Review: Changeless by Gail Carriger

January 29, 2015 3 stars, Book Review 17 ★★★

Review: Changeless by Gail CarrigerChangeless Series: Parasol Protectorate #2
Published by Orbit Books on April 1, 2010
Genres: Adult SFF, Romance, Steampunk, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 388
Length: 10 hours and 33 mins
Narrator: Emily Gray
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
Buy on Amazon
My Reviews in this series: Soulless, Blameless, Heartless, Timeless

Alexia Maccon, 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. So 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.
CHANGLESS is the second book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
three-stars

​Changeless is the second book in the Parasol Protectorate series. While I enjoyed it well enough, I felt it was a weak follow up to the first book Soulless. There just wasn’t the same amount of oomph for me, probably because the mystery in this one didn’t track as well as the first one did. It was more round about I guess.Even tho Alexia is now married to Lord Maccon there is still plenty of fun tension and antics between the two of them. We get to see much more of the silly Miss Ivy Hisselpenny and quite a bit of Alexia’s half sister Felicity as the three of them are setting off for Scotland. Which just so happens to be where Lord Maccon is from (and his former pack and only remaining relative) and where the trail leads as far as this books current mystery. The mystery being the odd stripping of the supernatural state from all of the supernatural community making them for all purposes human and mortal once again.

The highlights of this installment for me were the dirigible ride, the kerfluffle between Ivy and Felicity over Lord Maccon’s clavager Tunstall, and the introduction of the cross dressing inventor character Madame Lefoux. Oh yes and a big and tumultuous surprise at the end of the book. But other then that I felt the mystery weak and the culprit much too obvious. But overall still loads of fun. I’m obviously already half way done with the next book while writing this review and thankfully it’s a much stronger book.

Stalk me!

Tabitha (Pabkins)

When I'm in the zone I can flip book pages faster than the eye can see - screaming "More Input!" I'm a book, yarn, & art supply hoarding goblin who loves to draw, make toys and craft all sorts of creepy cute things. My current habit is to listen to audio books while I'm arting it up!
Stalk me!

Latest posts by Tabitha (Pabkins) (see all)

Related Posts

17 Responses to “Review: Changeless by Gail Carriger”

  5. Lynn

    The first one was undoubtedly the best of the series, or at least I think so, Probably because the change in dynamics but the following books never had quite the same ‘tingle’ as the first!
    Still a good series – one that I still have to finish!!! (Went off it a little towards the end!)
    Lynn 😀
    Lynn recently posted…Woman’s best friend????My Profile

  6. [email protected]

    True, this second book feels a little weaker than the first one, but on hindsight I understand now it needed to lay some ground for future developments. And since you are already reading book 3, you know how it gets *much* better 🙂

    The dirigible journey, with all those interpersonal currents going on, was nothing short of delightful fun: half the time I wanted to throw Alexia’s sister overboard, the rest of the time I kept reminding myself that her disappearance would have robbed me of too many amusing scenes…
    [email protected] recently posted…Tough Traveling: Law EnforcementMy Profile

  7. McCallum J. Morgan

    I love fun books. I like steampunk, but I kind of steer away from it, too. I’m just wary of a lot of the overdone illustrations I see. I guess that’s part of steampunk, being a little overblown, part of the fun. I need to read more, I guess. I label my book ‘mild’ steampunk, probably because the steampunk element is somewhat more of just a background to the story.

  8. Samantha

    I hope you enjoy the next book a little better. I loved the first book in this series but couldn’t really get into the rest of the books.

    • Tabitha (Pabkins)

      Oh there are actually 5 books in the series. I’m partway into the last/fifth book now. I powered through all of them in the month span. I really loved the first, not so much the second and then have thoroughly enjoyed 3,4 and jury is still out on #5 since I’m not quite done with it yet. I’m looking forward to PRUDENCE which is her new first in a spin off featuring Alexia’s daughter. I have the YA trilogy but I won’t read those until the audio versions are available from the hold list at my library. I definitely think listening to them made me enjoy them more then if I would have read them myself. The voice acting was just superb that it helped pull me in, otherwise yeah I might have rated them lower.
      Tabitha (Pabkins) recently posted…Art it Up! (42) & Tough Traveling – It was a Sunday CrafternoonMy Profile