Prudence

Prudence by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alexia and Conall Maccon's daughter Prudence is (mostly) grown up now. So what better way to demonstrate her independence than to be tasked by her adoptive father to travel by dirigible to India to set up a new tea business that circumvents the East India Company? The need for secrecy regarding the tea causes no little confusion when the trip takes a decidedly more political...and supernatural...turn. Suddenly Rue and her friends are in the middle of a pitched battle, trying to prevent a war.

Although I enjoyed this first book in the Custard Protocol series, it didn't quite grab me the way the Parasol Protectorate did. I connected more with Alexia than I did with Rue, perhaps in part due to Rue's tendency toward heedlessness. The other characters never fully gelled for me either. Still, I liked the book well enough to read the next one in the series and thought the story picked up at the end. (The plot prior to that was pretty thin.)

Other reviewers have mentioned issues with cultural insensitivity, and I have to agree with them, for the most part. I do think that authors get a great deal of creative license when it comes to creating alternate universes, such as a Victorian England & India with vampires, werewolves, Rakshasas, weremonkeys, and even a werecat. However, I wish Ms. Carriger had written larger roles for Indian characters and not included the part where a dirty, nearly-naked Rue was mistaken for a goddess, for example.

View all my reviews