Blameless by Gail Carriger

Third book in the series, and after the second, I believe I said that if the third book had any hint of forgiveness without extreme grovelling, I was out. I'm not sure I got quite the level of grovelling I wanted, but enough so that I'm not entirely kicking this series to the curb.

In this book, Alexia is pregnant and cast out by her husband, causing quite the scandal in London. Her sisters continue their running for queen high bitch by having her mother cast her out as well, lest it hurt their prospects. Then vampires start attacking, and mechanical bugs trying to stick her with unpleasant needles. With her father's manservant and her crossdressing inventor friend, they leave for Italy, in search of finding the answer to what Alexia's child is.

There, there are more vampire attacks, and taking refuge with the Templars, who aren't above using Alexia as a weapon, but certainly wouldn't share their eating utensils with her. (Literally. They have to be destroyed after she uses them.) Some of us might take this as a clue, but Alexia feels she needs to stick it out.

There is more flirting on the side of the inventor, which Alexia continues to stubbornly not get. Honestly, at this point, if you're not going to pay it off, why is it there?

Back in London, the vampires are stealing each others drones, which leads to unexpected consequences for Buffy.

Lord Maccon gets high on formaldehyde a lot, leaving his second to fight off challengers and the questions of Queen Victoria.

Like the others, this is fun, with glaring plot gaps and the still unanswered question of how Alexia is actually different from anyone else, given that they have souls and she does not. Is this ever going to be resolved? I mean, she has powers, but all the "Alexia not having a soul makes her so different" without ever giving us proof of that is quite old by this point. And this book doesn't even really bring it up, which, given that it's been a looming question, maybe at some point that would be good?

At any rate, I'm being too nitpicky for books that are just plain fluffy fun. It's not quite the level I want my fluffy fun to be at, but I still enjoy them enough to not avoid them when they cross my path.

Still, even with grovelling, and still loving him, having the man I love mistrust me that much? Getting past that would take more than an apology and heroic rescue. I do get wanting to forgive him, but if he reacts that way once, what's to stop him from doing it again?