I think I'm just going to have to accept that Carriger and romance don't mix well for me. I enjoy her writing, I enjoy the world that she creates, and I enjoy her characters... but over two series now I find the romantic elements are easily the weakest parts of her stories. I just don't care - not about Maccon, and not about Alexia when she's with him. She's far more entertaining running around Europe with her friends, troughing down pesto and tackling both the Templars and the infant-inconvenience that is her pregnancy. The politics of how this world holds together, vampires and werewolves and state secrets, religious fanaticism, supernatural weaponry, and etiquette, is just so much more interesting than this one-note relationship. Was genuinely disappointed when they made up at the end.