Bad Glass by Richard E. Gropp

Pub date: September 25, 2012.

Author website.

Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is-or should be-impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . . 

Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor-a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself-his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane's grip on the world that is coming undone.  

Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.  (netgalley.com)

BAD GLASS is something different.  In a good way.  It's part horror, part apocalyptic, part science fiction and fantasy, hitting on every thread that each of those genres can unwind.  I had moments reading this book that actually made my stomach churn.  Of course I was eating lunch at the time and vomiting all over the lunch room table at a place I've worked at less than a week would certainly leave an impression.  Not a good one.  I really like where I work so I breathed through it.

In terms of character I felt it was a little thin.  I didn't really have any motivation to care about any of the characters and when things really started to happen I felt more like I was watching the news than I was invested in reading a novel.  The emphasis of the story was on Spokane.  It was the antagonist here, as the blurb says, hunting them.  Literally.  I LOVED Spokane and I talk about it as if it were a fleshy type of character.  It was the most dynamic thing here, morphing itself to engulf the more static characters.

Taylor was your typical hard ass, stand-offish girl that leads by example.  Not unlikable but she wasn't anything I warmed to.  Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit.  It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else.  I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention.  I'm not a fan of characters deviating for the sake of plot.

Amanda is one character one day and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot.  Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group.  He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he KNOWS are still in town.  Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning and Dean himself wants to believe he dissolves into the town with the rest of them but I didn't buy it.  He's there for less than a week, put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art but won't simply walk away when things get really bad (and everything will gladly get out of his way to walk and once he gets out of Spokane all the craziness will stop but nooooooooo).  He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK but will not return the affection nor even much of a hint that it's reciprocal, because he just can't leave her.  No.  I don't buy that either.

I don't buy it as much as I don't buy Taylor's character shift.  Dean's very presence beyond the first few days felt forced, his reasons for staying insubstantial at best.  Eventually it stopped being about his photography and started being about Taylor, again a stand-offish girl that would barely look at him.  I'm going to keep driving right past that tag sale and move on to the next one.

Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others, eventually literally.  The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry and wonder at what was going on.  From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all.  It was the most vivid part of the story.  If it weren't such an integral part, if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly.  But I kept reading for Spokane.  I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it.

I almost expected the ending to crap out.  I don't know why but I was anticipating the whole thing ending up being a dream.  It was alluded to.  I'll spoil it for you: it's not.  Thank god.  I would have been so incredibly pissed off I don't know what I would have done.  You get an answer but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends.  You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.

BAD GLASS is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Pinto.  There are some truly terrifying moments and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening.  You'll start to second-guess things and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand.  It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else.  Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters.  And I'm okay with that.

Ban Factor: High - Swearing, m/m sex, drug use and the world going to hell.  Not a good combination for the banners.

Three Delays by Charlie Smith

Published May 18, 2010.

Author website.

Billy Brent and Alice Stephens are star-crossed like all great lovers. Their need for each other drives them from Istanbul to Miami, Venice to Mexico. After years of encounters and escapes, they lose themselves deep in a desert wilderness, searching for a way forward, only to learn that sometimes the trail simply forks.  (amazon.com)

I scratched this one very early on, like a couple dozen pages in early on.  Really, I'm okay with literary.  I can handle it.  But there comes a point in literary where it stops being good to read and starts being a showcase of the author's perceived awesomeness and that's where my eyelids start to sag.  If I wanted to gaze at a naval I'd pick at my own.  Thanks.

Perhaps it was the incessant use of 'waked up' that made me want to murder puppies.  Yes, technically it's correct.  And technically it makes my ears bleed.  I don't know if this was the author trying to be quirky and use a little-used form of 'to wake' to make his writing stand out as OMG EDGE AND AWESOME.  Or if this was a means to showcase the inherent quirkiness of the MC, except it made Billy sound like a pretentious douche.  Either way I just couldn't take it.  After about five instances of the MC being 'waked up' I stopped. I don't care how awesomely quirky it makes anyone look.  I don't care if it's technically right.  It either makes one sound completely uneducated (who actually uses waked up for past tense? personally I'm on board the woke up train) or like a self-aggrandizing dick.  The former would be okay if the MC were actually uneducated.  He's not.  He's traveling Europe, getting high, existentially pondering life and spending SOMEONE'S money doing it.  Which files him into the latter category.  Gross.

Or maybe it was the meandering drug-induced hazed of a "plot" I kept trying to get involved in but it just seemed far too all over the place for me to keep track of.  Billy's trying to get back together with Alice despite the fact that she's married (what a stand-up guy) and his buddy contracted malaria or something and was hospitalized so the poor guy (the MC, not the sick friend) had to hop himself up on his own and there was a lot of drugs and stuff.  I didn't really see much of a point to it all and I certainly wasn't seeing any "star-crossed lovers" going on here.  Just Billy trying to harass some chick into leaving her husband for him.  The relationship looked pretty one-sided where I stood.

