I have a new address. That’s nothing new–I’ve had a new address at least once a year since I moved out to go to college nine years ago.

I have a new phone number, and even though I’ve had it for a few months now I still have to pause and think hard before typing it, or giving it out. That’s nothing new, either, as this is at least my seventh new phone number since I’ve moved away from the 509 area code.

Yesterday I closed my Bank of America account, since I’ve been exclusively using the Joint Married People’s Account. I’ve had that 8-digit account number memorized for 10 years, and as I recited it for the bank teller yesterday I realized that it was the last time I’d ever say that sequence of numbers. Now when I want to make a deposit I’m left scrambling for that scrap of paper somewhere in my wallet, I know you’re there somewhere that has my new account number.

I finally opened an account with the Kootenai-Shoshone Library system, and now no longer do I type in my 13-digit Seattle Public Library card number when I want to place a book on hold. It’s still there, rattling around until we move back, but now I have a new number to type in, and if I’m working upstairs then my library card is inevitably downstairs and vice versa.

It’s as if all the anchors have been pulled at once–I feel a little adrift….

It’s been ages since I’ve read any paranormal stuff, but when I saw the cover of Changeless by Gail Carriger I was drawn to read the back cover, and, as I mentioned, when I saw what was written on the back I simply had to buy it, even though it was the second in a series, even though it was about werewolves (which I really have nothing against, but rarely read), even though I hadn’t bought a book in over a year. (By the way, that purchase initiated a shameful amount of time and money spent in bookstores over the past few weeks, both physical and online. Oops.)

I can’t promise much by way of review here because I just flew through the book, mostly while having after-shift beers one night at work. So, I guess in addition to initiating my book spending spree, I can also blame Changeless for hindering my progress in getting to know my new coworkers. Every time one of them would stop by the bar and say hi, I’d make the bare minimum of smalltalk, just itching to get back to reading. She has a parasol that shoots darts, for goodness sake!

The Story

Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, is a preternatural. If she touches creatures like vampires and werewolves they turn human. She’s married to a large and lusty Scottish werewolf lord, and spends her time advising Queen Victoria on matters of the supernatural. When her husband leaves for Scotland, Alexia sets off after him, armed with her trusty parasol and plagued by a pair of Victorian ladies, in the company of the mysterious but sexy cross-dressing French inventor Madame Lefoux.

This book is full of lovable and strongly drawn characters with quick wits and good conversation. Add a good dose of humor, manners, and steampunk, and you’ll understand why I’m gushing.

Carriger has a lovely way with words, and a knack for verbing nouns that makes her prose, I don’t know, sparkle and skitter across the page like an adorable baby bunny, um, covered in glitter. It just makes you want to smile, is what I’m saying.

“Have a little nip of this, my dear,” [said sexy cross-dressing French inventor Madame Lefoux], “Calm your nerves.” She handed [the flask] to Ivy.

Ivy nipped, blinked a couple times, nipped again, and then graduated from frantic to loopy. “Why that burns all the way down!”

Although this was the second book in the series, it stood on its own just fine for me. Carriger managed to write a story that was self-contained without either a) over-explaining what happened in the first book for those of us who completely ignore proper order or b) making the book read incomprehensibly. I feel like I can read the first book without really any spoilers, and I can’t wait to do it. Next paycheck.

The only thing was, I can’t believe that Alexia didn’t get that Madame Lefoux was a lesbian even though Lefoux breathed it out of every pore, as well as making thinly-veiled allusions to her sexual preferences in every other conversation. Especially since Alexia is friends with the celebratedly gay vampire Lord Akeldama (another fantastic and delightful character who I can’t wait to read more about in books 1 and 3.).

Read this book now!

From youtuber Ryan Iverson. Thanks Ryan.