Yes yes this is a Gothic romance novel spoof dressed up like a vampire/werewolf/steampunk alt-reality intrigue adventure novel. And that is what Soulless by Gail Carriger really is. My apologies to the authors who have contacted me in the past to review supernatural romance novels. I’m still not going to be interested in your werewolf romance novel with explicit and sometimes non-consensual sex scenes. Sorry about this in the future as well. At the same time, I do like a good Gothic novel here and there, and when it happens to be delivered with a sharp wit, it’s all the better.
Here’s the set-up: Alexia Tarabotti has no soul (hence the title). She lives in an alt-historical version of Victorian England, and is best described as a youngish spinster with too much nose, too much personality, and maybe a little too much of some other things, including a pair of rotten step-sisters. Soulless begins with Alexia fending off the advances of and then accidentally killing a rogue vampire in a library during a social event. Before too long, handsome werewolf head-of-supernatural-policing-agency (it’s not important) shows up, and sparks fly. It turns out that they already know each other, to their mutual chagrin. Since this is a romance novel, the two spend the rest of the book alternately investigating the mystery of the rogue vampire and annoying the heck out of each other, until BAM!
In this alt-history Victorian England, vampires and werewolves have come out of hiding and live among mortals. Alexia, being a human without a soul, is an even more rare bird, and has the ability to make vampires and werewolves turn mortal by touching them. The mystery of the book arises because nobody can figure out where the vampire that Alexia accidentally dispatched has come from. Further investigation leads to hints of an underground conspiracy as our protagonists discover that vampires and werewolves are disappearing from around England. Before too long, our heroes find themselves in alarmingly dire circumstances. Will they escape from the clutches of the conspirators?
Dear reader, if you haven’t figured out that I like trashy fiction yet, let this be your final clue: I absolutely loved this novel. It has almost everything: Vampires, humor, werewolves, adventure, social scandal, erotic sex scenes, and two main characters that rub each other the wrong way until they rub each other the so-right-how-can-this-be-wrong way. I liked this book so much that I immediately ordered my rat army to acquire the next two in the series, Changeless and Blameless. While it isn’t exactly as awesome as the first novel, Changeless was definitely worth reading. Let’s see the numbers:
Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 4 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 5 out of 5
Final result: Who would have guessed that a book about a woman lacking a soul would be so entertaining? It is worth mentioning that, yes, while this book is basically a Gothic romance novel with vampires and werewolves, the genre is bent enough, and the humor is lively enough that Soulless should find itself appreciated by a larger audience. It should be noted that there is a fourth installment of this series, Heartless
coming early this summer.
Soulless by Gail Carriger – Orbit – 2009
Buy Soulless on Amazon today. Today!!!
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