interest.  Iam on the trail of a murder with no victim, a mystery with no motive, and the key to an alchemical formula that could be my family's legacy.

Yet the world is not so kind as to let me pursue simple murder and uncomplicated bounties.  Above the foggy drift, an earl insists on my attention, while my friends watch my increasingly desperate attempts to remain my own woman.  From the silken demands of the Midnight Menagerie - to whose dangerously seductive ringmaster I owe a debt - to the rigorous pressures of the peerage, all are conspiring to place before me a choice that will forever change my life.

I just don't think I can convey to you just how much I detested, disliked and or how much this book disappointed me.  So for that reason, be warned that there are no warm and fuzzy feelings in the below review ;-D

I picked this copy of Gilded up at a local booksale {see here} and I'm so grateful that I didn't pay more than $1 for this absolutely depressing book.  While the cover art depicts a suitably Victorian/paranormal - edging towards a slight Steampunk vibe - it does little to make up for this story.  Which was surprising given the suitably dark and mysterious atmosphere that the author was able to convey.   {note, that was my only positive point about Gilded!}

The characters were tolerable at best, and our main protagonist, Lady Cherry St. Croix, was nothing more than an adventure seeking drug addict who had a penchant for opium and laundenum to escape her worries.  Now I haven't read book one - and I have absolutely no desire to - but I think her drug use stems from something that occured during that book.  Nethertheless, I really dislike reading about characters who rely on drugs to get through their days.  Also, as an heiress, she is supposed to be at least competent in society, but I found her floundering in social situations to be just stupid.  She would have been brought up to cope with any verbal riposte.

Other characters that we are introduced to did nothing for me, and I couldn't feel any emotional connection, and therefore didn't give a sh*t about any of them.

The ending was just plain crappy.  After investing in the book, a reader likes to get an emotional payoff rather than the character falling totally from grace and doing a complete 180° in social standing and fortune (from what happens).  Why couldn't it have ended on a high note with the wedding, and have the sh*t hit the fan at the beginning of the next book?

WILL NOT BE READING ANY MORE OF THIS SERIES!

 

 

 (for cover art, and Victorian setting alone)

Until next time,

 

Steampunk... whuh?

Okay, I've never given much thought about Steampunk.  It always sounded too sci-fi for me, that is until I took the advice of one of the guys at my old bookshop.  Although I was still hesitant about trying it, the cover was so intriguing I thought "what the hell?"

I don't regret my decision.  The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger (love the logo) is truly wonderful.  It is full of the customary corsets and carriages, teapots and tiaras, that one expects from a period series, but don't let the Victorian setting put you off from reading this awesome series.  Our heroine kicks butt with her jumped up hi-tech parasol.

For those of us who adore a little supernatural spice, you will get your fill of werewolves, vampires and other things that go bump in the night - rest assured that they play a major part in the storyline.  The central story revolves around a bluestocking, Alexia Tarabotti.  A lady of Italian extraction, who just happens to be soulless.  Her curse, if that is how one wishes to view it, is that if she touches another supernatural being, they become human - and can be killed.

And if that didn't set her apart enough, then Alexia has the most superficial and gossip-mongering family.  If I was in Alexia's shoes I would have tried to do away with them long before now. . . hint hint




And yes, I know it's actually 'An Alexia Tarabotti Novel', but it doesn't have the same ring as the Parasol Protectorate does it :D



About the Books

So far there are four books available in the Parasol Protectorate series, with Timeless being released on 28 Feb 2012;

Soulless

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 a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

Changeless

Alexia Tarabotti, 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 investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can.

She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.


Blameless

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.


Heartless

Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble 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 happens to be eight months pregnant.

Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf's clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama's second best closet?


Timeless

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

UPDATE - this does seem to be the last book in the series {searching for tissues to sniffle into} however Ms Carriger is planning another series set in the same funky Victorian period, only 25 years earlier, and at a Finishing School.

About the Author

Ms. Carriger began writing in order 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 now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by a harem of Armenian lovers, where she insists on tea imported directly from London and cats that pee into toilets. She is fond of teeny tiny hats and tropical fruit. Find out more about the author at gailcarriger.com


PS all book descriptions and author bio were taken from Amazon.  The bio is the same in the back of the books, but it just saved time to cut and paste.