"Waiting on" Wednesday #1

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine which spotlights eagerly anticipated upcoming releases!

Today is my very first Waiting on Wednesday and I've chosen a book which is the third in a series, I loved the first book Soulless (you can read my review here) and I am reading the second book Changeless. Mind the spoiler!!! It's actualy only a few weeks until Blameless is out which is great as I'll get to read it really soon!!



Title: Blameless
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: The Parasol Protectorate - Book #3
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release date: 1st September 2010

Book description (from Goodreads)
***SPOILERS AHEAD - Don't read this synopsis of Blameless until you have read the 2nd book, Changeless, unless you want to be majorly spoiled.***





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.

Teaser Tuesday #1

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Changing form is much like any other bodily function in that it comes most easily when the body needs to do it. An uncontrolled werewolf undergoes the transformation under two circumstances: when he is threatened and when his internal cycle dictates the need."

Review: Soulless By Gail Carriger

Title: Soulless
Author: Gail Carriger
ISBN-10: 0316056634
ISBN-13: 978-0316056632

About the book
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?

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: The Parasol Protectorate, book #1
Published: 1st October 2009
Publisher: Orbit
Website: Gail Carriger

My Review
Alexia Tarabotti is a 26 year old spinster who is intelligent and fashionable, who is prone to dark skin and drinks a lot of tea! Always found with her parasol and two hair pins made of silver and wood, she would one day like to fly in a dirigible. She also happens to be a preternatural, “Soulless” which is almost as embarrassing as having an Italian father.

A preternatural is born without a soul. When she touches a supernatural Alexia effectively neutralises them, the vampires fang retreat and the werewolf becomes human again. Alexia accidentally kills a rogue vampire at start of book with a wooden hat pin when she is attacked. She is most perturbed when he did not seem to know she was a preternatural!

Alexia is a wonderfully strong and interesting character. She is very much the alpha female, yet manages to do this within the social constraints of 1870’s London!

In the Victorian London world created by Gail Carriger, vampires and werewolves have been integrated into society. Queen Victoria even has a werewolf and a vampire advisor (dewan and potentate) who we are told have helped immensely in developing the British Empire. The werewolves are, of course, lead by their alpha - Lord Macon while the vampires live in hives. This world is very enjoyable and the requirements of Victorian society makes a wonderful contrast with werewolf society, Lord Macon finding it especially difficult to maintain the proper etiquette around the full moon!

There are many excellent characters in Soulless. Lord Aceldama, Alexia’s eccentric flamboyant friend who happens to be a gay vampire. Professor Lyall, the beta werewolf, carries his role as ‘second’ to Lord Macon wonderfully in a capable and humorous way! Not forgetting Miss Hisselpenny with her questionable taste in hats and Floote the butler.

Soulless is not primarily a romance but there is Lord Macon who Alexia has been at odds with since “The Hedgehog Incident”, who it turns out rather like Alexia after all!

The style and language takes a little getting used to but once you do it helps build the atmosphere of Victorian London.

Souless is humorous and very well written with a little bit of mystery mixed in with the fantasy and it may just leave you hankering after a treacle tart! Well worth the read and I’m very much looking forward to reading the second book in the Parasol Protectorate series, Changeless!

Follow Friday #1

For the first time today I'm participating in Follow on Friday hosted by Parajunkee { Parajunkee.com }. Excellent idea and a great way to get out and meet fellow book bloggers! As you'll see my book blog is VERY new so please be gentle with me!

Here's how to do it from the Parajunkee site: Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list. Follow our Featured Bloggers - http://nymfaux.blogspot.com/. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post! If your new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Review: Stray by Rachel Vincent

Book Blurb
I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.

Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.

I'd been warned about Strays -- werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female, and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.

This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back . . . for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I'm no meek kitty. I'll take on whatever -- and whoever -- I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays -- 'cause I got claws, and I'm not afraid to use them . . .

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Shifters
Published: 1st June 2007
Publisher: Mira
Excert: Excert
Website: Rachel Vincent

My Review
Faythe is one of only eight Tabbies in the country and now they have started to go missing. After she is attacked on campus she returns to the Pride but in characteristic fashion refuses to just do as she is told. Once returned she is also confronted with dealing with her ex-boyfriend Marc, more unfinished business.

Faythe can be a challenging character to like at times, she is strong, determined and can seem a little immature at times but comes to take on her responsibilities and matures nicely towards the end of the book. Maybe she is this way because she has hidden as much as she could from being a werecat for so long but now must face her destiny.

I liked the world Rachel Vincent builds for her Werecats because it is believable in a modern day country. Being a first book in a series quite a lot of time is devoted to telling us about the world Faythe and the Pride operate in.

Stray is a great start to the Shifters series which leaves you wanting to know what comes next for Faythe and the other Werecats.

Review: My Love Eternal by Liz Strange

My Love Eternal is the first part of the The Dark Kiss Trilogy where Rachel is drawn into the world of Giovanni. Liz Strange's vampires are unappologetic, forceful, dark and ready for whatever is thrown at them. This book is quite different to many other vampire romances around; it's dark in places yet full of love in others. Bloodlust taken in stride yet much of the possitve aspects of being human are never totally lost.

The dramatic twists and turns towards the end of the book will have you needing to read the next instalment!

Giovanni is described on the book blurb as:-
"Tall, dark, and sexy, as well as fabulously wealthy, Giovanni is everything a girl could ask for in a lover. There’s only one catch. He’s been undead for more than three hundred years."
Rachel is drawn to him from the outset and her love takes her to many places, emotionally as well as physically.

Rachel and Giovanni's love should last for an eternity but he is hunted by the Desmarais family, who carry a centuries-old vendetta against Giovanni. They travel to the ends of the earth to escape and hold onto their love, but can it survive? You'll have to read My Love Eternal to find out if their love endures for eternity.

Welcome to my new book reviews blog! I aim to review everything I read and will start with a book I just finished a few days ago.