Review: Soulless by Gail Carriger

Book:  Soulless by Gail Carriger
Series or Stand-Alone: Series (Parasol Protectorate #1) 
Pages: 357
Genre: Steampunk
Publication Date: October 1^st, 2009 

Description (From Goodreads): Without a morsel of exaggeration, its publisher describes this debut novel as "a comedy of manners set in Victorian London full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking." At the center of Soulless's "parasol protectorate" is Miss Alexia Tarabotti, a young woman who lacks not only a suitor but also a soul. And those are not her only problems: When she accidentally kills a vampire, it begins a series of events that she must set out to resolve without the help of any proper authorities. A charming mass market original.

I must say, I had a marvelous time reading Soulless. It was my first official steampunk read (at least that I know of) and I think it was done beautifully; I am now on the steampunk bandwagon. The pacing was perfect and there was plenty of action and excitement. I love the scenes in which the characters marvel at the new inventions of the time – my personal favorite is when Alexia is first introduced to an elevator. She simply does not know what to make of it.

With Alexia, Carriger creates a fascinating heroine that is charming, spunky, hilarious and completely unique. Alexia sticks out of her Victorian society like a sore thumb; she is half Italian (how scandalous!), has a large nose, is rather plumb and oh yes, she was born without a soul. She keeps this last bit under wraps, but other supernatural’s obliviously know of her condition – when she comes into contact with them they return to a human state.

She has settled into life as a spinster and seems to be content with herself. She is an absolute pistol - she is outspoken, determined and a completely entertaining. She speaks her mind and makes no apologies for her character. Basically, she is freaking awesome.

Alexia gets herself into a few different predicaments early on in soulless and Carriger crafts an intriguing, well-developed mystery that keeps readers on their toes. But what really makes this book so remarkable is how incredibly fun it is. The story is packed with a number of memorable characters – including a flamboyant vampire, a gruff werewolf and an incredibly endearing woman who has a thing for some seriously ugly headgear. 

Alexia’s love interest, Lord Conall Maccon is her perfect match. Honestly, I love these two. They go round and round with their bickering and teasing, but they take everything in stride. They are both extremely strong characters and they let each other be themselves. I absolutely hate it when the male love interest stifles the heroine; trying to “protect” her. Maccon has faith in Alexia and he lets her do what she needs to do. They are truly equals and of course, have some fabulous chemistry.

Soulless was an extremely fun and entertaining read that I think will appeal to readers of a number of different genres. It’s got supernatural folks for urban fantasy readers, it takes place during Victorian London for those history buffs and has a great romantic pairing for romance readers. If you haven’t picked up a copy of this gem yet, I would seriously suggest it – it will have you in stitches and you will be unable to put it down!

Review: Alien Tango by Gini Koch

Book: Alien Tango by Gini Koch
Series or Stand-Alone: Series; Katherine "Kitty" Katt #2

Previous Books in Series: Touched by an Alien
Pages: 439
Genre: Science Fiction / Romance
Publication Date: December 7th, 2010
Description (From Goodreads): It's been five months since marketing manager Katherine "Kitty" Katt started working with the aliens from Alpha Centauri, and she and Jeff Martini are getting closer. But when an experimental spacecraft is mysteriously returned to the Kennedy Space Center, Kitty and the rest of her team are called in to investigate. Now the team must survive murderous attacks, remove a space entity from a group of astronauts, and avoid an unhinged woman with a serious crush on Kitty's high school boyfriend. And that's all before evil masterminds decide Kitty's extermination is vital.

 I honestly don’t know where to begin. I guess, first of all, I want to mention how truly kickass the cover is. Daniel Dos Santos – you are a god. 

Now, on to the book. Just like Touched by an Alien, Alien Tango sucks you in from the first page and never lets you go. Koch injects her work with just the right balance of humor, wit, drama and excitement. Once again, Kitty is kicking alien ass and taking names. This time around her entourage of Armani clad studmuffins has expanded – shes now the Commander of the Airborne Division. This means she was fully inducted into the boys club after, what Kitty calls “Operation Fugly”.  All of the pilots from the end of book one, now report to Kitty; and let me tell you, they are just as scrumptious as the Aliens.

Kitty’s “flyboys” are extremely attached to her and they want to be involved in all of her crazy endeavors. So when craziness ensues; they quickly come running. The most memorable of the boys is Jerry; the pilot who helped Kitty land her plan in the end of the first book. He’s full of charm, but isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty when the opportunity calls.

Of course, the entire Alpha Team is back; so we see lots of Reader, Tim, Gower, Christopher and Jeff. Honestly, let’s take a moment to sit and ponder the deliciousness of these fine gentlemen…. alright. One of the things that I really enjoyed about Alien Tango is that we got to see more of Paul and Reader’s relationship. For those of you who don’t know – Reader is a former male model who is now the official driver/pilot/total badass for the A-C’s Alpha team. And Paul is the extremely awesome A-C who is dating Reader. Their relationship is completely adorable; I am pulling for a Kitty/Martini & Paul/Reader double date in the next book… because the scenes with all four of them are truly priceless.

Speaking of Martini & Kitty – once again they are pure magic. I love their banter… they are so right for each other it almost makes me sick. I love the scenes in which Kitty completely freaks out and Martini is the only one who can calm her down. There is a particularly wonderful scene that involves a killer alligator (who Kitty names Alliflash) that seems to have singled Kitty out as dinner. 

