Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Prudence is the first installment in a new steampunk series by Gail Carriger. 
 Many of you will read no further than that sentence. As fans of the lovely and amazing Gail, you are already racing out the door en route to your local bookshop, should you be lucky enough to still have one, or fleeing this page for the pleasures of Amazon or Kobo or whatever you use for your digital book needs. Godspeed, dear fellow fans, Godspeed. 
 Gail Carriger made her mark with the delightful Parasol Protectorate series. This was followed by a prequel series, The Finishing School Series. Prudence is the first in the new Custard Protocol series, which takes place many years after the conclusion of the Parasol Protectorate. It involves the daughters of Parasol Protectorate heroines Alexia and Ivy. Now in their teens, Prudence and Primrose are best friends. Prudence's vampire adoptive father sends the girls to collect some tea for him from India. This errand involves a flirtatious male friend (Quensel, who Parasol fans will be pleased to see remains incorrigible), a dirigible painted to resemble a ladybug and christened "The Spotted Custard", a were-lioness and were-monkeys, many dresses and one strategic scarf, and international intrigue. 
 As a minor quibble, I'd love to have some sort of chart of character. With three inter-related series that have both new and old characters in each book, I'm constantly saying to myself, "Wait, that name sounds familiar - what was the deal with the person?" We need a Gail Carriger Wiki. 
 The characters in this book are delightful. Prudence and Primrose are a fantastic team. I love watching these two together - they are very different in personality but utterly supportive of each other. The romance between Quensel and Prudence is full of chemistry and I look forward to seeing it develop (since this is a series, we get more of a "moving forward toward the inevitable HEA" than an actual HEA). The prose continues to sparkle. 
 I think that this book stands just fine on it's own, but I still recommend starting with the very first Carriger book, Soulless. It's not Carriger's best book but it gives world and character building that pays off through all three series. Regarding Prudence, it was deeply flawed, but I'm eager to see how this new series develops. Prudence is very young and her view of British Empire is shaken up a smidge in this book. Will the portrayal of other cultures become more nuanced as Prudence gains more wisdom and maturity? My fingers are crossed, because I am not interested in seeing a bunch of white people save the day over and over again but I AM interested in character development, and Carriger has shown in other series that she can work magic with her characters. 
 - Carrie S.