Currently, vampires seem to be synonymous with Twilight, which will polarize readers before they’ve even picked up the first book of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate. But, it shouldn’t. Soulless details the adventures of Miss Alexia Tarabotti, who classifies herself as a spinster due to a triple-whammy of negativity: her age, her Italian heritage, and the fact that she was born soulless. Miss Tarabotti lives in an alternative universe, one where werewolves and vampires have been integrated into British society. As a preternatural, without a soul, Miss Tarabotti finds herself the diametric opposite of the supernatural werewolves, ghosts, and vampires. This leads her to become a target of interest from multiple parties for a variety of reasons.

The book moves along at a licketty-split pace, the very first scene beginning into Miss Tarabotti killing a vampire who tries to eat her at a party, which alerts our protagonist to the mystery out there, and sets the whole plot into motion. Each scene and event is leanly designed to move the plot forward—until the bodice-ripper parts set in. They are quite chaste scenes overall. It is steampunk Victorian London after all. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional glut of four pages of kissing and Miss Tarabotti fumbling at clothes with a werewolf, except for the way that it all breaks up the momentum of the story, which really is one of its strongest points. I wanted to know what happens, not about the impropriety of making out with a werewolf.

However, most disappointingly, Carriger fails to capitalize on her character’s most interesting trait—her lack of a soul. While this could easily degenerate into a religious scholar’s debate, Carriger side-steps it by not defining the soul. But, this leaves readers unsure of what this means, as soullessness seems to have no real effect on Miss Tarabotti or makes her particularly different from other people. Aside from the neutralizing effect her touch has on the supernatural, that is. Perhaps this is down to my wrongful assumption, but I expected Miss Tarabotti to be different somehow in her personhood from most people, not just simply being assertive, and I assume that Carriger isn’t saying that being unmarried or interested in science are signs of lacking a soul.

The story is fast-paced and engaging from the get-go and Miss Tarabotti’s world feels fully realized. It could appeal to fans of Twilight, with its parallels of supernatural romance, vampires vs. werewolves, as long as they can do without Robert Pattinson’s scruffy face. But, even those unmoved by Twilight can find something fun in Soulless—as long as they enjoy fast-paced, steampunk, cross-species romances.

Bookmark to