Fifty shades of green

I am now, officially, a Work of Art.

If you don't believe me, I have been asked to be part of the LepreCon 40 Art Show.

Dear Artist,

We would like to invite you personally to show your art in the LepreCon 40 art show. LepreCon 40 will be May 8th-11th at the Phoenix Mesa Marriot Hotel in Mesa, Arizona.

This year our artist guest of honor will be Daniel Davis of Steam Crow, Artist Alfred Trujillo, Gail Carriger, and Cara Nicole.

Gail Carriger?! Swoon! I shall have to bring my Unusually Stout Parasol.

(I am honored to be in such excellent company. Momma's friend Jennifer Roberson was a Guest of Honor at LepreCon 12 in 1986.)

LepreCon is an annual Phoenix-area science fiction convention (Con) with an emphasis on art. It is the second oldest science fiction convention in Arizona. The first LepreCon was March 14-16, 1975, St. Patrick's Day weekend, thus inspiring the name of the convention, a pun on leprechaun. 
 
Wow. First the Renaissance Faire, then Geeks Night Out, and now being asked to be a Work of Art at LepreCon 40.

Can this week get any better?

Curtsies & Conspiracies

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Momma and I devoured Etiquette & Espionage this weekend, and are happily rereading her Parasol Protectorate series.

You. Must. Read. These. Books.

Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

Sophronia’s first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has certainly been rousing! For one thing, finishing school is training her to be a spy (won’t Mumsy be surprised?). Furthermore, Sophronia got mixed up in an intrigue over a stolen device and had a cheese pie thrown at her in a most horrid display of poor manners.

Now, as she sneaks around the dirigible school, eavesdropping on the teachers’ quarters and making clandestine climbs to the ship’s boiler room, she learns that there may be more to a school trip to London than is apparent at first. A conspiracy is afoot–one with dire implications for both supernaturals and humans. Sophronia must rely on her training to discover who is behind the dangerous plot-and survive the London Season with a full dance card.

In this sequel to bestselling author Gail Carriger’s YA debut Etiquette & Espionage, class is back in session with more petticoats and poison, tea trays and treason. Carriger’s distinctive voice, signature humor, and lush steampunk setting are sure to be the height of fashion this season.

It's due out Nov. 5, 2013!

 

Etiquette & Espionage

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

I've written about Gail Carriger's books before, and I just discovered (belatedly) that a new one came out in February.

And a new series to boot!

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish ... everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.

Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore.

 

A novel of vampires, werewolves and mummies

Last but not least in the Parasol Protectrate series is Timeless:

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

Sadly, that the end of the Parasol Protectorate series. But author Gail Carriger is starting another series next year about a Finishing School, and then starting a Parasol Protectorate Abroad series!

A novel of vampires, werewolves and teapots

Today I am posting about the fourth book in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, Heartless:

Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband's past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux's latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines and Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant.

Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf's clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama's second best closet?

A novel of vampires, werewolves & unexpected surprises

I am continuing to spread the word about Gail Carriger's delightful Parasol Protectorate books. Today is Blameless:

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.

I strongly encourage you to read the books in order. They'll make much more sense that way.

A novel of werewolves, vampires and dirigibles

Momma, GrandMomma and I are now thoroughly addicted to the Parasol Protectorate books by Gail Carriger.

Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears - leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria. 

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can.

She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

Momma galloped through all five books in three days, and GrandMomma is following close behind.

Thank heavens there's both Kindle and Audible versions or I might never get my mitts upon them!

The Parasol Protectorate

Ahh, I have discovered yet another use for my Unusually Stout Parasol.

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. 

First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

To find out the new use for my Unusually Stout Parasol, read Soulless by Gail Carriger. Set in Victorian London, it's full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.