This collects Heartless and Timeless, the fourth and fifth books in Carriger's steampunk + werewolves + vampires + romance series. At the time of writing this, this concluded the series, but a spinoff YA series continues. It's easy to decide if you should read these: if "steampunk + werewolves + vampires + romance" attracts rather than repels, then read. These books are almost sure exactly what you expected and wanted. Plots chug along, there's lightweight fun in following the characters, and the missteps, while frequent, are mostly annoyances. Those missteps include an fondness for ultra-cutesy "British" names, such as Mr Phinkerlington (p 1, Heartless), steampunk ideas such as mechanical poisonous porcupines that appear to have been invented solely so the author could say the book had them, a central romantic relationship that seems to have been modeled on Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the occasional cliche, and the occasional mangled sentence, e.g., "Below them they could hear guns firing. Alexia felt one whiz past her ear" -- a gun was well thrown, sir! For all that, Carriger improved greatly after the first book, Soulless, where those annoyances far outnumbered the few enjoyable scenes of banter and/or adventure.

As a pair in one volume, these work well. Heartless is hard-core steam punk with an extended climax involving a giant mechanical octopus smashing through London. Timeless leaves England for Egypt, and tries to wrap up the majority of character fates set in motion in the earlier books. One central one, behind the spoiler curtain, seems to me to have abandoned some of the rules of the world Carriger for the sake of a big scene, but endings have tripped up most extended series. ( )