They have their fair share of ups and downs in Alien tango, mainly because Kitty’s many admirers seem to be coming out of the woodwork. We finally get to meet Chuckie, who of course is in love with her, we are also introduced to two astronauts who are rather fond of Kitty; Brian, a former high school boyfriend and Michael, Gower’s brother. This is the only part of the book that kind of annoyed me, I feel like there are already enough characters who have the hots for our heroine – we are now up to 5. 

Alien Tango is packed with the same exciting energy found in Touched by an Alien, but Kitty and the gang face a whole new host of problems and adventures. Once again there are plenty of fun airport scenes and coincidentally, marvelously awkward bathroom scenes. A great deal of the book takes place inside a NASA building, where the A-C’s are dealing with an unusually weird alien problem.  We also get to meet Jeff’s enormous family and are treated to a hilarious dinner scene in which Kitty single handily takes on the entire female portion of his family while eating her weight in dinner rolls.

I think that Alien Tango was a wonderful follow up; once again there is an abundance of wit, sarcasm, humor and adventure. The characters stay true to form – Jeff is still sarcastic, Christopher is still glaring at everyone, Reader is still the best BFF on the planet and Kitty is still.. awesome. Honestly, there isn’t a single character that I dislike in this series. They are all fabulous in their own way. Their adventures are still out-of-this-world (pun intended); there is a crazed stalker out to kill Kitty, a couple of freakishly fast alligators, a handful of different bad guys, an alien hate club, a showdown at a high school reunion, a couple of chase scenes (some with cars, some with alligators) and so much more.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Alien Tango, or Touched by an Alien for that matter; please do. You don’t have to be a fan of science fiction to enjoy these books – they aren’t your typical alien books. They are character driven, action packed and just all around awesome.

Review: Touched By An Alien by Gini Koch

Book: Touched By An Alien (Gini Koch)
Stand-Alone or Series: Series, Katherine "Kitty" Kat #1
Pages: 389
Genre: Science Fiction / Romance
Description (From Goodreads):
How can a sexy marketing manager join forces with an Alpha Centauri male in Armani to save the planet-using hairspray, a Mont Blanc pen, and rock n' roll? Easy... She's Touched by an Alien Marketing manager Katherine "Kitty" Katt steps into the middle of what appears to be a domestic dispute turned ugly. And it only gets uglier when the man turns into a winged monster, straight out of a grade-Z horror movie, and goes on a killing spree. Though Kitty should probably run away, she springs into action to take the monster down. In the middle of the chaos a handsome hunk named Jeff Martini appears, sent by the "agency" to perform crowd control. He's Kitty's kind of guy, no matter what planet he's from. And from now on, for Kitty, things are going to be sexy, dangerous, wild, and out of this world. 

I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into when I picked this book up, I haven't really read that many science fiction books. What drew me in first was the cover, I am a huge fan of Daniel Dos Santos ( he did the cover art for the Mercy Thompson series and the Alpha/Omega series by Patricia Briggs) and the description sounded interesting enough. Then, I found a used copy at my local bookstore for $3, so I felt compelled to buy it.

Like I said before, science fiction is a relatively new genre to me and I have never read a book that was centered around Aliens. I was a bit skeptical at first but, thankfully, the book proved all my doubts wrong. 

The storyline was definitely intriguing and well thought out - the plot line was highly involved. I found myself having to really pay attention to both the dialogue and the descriptions to keep up. I am not going to lie to you, I figured this would just be a quick read, which I could just breeze through, but it wasn't.

Something else that I really appreciated about this book was the tone. I don't really know how to describe it in a way that will do it justice; but it is just written perfectly. There is just enough comedic relief that it keeps things interesting, but it's not necessarily over done. The book walks the fine line between funny and corny and is able to remain in the former. 

However, the main selling point is the characters. I adore them all, especially our kick butt heroine, Kitty. I have never seen a character quite like her, she is truly a force to reckon with. She is courageous, hilarious, witty, sassy, capable and yet, still relatable. She goes around killing the superbeing with nothing but hairspray and ballpoint pens while rocking out to some truly awesome tunes (I'm talking the likes of Aerosmith, Metallica, the Beastie Boys, Motorhead, & more!). Let me tell you, if the planet was really in turmoil I would call up Miss Kitty and her team to bail us out.

Early on in the book Kitty teams up with a group of Aliens to help protect humanity from some truly icky superbeings and we are introduced to a great collect of characters.There is Kitty's main love interest, Jeff, who is also an empath. This means that his super cool Alien power is to tap into people's emotions, which coincidentally means he also forms attachments to humans quickly. As you may have guessed, he forms a connection almost immediately to our girl, Kitty. Because of this, he is always tuned into her specifically and is always there to comfort her when she needs it. Can we say, "perfect boyfriend"? 

The rest of the ragtag cast is equally as awesome. All of the members of the secret alien organization are incredibly good looking and hysterical in their own way. My personal favorites (besides Jeff and Kitty) are Christopher and James. Christopher, like Jeff is an alien, and he is an absolute smart ass. James, a former model, is a human like Kitty. He acts as the field teams' driver and is sassy in his own right. 

I would recommend this book to everyone. I was a little unsure about branching out into science fiction, but honestly, this book was amazing. It is peppered with great one-liners and awesome quirky alien details. Like the aliens can run super fast, but they can only cover distances they could run normally. Does that make sense? So to travel long distances they use these portals that are hidden in the bathrooms of different airports. I find this hilarious, especially when Kitty finds herself trapped in the mens bathroom with a bunch of Armani clad Aliens. Simply priceless.

So, do yourself a favor and go get a copy of this book. The next in the series, Alien Tango is going to be released in December. The third book, Alien in the Family will then be released in April of 2011. I know I can't wait!