Nope, just wasn't into it.  The instances of 'waked up' were enough for me to DNF it but if that weren't a problem the spirograph plot would have kicked me out eventually.  I just didn't give a rat's ass about Billy and Alice was just a voice on the phone at the time I stopped.  Plus whatever plot there was seemed more focused on drugs and Billy dissecting his own thoughts than anything else.  Blah.  Not for me.

Ban Factor: High - Just for the drugs alone.  There are a lot of drugs.

Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany

Published September 28, 2010.

Author website.

Jane Austen 

Novelist . . . gentlewoman . . . Damned, Fanged, and Dangerous to know. 

Aspiring writer Jane Austen knows that respectable young ladies like herself are supposed to shun the Damned--the beautiful, fashionable, exquisitely seductive vampires who are all the rage in Georgian England in 1797. So when an innocent (she believes) flirtation results in her being turned--by an absolute cad of a bloodsucker--she acquiesces to her family's wishes and departs for Bath to take the waters, the only known cure. 

But what she encounters there is completely unexpected: perilous jealousies and further betrayals, a new friendship and a possible love. Yet all that must be put aside when the warring French invade unsuspecting Bath--and the streets run red with good English blood. Suddenly only the staunchly British Damned can defend the nation they love . . . with Jane Austen leading the charge at the battle's forefront.  (goodreads.com)

I was a little apprehensive to read JANE AND THE DAMNED after my failed attempt at EMMA AND THE VAMPIRES.  One, I hadn't read the blurb in a while so I was under the impression that it was a JANE EYRE remake and two, I haven't been thrilled with the writing style of books set in this era so it was setting itself up to fail for me.  It ultimately didn't and I enjoyed the plot but it had its faults and a lot of that hinged on the writing itself.

I didn't know why this story was about Jane Austen.  You'd think there'd be some kind of relevance to it but it rightly could have been some made-up character created strictly for the book and it wouldn't have made a bit of different.  So I was haunted by the question, "Why the hell is this Jane Austen?" throughout, making it a touch distracting.

That's not to say I didn't like Jane.  I did.  She was a very strong woman that, although reluctantly, embraced her vampirism and used it to fight the French when they invaded (a point to be dealt with in a moment).  She stood her own as a fighter and even as her fellow Damned looked down upon her as not only a fledgling but an orphaned one (her maker having abandoned her and she was adopted by another) she stood tall, pulling off feats that eventually made them proud.

The writing didn't really lend itself to telling the story well, though.  I felt the progression was jerky and I often found myself shoved out of the story due to a ragged transition from one scene to the next.  The language was trying a bit too hard and while I never found it stilted it lent to the crappy transitions that kept pulling me out of the story.

That's not to mention that as I was reading I had a niggling feeling that Napoleon's army invading Britain just didn't sound right.  Did it make for some good drama?  Of course.  Jane wouldn't have been able to become the fighter she did without someone to fight so steadfastly against.  But it didn't seem right.  Love the interwebs as it verified my unsettled thoughts: Napoleon was never actually able to get past the Royal Navy to fight on British land.  Talk about taking gross liberties with history to serve the plot.  It only puffs up the question as to why it had to be Jane Austen as the lead in this story.  I have a big problem with that.  Adding vampires to Jane Austen's life is one thing.  I was entertained by all of that.  But why bastardize history so much?  I don't get it.  Wait, I do get it: it served the plot.  And yes, this book is a work of fiction.  But holy crap Napoleon's army never invaded Bath nor took London.  It's a contrivance of epic proportions that I still just don't understand.  Too many questions and not enough answers.

I did finish JANE AND THE DAMNED, much to my surprise.  I enjoyed it and I ultimately came to like Jane and Luke together but Jane is a little too bi-polar for me.  She changed her mind about accepting her vampirism as often as she changed dresses and it was rough going trying to keep track of where her brain was in terms of not only her vampirism but her love of Luke.  It wavered too much for my liking.  She turned out to be a really strong heroine in terms of fighting capabilities and standing on her own but she ultimately had too much negative about her that, for the most part, cancelled it out.

I was entertained so the book served its purpose in that regard but it's incredibly historically inaccurate, I still have no idea why Jane Austen was the focusing character and the writing leaves a bit to be desired.  If you're looking for a light, entertaining read reminiscent of Austenian works with a bit more fangs and blood and don't have much else to read JANE AND THE DAMNED will probably whet your appetite.  Just don't expect it to do much else.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires and they're shown as hedonistically as possible to make it all the worse.  But our dear Jane has arguments with conscience that might appease the banners, however slightly.

Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

Published August 17, 2010.

Author website.

In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children.  With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remarkable economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.  (book back blurb)

Every once in a while I'll come across a book with such stunning writing that when I get to the end of it I can't help but heave a great big sigh of relief.  There is hope.  There is talent.  There are WORDS.

I like reading anthologies but they're usually a compendium of stories from different writers so each work is, by default, going to be different.  Different styles, different prose, different methods.  Personally I find it a lot harder for an author to write a single anthology composed entirely of their own stories and have each story differentiate itself from the last.  My experience in that is pretty even keel; one working out not so well and the other I ended up loving.  VANISHING?  Yeah, I pretty much loved it.

