Soulless

Soulless
Gail Carriger
357 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Source: purchased
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Alexia is only twenty-six and already a spinster, but she's also soulless.  When a vampire attacks her at a ball (how rude!) and she accidentally kills him in self-defense, Lord Maccon is sent by the Queen herself to investigate.  Meanwhile, vampires and werewolves are going missing and suddenly it's up to Alexia to figure out what's happening to save her own butt.

This book has been on my TBR pile since last summer and it probably would have stayed there even longer if it weren't for the fact that my online book club is discussing this book tomorrow.  So I was finally able to give it a go and boy was I glad I did!

I loved so much about this book: the time period, the aspects of etiquette, the clothing, the paranormals, the idea of a "soulless" person, the technology and new inventions... I could go on and on, folks.  I appreciated that there were both werewolves and vampires in this novel, yet they were not embattled in a full out war against each other.

I also adored Alexia's characters- she was a "spinster" at only twenty-six and she was okay with that.  Fiercely independent and spunky, she could hold her own and I appreciate that in a heroine.  But at the same time, she still found herself in something of a love triangle with some steamier scenes and I was glad she was able to find some romance despite her self-proclaimed flaws and spinster-status.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was the language and author's voice.  Well, that's not entirely true because I did like those thing, I just found that they took some time getting used to and thus I wasn't able to read the book as quickly as I would have liked.

Four stars!  I wish I hadn't waited so long to start these series!  I loved the first book and I can't wait to read the rest of them.  Definitely check this out if you love paranormal romances and/or steampunk novels.  I also loved that this book had a hint of cozy mystery to it.