Gail Carriger

Felicity was horrible and snide, but then Felicity had been a repulsive earwig ever since she first grew a vocabulary.

The Earl of Woolsey was indeed completely nude. He did not seem particularly perturbed by this fact, but Miss Tarabotti felt the sudden need to close her eyes tight and think about asparagus or something equally mundane.

Great, Alexia thought, I have gone from soul sucker to electrical ground. The epithets just get sweeter and sweeter.

He has been mad for you these many months, ever since you prodded him in the nether regions with a hedgehog.

Sophronia felt bound to object. "I, for one, should prefer not to shoot at someone I like.""Admirable scruples, Miss Temminnick. Get over them. For you will do it anyway.

I like fish," chirruped Tunstell."Really, Mr. Tunstell? What is your preferred breed?""Well"--Tunstell hesitated--"you know, the um, ones that"--he made a swooping motion with both hands--"uh, swim.

But I don't want to be a vampire drone.' Sophronia winced. 'They'll suck my blood and make me wear only the very latest fashions.

...you have been fraternizing with warewolves overmuch! Military men can be terribly bad for one's verbal concatenation!

Where were the scientific pamphlets that taught a woman how to listen to herself die?

Trust is a lot to ask of someone.

Oh, Major, you do so love to annoy, don't you?""It is the stuff of living, my lady.

The Rakshasa," said Percy pedantically, "are a different breed altogether from our vampires. Much in the same way that poodles and dachshunds are different breeds of dog. Rakshasas are reviled in India. Their position as tax collectors is an attempts by the crown to integrate them in a more progressive and mundane manner."Rue said, "Oh, how logical. Because we all know ordaining someone as a tax collector is the surest way to get them accepted by society.

We like the shadows. That's where all the power is.

Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.

Just because history says it isn't possible doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions.

There was a pleasantness to the air and a spirit about the town that did not come from its color, but from some inner, tasty citrus quality. It made Alexia wonder fancifully if cities could have souls.

And I find perfect beauty excessively boring, don't you?

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.