VANISHING has stories told of life.  They're not all that action-packed.  In many not much really happens outside of a character's internal monologues.  But the way they're all written Willis just sinks her claws into each and every one of her characters and forces them off the page so that you can't help but see them as their own individuals.  And that's exactly what they are.  From the grieving scientist in ESCAPE to the lonely teacher in THE FIANCEE to the boy-turned-man in AND THE LIVING IS EASY, each are individuals, each are wholly separate and each are as vivid in my mind as if they were all given their own books.

VANISHING is one of those books that one SHOULD read because it's that kind of book.  These are the stories that would get taught in literature classes, dissected for meaning, subtext, intent.  To some that's a bad thing but I loved reading good short stories when I was in school.  It was how I was introduced to the likes of Flannery O'Connor.  And she's pretty awesome.  But just because people SHOULD read it doesn't make it bad or dull.  They're all engaging stories, each and every one of them, with a range of protagonists, a range of ages and a good mix of both sexes.  There is literally something for everyone in VANISHING and the writing is so good all the rest would just suck you in anyway.

All of the stories are inherently real, spun golden by words that would make any writer envious (including this one).  But it's not a high falutin, overtly showy type of writing.  It's glorious, simple enough to hook the resistant but intricate enough to ensnare the more well-read, those with noses held higher than others.  When literary does it right, it REALLY does it right.  Willis's writing is effortless.  She doesn't come across as trying to impress or show off her writing prowess.  Her words are for the stories and the stories are for you.  It's that simple.  And they're wonderful.

There may not be anything supernatural in VANISHING but that doesn't make it any less engaging.  It still hooks, it still drags you in and then spits you out, leaving you reeling in your book hangover because the writing . . . THE WRITING.  It stuns.  It really does.

Ban Factor: Low - It's pretty innocuous.  There might be a couple of salacious pieces in there but that would require the banners to read and that's just downright silly to expect.

Blade Song by JC Daniels

Pub date: August 1, 2012.

Author website.

Kit Colbana—half breed, assassin, thief, jack of all trades—has a new job: track down the missing ward of one of the local alpha shapeshifters. It should be a piece of cake.

So why is she so nervous? It probably has something to do with the insanity that happens when you deal with shifters—especially sexy ones who come bearing promises of easy jobs and easier money.

Or maybe it’s all the other missing kids that Kit discovers while working the case, or the way her gut keeps screaming she’s gotten in over her head. Or maybe it’s because if she fails—she’s dead.
If she can stay just one step ahead, she should be okay. Maybe she’ll even live long to collect her fee…  (netgalley.com)

BLADE SONG is a bit out of my normal reading repertoire but at the moment I'm all about branching out and I've been following Shiloh  since she unabashedly spoke her mind about the Sirengate debacle.  So throw all of that together and I wanted to read something by her and see what she was all about author-wise because I already thought she was pretty cool as a person.

JC Daniels is the pseudonym for Shiloh Walker who writes romances, among a bunch of other books.  It looks like she writes PNR under her Walker name as well as her Daniels name and I just don't know enough about her to know why she pseudonymously writes.  But needless to say my first Walker book was a Daniels book simply because the blurb appealed to me and it's right up my alley for some adult PNR (because the YA stuff makes me a touch homicidal).

Kit is your kick ass heroine that smarts off right from the get-go and at least has the know-how to realize she should really keep her mouth shut most of the time she allows it to open.  She's part Amazon that allows her to call her sword at a moment's notice even if it's not in the area and it also gives her some other heightened senses that help her out in tough times.  Her childhood was total crap and I really liked the way Daniels interspersed Kit's PTSD with her current job, sending her reeling into her past.  Not that PTSD is a good thing but it's authentic to the character.  For instance Kit spent a lot of time starving and injured in a pit at the hands of her grandmother.  When her and Damon come upon similar pits in the Everglades Kit starts flashing back.  I just felt those flashbacks were authentic.  I bought them and it added a new vulnerable depth to Kit that gave reason to her kick ass attitude.

I was a little less than thrilled with her speech.  I felt that her dialogue and slang was, at times, reaching and it grated on me a little bit but not enough to stop reading.  The story was fast-paced and entertaining enough that it carried me through what I didn't care for and let me just enjoy the story for it's entertainment value.  I'm finding I can do this more with adult books than YA, probably because I'm starting to burn out on YA, I think.

The writing itself was on the simple side in terms of words on the page and at times redundant but I still felt Kit was a fully fleshed out character.  I found her as real as could be, right along with all of the secondary characters that Daniels introduced, from the witches to the cats and even to the humans that she ended up interacting with.  They were barely there and when they were they were serving a purpose but they were fully realized.  I didn't feel like they were puppets in a show, merely there to serve Kit.  They helped her, as much as she needed it, but they all were ultimately their own entity.

