Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.”

Soulless by Gail Carriger

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It’s dreadfully awkward being soulless in Victorian High Society. Add to that being the spinster daughter of a dead Italian, and life just isn’t working out for Alexia Tarabotti, and that’s before she’s attacked by a vampire at a social gathering. Bad enough that breaks all societal etiquette, but it also comes along with the downside that now Alexia has to deal with Lord Conall Maccon, the loud, obnoxious, Scottish werewolf sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. It seems that known vampires are disappearing nightly, […]

Have I moved on emotionally from Gail Carriger?

Prudence (The Custard Protocol, #1) by Gail Carriger

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This was a perfectly fine and entertaining book that I for some reason had a hard time picking up and making myself finish, and I feel almost no pull to continue and finish the series. This is such a huge turnaround for what my feelings were about her first series, The Parasol Protectorate, which featured the main character of this book’s mother. I was enchanted and delighted by those books. Our main character here is Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama, and I’m not even going to […]

Harry Potter is a Herione and Wonder Woman is a Hero

The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger

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Warning: this is a review of an at least partially academic book. It gets into theory-world (literary theory) pretty hard. However, it’s also very strongly based in popular culture, mostly to help make the point that the patterns of interest to certain types of theory are influential in stories and entertainment types things beyond “Literature”-with a capital L. The style of the book is also pretty low-key; this is not an insult; it is a statement that although the book tackles some pretty academic conceptual […]

The Justice Bits are the Best

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger

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The Delightfully Deadly series is basically a companion and continuation to Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series which is a prequel to the Parasol Protectorate (also a series, or rather two). You don’t need to have read the Parasol Protectorate, but it would really help with the Delightfully Deadly series if you have some familiarity with the Finishing School series. All of them are set in a generally steampunk-esque Victorian England that includes some knowledge and existence of werewolves and vampires. Defy or Defend is part […]

Who doesn’t want an exploding wicker chicken?

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

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CBR11 BINGO: So It Begins This novel is a re-read for me. I am a huge fan of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocolseries. However, her shift to YA in the Finishing School series set prior to the shenanigans in the Parasol Protectorate books didn’t really do it for me. To appeal to a younger audience, Carriger dialled down her hallmark cheeky sexual innuendo and unfortunately some of her witty banter and sass went along with it. I recently read Carriger’s latest and supposedly last full length novel set in the […]

The spotted custard was the kind of place where exceptions were made, because everyone was strange and exceptional.

Reticence by Gail Carriger

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CBR BINGO: Love This I have been a huge Gail Carriger fan now for a decade. Yep. That’s when she started rolling out her “Parasol Protectorate” series. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those books and pretty much adore the “Custard Protocol” series (of which this book is the last of). Sassy, witty, stylish romps served with the perfect cup of tea. This is the 13th book (plus a handful of novellas and short stories) in Carriger’s alternate Victorian London full of vampires, meta and pretnaturals, were-younameits, […]



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