Romance fitting perfectly against the background of extravagant clothing and eternal tea-drinking.

The cover is very similar to the other books in the series, the background color of the title is red this time. The series of five books is actually 1 very thick book chopped up in 5 parts. Each with its own storyline and highlights but still a long ongoing tale from beginning to the very end.
In this third part Alexia is back in England after het trip to Scotland in book 2.
Feeling the burden of her pregnancy a bit depressed because of the rift with her husband she continues to meddle in things she should really not poke her - a bit overlarge, italian - nose in.
When she gets expelled from her parental home she needs a place to stay. The, for her, obvious friend to call for help is Lord Akeldama. But he and his entire hive have been panicked by something and swarmed. Disappeared without a trace that is.
Madame Lefoux comes to the rescue.
An attack by an army of mechanical ladybugs drives her away from home and to Italy, the country of her father. And of the mysterious and frightening order of the Templars, who might know something about preternaturals and supernaturals. They also just might want to kill her...
Accompanied by Madame Lefoux and Floote, her butler, she departs to France leaving the hatshop in the hands of Ivy.
The story keeps its pace going and Alexia runs from one deadly danger into another, taking risks and fighting natural and unnatural enemies as they come to attach her.
During the trip she gets a few times unexpected help from a masked man and a white wolf.
Always funny and exciting, light conversation and tons of action, this book reads as fast and with pleasure as the previous ones in the series. Psychology is applied in how to fit wherwolfs, ghosts and vampires in ones life as a human, the deepness of thoughts of some characters, but mostly translated in the actual characters behaviours in a way that makes it acceptable, as magical and unnatural as it can be. Gail Carriger again shows how she masters the art of taking a reader along on a trip that she must enjoy as much as most of her characters, with whom it is not very hard to identify.
As was already the case, some historical facts and persons of the Vicorian age, including queen Victoria herself, are put in the spotlight but then pulled out of reality and given a new reality.
Al the more hilarious but also giving the book a touch of reality and as the author confesses, historians may discover some deliberately hidden gems.
There is no wokeness as such, the book is far above that by not even spending a though on racism but focusing on the issues of living together between species.