I was less than thrilled with the romance.  There was a bit by the way of sexy times but it was an antagonistic relationship that you could see coming from the beginning.  And the way Damon kept referring to Kit as baby girl made me want to strangle something.  From what I got Kit wasn't all on board with that pet name either.  The progression of the romance was exceedingly fast for what ended up coming to fruition but ultimately I think the two actually work together.  They both antagonize and compliment each other in equal measure; neither are dependent on the other, both are a bit possessive (Damon a bit more so which I found off-putting) and both could hold their own.  So I was less than thrilled with it but I didn't wholly not like it either.

You know it's a good foray into adult PNR.  It satisfied a craving that I had for something different yet similar (how . . . vague of me) and not nearly as angsty as I've been getting with the YA crowd.  It was a good deviation from my otherwise norm.  It's definitely gritty and doesn't shy away from the themes it presents so if you're a bit weaker in the will area BLADE SONG might not be for you.  But if you're keen on some violence, a kick ass chick with some issues, a nominal amount of sexy times and a good set-up for the next book, BLADE SONG is your bag.  I didn't love it but I'll keep my eye our for more, that's for sure.

Ban Factor: High - Is that a joke?  Did you read the last paragraph?

Chrysanthe by Yves Meynard

Published March 13, 2012.

Author website.

Christine, the princess and heir to the real world of Chrysanthe, is kidnapped as a small child by a powerful magician and exiled in a Made World that is a version of our present reality. In exile, supervised by her strict "uncle"(actually a wizard in disguise), she undergoes bogus memory recovery therapy, through which she is forced to remember childhood rape and abuse by her parents and others. She is terribly stunted emotionally by this terrifying plot, but at seventeen discovers it is all a lie. Christine escapes with a rescuer, Sir Quentin, a knight from Chrysanthe, in a thrilling chase across realities.


Once home, the magical standoff caused by her exile is broken, and a war begins, in spite of the best efforts of her father, the king, and his wizard, Melogian. And that war, which takes up nearly the last third of the work, is a marvel of magical invention and terror, a battle between good and evil forces that resounds with echoes of the great battles of fantasy literature.  (goodreads.com)

You know, for such an incredibly long book CHRYSANTHE was so unbelievably forgettable.  Just a note on the sheer length: my copy is roughly 500 pages with microscopic font and margins that are maybe 3/4 of an inch.  Look -

The majority of the books I read are half that, usually creating a longer than required book but it reads quickly.  Except this book wasn't shortened by it's tiny writing.  Extend it out to regular reading font and margins and you're looking at something that could possibly be broaching a 700 page book with no page breaks for chapters.  They start a couple of lines down from the end of the former chapter.  Only "book breaks" are allotted and there are seven "books" within this one.  If CHRYSANTHE were actually parsed out into seven bound books it 1) wouldn't have taken me a month to read because 2) I wouldn't have read past the first book.

As it stands CHRYSANTHE is a strange one for me.  I had neither the desire to stop reading nor continue.  I wasn't engrossed with the story and the characters were wafer thing with Christine barely developing beyond the first few pages.  Forget about Quentin.  That boy's a lost cause.  So I have no idea what compelled me to actually finish this title.  It goes against all of the logic of my prior DNFs as it rightly should have been one.

In all honesty I do think it was the world.  If nothing else the world was a pretty solid one and I found Quentin's and Christine's travels through the worlds to be fascinating and the concept that they're not even real once you leave them pretty intriguing.  It kind of bodes for the whole "tree falls in the forest" thing.  If no one's there to experience it does it exist after all?  I wasn't too fond of the whole Hero concept in that if there's an incompetent ass on the throne then the Book (read: bible) will spit out a Hero to depose the crappy ruler and not much can be done because the Law (basically an intangible governing entity enforced by some kind of higher power) will kill you dead if you even so much as flick a royal's nose and mean the harm it causes.  For instance Christine, at around 10 years old, got into a fight with a schoolmate in the made world where she was trapped and the girl kicked her in the shin.  Because the Law followed Christine and applied in the made world the girl died a horrible death (which varies from death to death on the method).  Neat concept, kind of crappy attribution.  There are a lot of flaws in the world's logic but it painted a nice picture regardless.

Except for the poop.  There's a lot of it.  Literally.  The author had an unhealthy obsession of demonstrating a character's ability to provide a BM.  I have no idea why.  But there was a lot of gut rumbling and voiding of bowels going on.  Is this an aspect of fantasy I just wasn't aware of?

CHRYSANTHE was one of the few books where I read reviews as I was reading it simply because I wanted to know why it kept getting such low star ratings.  Having read it I can understand.  You're pretty much only going to tolerate it if you're a world whore like I am, and even that's a stretch.  Reading it you're pretty much skating on the surface, reading a text book account of what's going on in these people's lives.  There's very little by the way of character development and I believe only Christine does any developing at all.  Barely.  Having such vicious false memories implanted can have one hell of an effect on a person's psyche and if I said Christine didn't grow at all as a character I'd be lying but she doesn't grow much.  She is rather stunted in the maturity department and she does end up with a lot shoved into her lap and I do believe she reacts accordingly.  But since everything else around her is stagnant and the time elapsed is only a matter of weeks it doesn't help her.  I think she's come a long way in a short amount of time, all things considered, but it's contextual.

