Defy or Defend

A Delightfully Deadly Novel

De: Gail Carriger

Narrado por: Emma Newman

New York Times best-selling author Gail Carriger brings you a charming story of love, espionage, and Gothic makeovers set in her popular Parasolverse.

Narrated by the wonderful Emma Newman.

Spy...

Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott, code name Honey Bee, is the War Office's best and most decorative fixer. She's sweet and chipper, but oddly stealthy, and surprisingly effective given the right incentives.

Versus knight...

Sir Crispin Bontwee was knighted for his military service, but instead of retiring, he secretly went to work for the War Office. Mostly he enjoys his job, except when he must safeguard the Honey Bee. Neither of them are vampire experts, but when Nottingham Hive goes badly Goth, only Dimity can stop their darkness from turning bloody. And only Crispin can stop an enthusiastic Dimity from death by vampire.

In a battle for survival (and wallpaper), Dimity must learn that not all that sparkles is good, while Cris discovers he likes honey a lot more than he thought.

Spinning off from the Finishing School series, featuring deadly ladies of quality, this story stands alone but chronologically follows Poison or Protect. It's Cold Comfort Farm meets Queer Eye meets What We Do In the Shadows from the author of the Parasol Protectorate books, perfect for fans of Julia Quinn, Jodi Taylor, or Meljean Brook.

Delicate sensibilities? Contains fraternizing vampires and one very curious young lady, who asks about it, sometimes in detail, but mostly in retrospect. May also involve excessive use of velvet, melodramatic poetry, and the strategic application of interpretive ballet.

©2020 Gail Carriger LLC (P)2020 Gail Carriger LLC

Delightful indeed!

The first Carriger books I actually read were the Finishing School series, and Dimity was my favorite character, so I was very excited to see that hers was the second Delightfully Deadly novella! And it really is as delightful as I would expect from a novella with Dimity as the heroine! It's nice to see her as an adult and how she's grown and changed, and stayed the same as well. I also adore her moniker- it suits her so well! Crispin is very sweet and so very repressed, and I for one spent the novel supporting Dimity's determination to climb him like a tree.
I also really loved the way Justice was handled as a character, and of course seeing little cameos of Lord Maccon and Pillover, and mentions of Sophronia and Soap, Sidheag, and Agatha!
The narrator did very well, but sometimes her voice changes were a little subtle for me to catch which character was speaking, and there were a few places where she said the wrong character's name in a scene or seemed to stumble over a word, but nothing major and it didn't really pull me out of the story.

so much fun!

I love getting a chance to find out what happened to all of the Finishing School characters. As Gail says, it's always fun to spot characters from other stories in the background. It's a wonderful universe she has made, and I enjoy spending time in it.

Good communication between the lead characters.

I love when the love match is communicating with each other. There's still drama, I do hate when people don't speak frankly.

so enjoy these characters

great fun. enjoyed the storyline and characters ....happy to know Dimity found her knight, but was able to use her"Intelligencer" skills

Soothing and sweet

A wonderful story set in the Parasolverse. This one has less personal angst than her other novellas and is just a soothing and sweet story that after finishing I have used to fall asleep over and over.

nice follow up book to a favorite series

I love the finishing school series, so it was fun to have an epilogue for the characters. however I was disappointed by the reader not getting the names correct... other than that it was a fun listen

DELIGHTFUL DRONES

Always love Gail's novellas and this one is especially enjoyable with excellent narration and interesting characters and familiar cameos of other friends. Thank you for your gifts in your works.

fun

I have read this book and I was delighted by the narration in this audible version. Emma Newman did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life. I was also delighted to have found that this was a nod to Cold Comfort Farm... which I just read (after first reading Defy or Defend) and complimented my enjoyment of the audio version. Cris and Dimity are the cutest couple.

How to win friends & influence vampires

Dimity, code name “Sparkles”, likes to get her way. Crispin likes to keep her safe while she manages other peoples’ business. She mostly does this by seeding information to other people then convincing them things were their idea.

I such a way, she turns around an abject hive of vampires who have allowed a bully of a drone to make them miserable, in a bad way. Since most of them prefer being preformatively miserable, they weren’t equipped excise the bully.

Everything goes really smoothly because Dimity’s skill is smoothing over rough spots. So even when things don’t actually go smoothly, Dimity fixes everything so it feels smooth anyway. And Cris helps make things go. It’s a Ted Lasso season 1 experience - every time you’re braced for inevitable disaster, people are nice to each other instead. (Except the main bully, but even he gets dealt with.) Which is to say, if, like me, you’d like a story of things getting fixed & people feeling better, and a pleasant romance, this is a great choice.

There are some appearances of other series characters. And despite blood drinking vampires, werewolves, and secret agents who make this better rather than worse, the real suspension of disbelief is needed for the fast lead times & efficient supply chains allowing Dimity’s housekeeping miracle to occur.

Steam: Low. Not much happens on page or in detail, but is talked about with specifics and known to happen. There’s both the M/F main couple and a M/tF pairing. (“Well who wouldn’t want to lend their peignoir for a seduction in the woods?” paraphrase of Dimity after Justice literally runs off in her stolen nightwear.🤣) High focus on consent & caring.

Narration: Quite good except that some of the funnier lines are a bit lugubriously delivered. So it doesn’t, well, sparkle quite as much as I think it could in a few places, making it harder to catch the irreverent humor than with other narrators. MQ made it seem like we were in on the joke. Here, Emma played it straighter, which isn’t my preference, but it wasn’t bad. Unlike most, I didn’t find the slight pronunciation change to some of the names, compared to previous narrators, to be concerning or difficult. The sound quality was even and good.

Delightful frilly perfection

Everything about this book is uplifting and humorous. It’s a feel good ode to the true joy of finding and fulfilling a true calling after years of just doing a job. Dimity is sublime. Justice is a vision. And The Baroness made me giggle hard enough to startle my coworker. (So good I listened at work!)