Gail Carriger has created a world set in Victorian England which includes Vampires, Werewolves, and Ghosts, oh my! In this installment, Lady Alexia Maccon finds herself in a delicate condition while it is widely known that her husband, a werewolf of considerable age, could not possibly father children. The whole idea is absurd according to all desirable social circles. Poor Alexia is rejected by her husband and the pack, asked to leave not so nicely from her mother's home, and discovers the one person she thought she could always count on, the vampire rogue Lord Akeldama, has up and disappeared. What is a somewhat well bred lady to do? Go to Italy, the land of coffee and pesto, of course!

BLAMELESS continues Carriger's tradition of the perfect amount of action, controversy, and good ole British humor. The characters each handle the disastrous scandal of unknown paternity in the exact way you would imagine. Alexia decides to travel, Lord Maccon gets drunk even though that should be impossible, and Floote decides it would be an excellent time to carry two petite single shot handguns. All the characters you have grown to love or tolerate, the case may be, make cameos through out the story including Ivy and the wicked half-sisters. The story is well written and slightly complex just like the previous novels in the series. There is also excellent character development while you watch Alexia wrap her head around a pregnancy that should never have come to be. By far, my favorite aspect of the book is the use of language. A wonderful aspect of historical novels is the opportunity to hear a familiar language used in a way that seems foreign. Carriger does this magnificently. At some points I had to stop, re-read the section in question, and laugh hysterically at the ingenious phrasing. Most enjoyable is the name for the baby who has stirred up a whole lot of trouble in London.

Book Summary

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.