I feel like reading something so incredibly dense I should have taken more away from it but it's fluid; it just runs from my mind.  There isn't much that's all that memorable about CHRYSANTHE but it's not inherently bad either.  I think if the author had a bit more focus and honed in on a single character or two instead of resorting to the third person omniscient voice I think more could have been done in terms of character development, especially for Christine.  It's supposed to be mostly her story but once she gets to Chrysanthe she'd abandoned for other corners of the world most of the time.  It's unfortunate.

I think the premise was fantastic and it had potential but the execution was lackluster at best.  I really wanted to like CHRYSANTHE but it just fell flat.

Ban Factor: High - It has a "made" world where everything is fake, including a bastardized version of Christianity which Christine ends up abandoning for the "true" religion of Chrysanthe.  No, no, the banners won't like that.

The Black Isle by Sandi Tan

Pub date: August 7, 2012.

Author website.

Uprooted from Shanghai with her father and twin brother, young Cassandra finds the Black Isle's bustling, immigrant-filled seaport, swampy jungle, and grand rubber plantations a sharp contrast to the city of her childhood. And she soon makes another discovery: the Black Isle is swarming with ghosts.

Haunted and lonely, Cassandra at first tries to ignore her ability to see the restless apparitions that drift down the street and crouch in cold corners at school. Yet despite her struggles with these spirits, Cassandra comes to love her troubled new home. And soon, she attracts the notice of a dangerously charismatic man.

Even as she becomes a fearless young woman, the Isle's dark forces won't let her go. War is looming, and Cassandra wonders if her unique gift might be her beloved island's only chance for salvation . . .  (netgalley.com)

I was floored with THE BLACK ISLE from the second I started reading it.  Written in a voice that's so incredibly engaging that you can't take your eyes from the page, it sucks you into an old world China where women are barely second class citizens and, depending on your status, superstition rules your life.

Cassandra goes through an epic transformation throughout the book.  The story starts with Cassandra as an old woman both running from and to her past.  She relives the world of her island through an out-of-print book at the library.  When she find that "her" book has been desecrated, her world gets rocked.  And infiltrated, by a less-than-welcome guest that wants Cassandra's story.  The plot flips back to the present a few times throughout the book, reminding the reader that Cassandra is narrating the story to someone, that there's a reason for this recounting.

When the greater story begins, Cassandra is Ling, twin of Li, the latter the more favored child because of his male status and the fact that Cassandra hogged the goods in the womb.  So while she came out nice and healthy Li was a bit starved.  To see the dynamic between brother and sister based on the parents' behavior was, at times, horrifying to watch.  They're twins so they share the same birthday except Cassandra didn't get gifts.  Those were reserved for the favored son.  It's a cultural aspect that I had a hard time getting over and it really bothered me to read.

I'll admit, Chinese culture isn't something I'm crazy about but the ghost story aspect of THE BLACK ISLE drew me in and I actually learned quite a few things about the culture.  And it even answered a few of my questions about the people in general.  I'd like to believe that a story so rich in Chinese culture would, in the same breath, be accurate as well.  I believed everything I read without a blink but you'll have to ask someone better versed in Chinese culture just how close it all is.  Right now I have no reason to doubt any of it.

It's not too long into the story that things take a turn for the strange and Cassandra starts being able to see ghosts.  It actually coincides with an incident in the park involving Li and their subsequent distancing.  That incident, though, I don't think is very realized.  It serves as a catalyst to get the twins apart (they were pretty much inseparable until that point) and then it comes back in at the end.  But it doesn't do much for character-building.  I thought it was going to have some greater impact on Li other than just a personality shift but there wasn't much.  He got cranky for a little while but that was about it.

When they up and moved to the Isle you get the full realization of just how incompetent Cassandra's father is and how reliant he is on his children to do his job.  I was flabbergasted by this and how long both of them actually put up with his ineptitude.  And it wasn't he just didn't have the smarts for it.  He just had better things to do with his time and it really angered his kids, especially when it was entirely their doing that got the plantation they moved to up and running and the workers in order.  Of course their job was thankless.

There was a tryst between Cassandra and Li that really bothered me and it's another aspect of the story that I'm not sure how relevant it is to the greater plot.  Like I said I'm unfamiliar with Chinese culture but the ease with which the siblings entered into a sexual relationship really took me aback.  Was this okay because they're twins?  They hid it from their father so there was some level of shame there; just not a lot.  I was bothered by it, by its casual attitude and then it's relevance was gone.  It served its purpose for the plot at the moment but, like the incident in the park, I don't think it served it's purpose to the greater story.

