Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama (Rue to her friends) has lived an unusual life even among the supernatural community. The daughter of Lord Maccon (a werewolf) and Lady Alexia Maccron (soulless) and adopted daughter of Lord Akeldama (vampire) was always going to something special but even more since she is a metanatural (steals supernatural powers for a brief period turning them normal). Lord Akeldama has been training her, of course, and has now given her a dirigible of her own which of course she promptly has painted red with black spots and named the "Spotted Custard".
Now she has a crew including her best friend Primrose, her brother Percy, and Quensel. Primrose's entire job seems to be making sure Rue has clothes to thrown on after she has ruined her latest outfit. Quesnel seems to be decent at keeping the engines running and flirting. Percy makes the most sense as he taught himself to navigate, is incredibly learned, and speaks several languages. Lord Akeldama charges Rue to go to India to see about a new tea. However, it looks like there is much much more going on of which Rue is completely unaware.
Rue stumbles through the story, not ever really realizing what is going on around her. While it is set in India, we see very little of that culture or the people throughout the story and what there is, is done very problematically in that it is not respectful of the culture. I LOVED the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series but this one was just not as much fun and really was kind of a slog to get through. Some of the side characters were interesting and some of it was fun so I bumped it up to the three stars. I'm going to read the next book and hope it gets better.
Page count: 357p/12,421p ytd/304,437p lifetime
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