Soulless is the first book of The Parasol Protectorate and it takes place in a steam-punkish Victorian England with vampires and werewolves (and the occasional evil cabal of mad scientists). Our Heroine is one Alexia Tarabotti, a young woman with a great deal of intelligence and an equal lack of soul. She is a preternatural and this lack of soul enables her to nullify the characteristics or abilities of vampires, ghosts and werewolves. This is an ability known only to a very few people (not even her family or friends know) and it places her in danger when she accidentally kills a vampire at a dinner party.

The individual investigating her is Earl Conall Maccon, a werewolf and an occasional acquaintance. (Well, kind of and acquaintance--Alexia and Maccon met shortly after an incident involving a hedgehog.) They do not get along very well, though this turns out to be due to mutual misunderstandings and some severe miscommunications of the Austen romantic variety. It turns out that Alexia is a suspect in the disappearances of several vampires due to her being “preternatural,” and the suspicion increases a great deal after the party.

It is discovered that the vampire Alexia accidentally killed was not registered either as the member of a hive or as a “rove” (a solitary vampire). The vampire also hadn’t realized that Alexia was a preternatural. (Both vampire and werewolf communities are aware of the existence of preternaturals. Neither community would allow any new member of the community to be ignorant of preternaturals since preternaturals in the past often became werewolf and vampire hunters.)

Soulless

I'm extremely fond of what I think of as "job books" (memoirs that are based on the writer's professional experiences in a career, like a book by a veterinarian about his or her practice, or books about being a cop by a cop). I particularly like humorous stories and this book definitely fits the bill. Close Encounters of the Third Grade Kind is by a teacher about his experiences as a teacher, and I liked it a great deal. Done is a funny and engaging writer and his stories are the right combination of funny and heartwarming without being overly sweet or corny. (Memoirs balance out my passion for science fiction and fantasy novels.)

In this book, Phillip Done has adventures with accidentally admitting to being a teacher during a Back to School sale. (He is instantly mobbed by parents who have many, many questions they need him to answer Right Now.) He worries that cursive will go the way of the dinosaur. (He claims that he would be robbed of most of his exercise routine. Who knew that teaching cursive would require so much physical activity?) He also buys way too many things at a gift store in France for his student, hides from his students and their parents so he can get some work done and is harassed into spelling pig backwards.

Close Encounters of the Third Grade Kind