Cassandra is a character trying desperately to be her own person.  She breaks off from her father and brother and gets a job on her own after finishing her schooling.  That job brings her to her fiancee, the son of her school's proprietor, and she's elevated into a social strata that she wouldn't otherwise be in.  Of course the male members of her family resent her for it.  She's supposed to be subservient to her father and brother, not rise above them.  But she was determined to make her own way, albeit on the backs of wealthier others.  It's because of this that she officially changes her name from Ling to Cassandra.

As time progressed in the story itself it does come across, a bit, as Cassandra effectively whoring her way into the best possible scenarios for herself.  She does appear to have feelings for two of the three suitors in the story but their positions in society sway my feelings about her a bit and make her look a bit like a gold digger.  These were opportune matches.  She just happened to have feelings for them as well.  But I don't believe she would have entered into those relationships simply for the status.  I do believe she loved two of the three.  I just think the author wrote it in such a way as to make the reader see, just slightly, what other people might see in Cassandra.  She is not a woman that actually worked her way up from the dredges.  She was well-placed, well-timed and well-suited.  Not her fault but it is convenient.

The second suitor?  Well he's not really a suitor.  He was one of the occupying soldiers when Japan invaded and kept Cassandra locked in her fiance's house and raped her repeatedly and referred to her as his wife.  It was a very weird situation and Taro absolutely took advantage of everything he could about her.  He kept her compliant to his whims by dangling her would-be family and friends in front of her.  It was a horrible situation and throughout, since it's in first person, you know that she's doing it for other people, for Daniel and her brother although I don't doubt some level of self-preservation.  No one wants to die, not really.  So I don't begrudge her that.

It takes Cassandra a while to come into accepting her abilities.  Issa, a shaman of sorts, tries to teach her but she bails, afraid of what she's getting into.  Years later she realizes that there is a benefit to working with the damned, at a heavy price, of course.  The ghosts of the Isle become tools for everyone to use, from Cassandra to prove a point, to suitor number three to get the island where he wants it to be.  It's not until she's much older that she fully realizes the total repercussions of what she can do, what she can see and how it affects not just her but everyone.

THE BLACK ISLE is a story about growth fueled by ghosts.  Ling/Cassandra denies her true self for a long time but slowly she comes into her own, taking hold of who she really is and embracing it, at times not fully understanding what it is she's undertaking.  The ghosts are a prominent aspect of the story but I wouldn't necessarily call THE BLACK ISLE a ghost story.  It's a coming-of-age and moving past it.  It's accepting your past and knowing when revenge has already been paid.  I can't say enough good things about it.  The voice is PHENOMENAL, balancing an elegant prose with a relatable one resulting in a story that anyone can love and get drawn into.  I'm so glad I opted to read this.  It called out to me from the NetGalley list and for good reason.  There are some books in your life that will leave a lasting impression for any number of reasons.  THE BLACK ISLE is one of mine.

Ban Factor: High - A foreign culture and religion and ghosts.  Oh noes!

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen

Published October 2010.

Author website.

A seance held in an aristocratic London home goes horribly awry when one of the undead nosferatu appear. The resulting chaos leaves one of the fraudulent spiritualists dead, Sherlock Holmes missing, and Dr. Watson alone and mystified. With time running out, Watson has no choice but to summon the only one who might be able to help--Holmes' vampire cousin, Prince Dracula.  (goodreads.com)

I've never read any SHERLOCK HOLMES stories before so when SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE came across my inbox for review I opened up a little bit and took it in.  The topic alone (vampires!) drew me in and it was a style I was willing to try out since I wasn't all that familiar with it.  Why not, right?  It could be something I ended up liking.

While I liked the quirkiness of the plot (kind of hard not to picture Downey Jr. and Law in the Holmes/Watson roles, respectively, since I've seen both movies, weird, I know) and it's particular kitsch and drier sense of humor the voice ultimately was not something I could get involved with.  There wasn't anything inherently bad about it.  I thought everything I read was really well-written, the humor was great, the scenes were painted wonderfully.  But the style of writing, the tone of voice, just isn't for me.

I ended up not finishing SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE because of that.  Again, it wasn't bad, what I read.  I just couldn't connect with the story's tone.  If you're into stories from that era (I'm looking at you, Austen fans, just without the romance, really, but there are vampires) I can pretty much bet you'll like something like this.  I at least liked the characters and have I mentioned the humor?  All great.

But stories in this mindset I'll be avoiding from now on.  Take this plot and set it in a more modern tongue (but you can keep the humor as is, I like the quirk) and I'd be all over it.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires and Spiritualists.  That's pretty much all you need to know.

Obsidian & Blood by Aliette de Bodard

Pub date: June 26, 2012.

Author website.

A massive fantasy omnibus containing all three novels in the Obsidian and Blood series:


Servant of the Underworld: Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan – the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, high priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.


Harbinger of the Storm: The year is Two House and the Mexica Empire teeters on the brink of destruction, lying vulnerable to the flesh-eating star-demons – and to the return of their creator, a malevolent goddess only held in check by the Protector God’s power. The council is convening to choose a new emperor, but when a councilman is found dead, only Acatl, High Priest of the Dead, can solve the mystery.


