In a vaguely steampunk and certainly supernatural Victorian England, a sassy and witty young lady of means and her equally sassy and well-off friends are sent off on an adventure that ends up being more complicated and dangerous than they expected. The protagonist is Prudence (Rue), raised by werewolves and vampires, herself in possession of a certain supernatural ability that makes her a strong and confident but also a target. In her dirigible (if you don’t’ know what that means, you’ll have to look it up, along with several other assumed terms), painted red with spots and christened The Spotted Custard, Rue is accompanied by a professor, an engineer with whom she shares an attraction, her best friend Prim, and an assorted crew of misfits (Spoo is the most prominently featured and for good reason). Together they encounter a variety of vampires, werewolves, and even a group of weremonkeys. Along the way, there is mystery, a touch of romance, adventure, witty conversation, and of course, tea. Lots of tea.
There is a lot of comedy in this book, in the style of the comedy of manners. Transformations lead to the occasional loss of clothing (especially bloomers), and interactions between the characters are entertaining. There is also a running fart joke that is funnier than it should be given that it extends through nearly the entire book. One frequent pitfall with this kind of story is often that the romance takes over or gets to pathos-laden, and that does not happen here. Rue and Quesnell annoy/complement/stand up to each other very well. Quesnell is actually a good character who grew on me throughout, especially in a scene towards the end when he puts Rue in her place by pointing out a major bias in her solution. Class and cultural bias ends up playing an interesting role in the story, but the commentary doesn’t get in the way of the fun.
I have to admit, the concern with fashion annoyed me sometimes because it made the characters sound bratty and whiny. I understand that in high society of the time and place such worries would have been legitimate, but to feel the need to have panic attack because you accidentally wore your travelling dress instead of your visiting dress while going round town to let people know you were planning to be out of town for a while makes you seem like an irritating spoiled airhead, no matter how socially savy you are (you = Prim in this case). Rue has her bratty moments too, and it’s easy to forget that these characters are mostly supposed to be around 20 as opposed to 13.
I enjoyed this book. It’s just plain amusing. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure whether it’s teen or general fiction. There’s just enough seriousness to it that it’s not purely teen paranormal fantasy, but it’s very close. I found out after I started it that it’s actually the beginning of a sequel series. The first series apparently covers the adventures of the previous generation (ie Prue and Prim’s parents). I will be reading that soon. For now, it’s nice to know that certain relationships and allusions to previous events might have more detail behind them, but none of that is really required to enjoy this book.
