Carriger debuts brilliantly with a blend of Victorian romance, screwball comedy of manners and alternate history. Prickly, stubborn 25-year-old bluestocking Alexia Tarabotti is patently unmarriageable, and not just because she's large-nosed and swarthy. She's also soulless, an oddity and a secret even in a 19th-century London that mostly accepts and integrates werewolf packs, vampire hives and ghosts. The only man who notices her is brash Lord Conall Maccon, a Scottish Alpha werewolf and government official, and (of course) they dislike each other intensely. After Alexia kills a vampire with her parasol at a party—how vulgar!—she and Conall must work together to solve a supernatural mystery that grows quite steampunkishly gruesome. Well-drawn secondary characters round out the story, most notably Lord Akeldama, Alexia's outrageous, italic-wielding gay best vampire friend. This intoxicatingly witty parody will appeal to a wide cross-section of romance, fantasy and steampunk fans.
I enjoyed this book. It did take me a bit to get into the story. I brought it home, read the first 10 pages and then had it promptly stolen by Ty and D who both read it before me. It has an interesting prefix with Alexia having no soul and therefore she is like the anti supernatural being. Her power negates those of other creatures. If she touches a vampire he (or she) loses the ability to be a vampire. The play between Alexia and Lord Maccon is good, although you are pretty sure that the two of them will eventually get together. I just started the second book in the series "Changeless" and I am enjoying it so far. Not reading it every second like some of my favorite novels. I do like the addition of the steampunk elements using the victorian setting with technology.
Be aware there is a small love scene at the end and some foreplay situations in the story as she and lord Maccon dance around each other. Other than that the book is pretty clean.
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