Master of the House of Darts: The year is Three Rabbit, and the storm is coming… The coronation war for the new Emperor has just ended in a failure, the armies retreating with a mere forty prisoners of war – not near enough sacrifices to ensure the favor of the gods. When one of those prisoners of war dies of a magical illness, Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, is summoned to investigate.  (netgalley.com)

OBSIDIAN & BLOOD ended up being one of those books that kept me reading but I wasn't over the moon about.  Don't get me wrong; I liked what I read but I only read through SERVANT OF THE UNDERWORLD.  I just didn't feel compelled to keep reading.

I liked the world that de Bodard created.  It felt effortless, as if it didn't need explanation.  It just was.  It might be because it's Mayan, of which people have a general understanding of.  They may not know the workings of the years (I sure didn't) or which gods to curse to and why (something that nagged at me a lot but I eventually just started ignoring it) but even without explanation the world felt fully fleshed.  It felt like it was something that actually existed.  It was tangible and I believed it in absolutely from the very beginning.  I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know a ton about the Mayans.  I don't but reading de Bodard's world felt genuine to me.

I also liked how she made the gods beings that humans could actually interact with.  They bestowed power to the priests and priestesses directly.  You could visit one of their temples and speak with them as if you would speak to someone in your house (assuming your sacrifices were worthy, of course).  They were a part of the created world as much as the temples and people themselves.  They weren't intangible beings that people worshipped to blindly.  Faith was essentially removed from the equation because the gods had proven themselves in multiple ways.  No one could deny them; it would be like denying a chair.  Or a reed mat.

The effortless blood-letting and sacrifice, while kind of shocking, felt like it fit.  This was a natural occurrence for the Mayans, part of daily life and it was treated as such in the text.  Attention wasn't drawn to it, there was never a big deal around it.  If Acatl had to cut himself to serve a purpose he did it and that was that.  If something had to be sacrificed it was and no one bat an eye.  The author really kept herself out of the story in terms of moralizing and I really liked that.  This was what the Mayans did.  Full stop.

I liked Acatl as a character.  He definitely had some issues to contend with especially when he started getting deeply involved in his brother's murder trial.  But a distance was there.  I just couldn't connect with him on a deeper level than as a character I was reading on the page.  Not necessarily a bad thing but it had me skating through the story, skimming the surface.

The overall story I felt was far more murder mystery than anything fantasy.  As much as I really liked the effortless feel of the world it ultimately played second string to the story as a result.  Personally I like my fantasy worlds being characters in the story itself.  I like them lively and front and center.  So I definitely have a double standard here.  I admit that.  What can I say?  It's just how I feel.  I wished there was more of a balance between the world and the plot, where it didn't feel so much like a crime novel with a different background.  I think that kept me from really connecting as well since I'm not too big on the crime genre overall.  I'm okay with it but I don't actively read it.

If you're a fantasy fan the Mayan world in OBSIDIAN & BLOOD is definitely one to take a look at.  It stands out again your more standard fantasy fare of castles and dragons and Merlin-like magic and whatnot.  Beware of the names as I found them very hard to pronounce and don't expect to get much by the way of explanation for anything.  The book is written as if the reader is already aware of the world they're reading about.  So it might take some acclimating or you might end up like me and feeling a little distanced from it as a result.  Still it's a pretty good read.  I just didn't feel compelled to read beyond the first book.

Ban Factor: High - Total lack of Christianity and total pagan sacrifice and blood-letting.  I love it.  They hate it.

Advent by James Treadwell

Pub date: July 3, 2012.

Author website.

1537. A man hurries through city streets in a gathering snowstorm, clutching a box in one hand. He is Johann Faust, the greatest magician of his age. The box he carries contains a mirror safeguarding a portion of his soul and a small ring containing all the magic in the world. Together, they comprise something unimaginably terrible. 

 London, the present day. Fifteen-year-old Gavin Stokes is boarding a train to the countryside to live with his aunt. His school and his parents can’t cope with him and the things he sees, things they tell him don’t really exist. 

 At Pendurra, Gavin finds people who are like him, who see things too. They all tell him the same thing: magic exists, and it’s leaking back into our world—and bringing something terrible with it.  (netgalley.com)

ADVENT was one of those books that I DESPERATELY wanted to like but no matter how hard I tried it just kept falling short.  Ultimately I can add this one to my hearty DNF pile as of late.  I tried to hard to like this one.  I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt but by the time things started picking up I was too tired of trying to care and couldn't muster the want to keep it up.

Gavin's a character that wallows in his own self pity for about two thirds of the book, constantly harping on how no one understands him, how alone he is, how he keeps seeing Mrs. Grey everywhere.  Alternatively Johann is the same exact way, stuck in a time loop of cyclical proportions because every time the plot snaps back to his 1537 it was telling the same damn story over and over again.  He loved a woman that gave him power and kept trying to find her.  She spurned him.  Over and over again.  I was tired of it.  I didn't understand why the story couldn't just move on.  Gav really needed to get over his shit far sooner than when he did and Johann had a lot of women issues that just grated on me.  Plus his story was redundant.

