Alexia Tarabotti Books in Order

This is the five-book Parasol Protectorate arc built around Alexia Tarabotti, one of Gail Carriger's most memorable heroines. The setup is simple and gloriously odd. Victorian Britain has made room for vampires and werewolves as respectable parts of society, and Alexia, a sharp-tongued spinster with an Italian father and very little patience, happens to be preternatural. She has no soul, which means supernatural powers stop working when she touches the creatures using them.

That one trait turns her into a problem for nearly everyone.

The series begins with Soulless, when Alexia accidentally kills a vampire and finds herself pulled into an investigation involving Queen Victoria's shadowy circles and the infuriating werewolf Lord Maccon. From there the books keep widening. Changeless pushes Alexia into pack politics and a spreading supernatural crisis. Blameless sends her out of England in search of answers. Heartless mixes domestic upheaval with mystery and political danger. Timeless carries the story to Egypt for a final round of secrets, family trouble, and supernatural history.

What makes these books work is not only the plot, although there is plenty of that. It is Alexia herself. She is practical, stubborn, hungry, socially unimpressed, and almost aggressively reasonable in a world full of dramatic creatures. Carriger gets a lot of comedy out of that contrast. Alexia treats vampires, werewolves, inventors, and ghosts as if they are all equally likely to behave badly at tea.

The setting matters too. This is not a grim paranormal world. It is a comedy of manners with claws. Clothes, food, etiquette, gossip, and architecture all help tell the story. So do the supporting characters, including dandified vampires, inventive women, theatrical friends, and a werewolf hero who is never quite as intimidating as he thinks he is.

If you like romance threaded through mystery, alternate history with a playful streak, and heroines who solve problems by being smarter and more stubborn than everyone around them, this is the place to start. Meat Cute works nicely as a prequel, but the heart of the series is Alexia's journey from unwanted outsider to the person who can upset an entire supernatural order simply by showing up with a parasol and a question.