The story finally starts to get somewhere by about page 300.  It reads like it was duct taped together after a drunken night out.  I'm not sure who decided on the order of the chapters but if the story actually started where the story was finally getting good I probably would have stuck around for the whole thing.  This one random chapter, somewhere between half way and two third of the way finished, completely sucked me in.  It gave the appropriate amount of backstory to the people living at Pendurra, and it's amazing backstory to boot.  It answers a lot of the whys that had been swimming around for the length of the plot up until that point and it's actually incredibly interesting.  Unfortunately for the book it was too little too late.  Up until that point I had put forth so much effort to try and care that when I actually could my brain just wasn't up to it.

I get it.  I know it's not technically YA although the protagonist is a fifteen-year-old boy, which is why I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt.  I expected the plot to take a little longer to get into but I wasn't expecting so long.  I didn't think the same point would get beaten over my head for nearly 300 pages until something finally happened.  All I wanted was a good fantasy to read and judging by the blurb this rightly could have been it.  Maybe it's my fault for setting my expectations far too high.  Or maybe it's the book's for taking FOREVER to get the eff on with it.  I need something more than an emo boy and his invisible issues whining about his life.  Or the chauvinist masturbating to the sound of his own awesomeness.

I just couldn't do it.  I wanted to but I couldn't.  I'd been set up and set up and set up too many times up until the turning point to being open and willing to get set up again.  No thanks.  Maybe when my care returns I'll try finishing up the rest of it but right now I need something that hooks me in from the beginning; not something that takes me nearly the entire book to go YES.

Ban Factor: High - It's a fantasy so that's pretty much automatic.  It's set in the real world so there is grounds for salvation there but at the rate it involves old gods and magic I'm not giving it much hope.

Samantha Moon by JR Rain

Pub date: June 5, 2012.

Author website.

Mother, wife, private investigator ... and vampire. Six years ago, federal agent Samantha Moon was the perfect wife and soccer mom with the minivan and suburban home. Then the unthinkable happened, an attack that changed her life forever. And forever is a very long time for a vampire.


Samantha's adventures as a night-roaming vampire and private investigator in Samantha Moon include ...


Vampire for Hire #1) Moon Dance: Samantha is hired by Kingsley Fulcrum to investigate the attempt on his life, a horrific scene watched on TV around the country. But Kingsley isn't exactly what he appears to be; after all, there is a reason why he survived five shots to the head.


Vampire for Hire #2) Vampire Moon: Samantha Moon hunts down a powerful crime lord and protects an innocent woman from her ruthless ex-husband-all while two very different men vie for her heart. As the stakes grow higher and her cases turn personal, Samantha Moon will do whatever it takes to protect the innocent and bring two cold-blooded killers to justice-her own brand of justice.


Vampire for Hire #3) American Vampire: Samantha receives a heartbreaking call from a very unlikely source: a five-year-old girl who's been missing for three months. Using her considerable resources-including her growing supernatural abilities-to locate the missing girl before it's too late, Samantha also receives devastating news on the home front, forcing her to make the ultimate choice of life and death.


Vampire for Hire #4) Moon Child: Samantha Moon is faced with an impossible decision that will change her life and those of the ones she loves forever-a decision that no mother should ever have to make. And through it all, Samantha finds herself in a lethal game of vampire versus vampire as a powerful and desperate enemy will stop at nothing to claim what he most desires.


Christmas Moon: With Christmas just around the corner, Samantha takes on a very strange case: A priceless family treasure has been stolen, something passed down through the generations and buried in secrets. And Samantha gets half of whatever it is ... if she can find it first.


... and an all-new Samantha Moon short story by J.R. Rain.  (netgalley.com)

I was SUPER excited to get to reading this omnibus.  Mainly because I'm a little desperate for something different.  As if vampires are something different, right?  But this just sounded so neat.  A vampire PI?  Hell yeah I'll try that out.

Eleven pages into book one and I wanted to light it on fire.  I mean we're talking so bad I actually stopped reading.  I know I've had a small string of DNFs lately but you all know me; I usually give them far more of a chance than a mere eleven pages.  Hell, HALO got more than that from me.  I just couldn't do it with SAMANTHA MOON.  It was too terrible.

First the writing, much like WILDE'S FIRE, was too unpolished.  The sentences were just strung along together, getting me from point A to point B with no flourish and would alternate between zipping through seemingly more important moments, like backstory, and hanging out at mundane crap I didn't care about, like picking up her kids from school.  I don't care.  It was an underdeveloped work.

Next the MC wanted to hump every male leg that she crossed paths with.  I'm okay with vamporn of the pornpire.  Not a problem with it.  But I HATE it when every male that crossed the MC's path is described by their varying levels of fuckability.  Especially when the MC is already married.  Yeah, no.    Bitch, you're a trashhole.  The opening scene was Samantha getting a delivery from a UPS guy and I honest to god thought it was either a porn dream or I was reading erotica with the way the dude was described.  And of course he was some super awesome, super sexy guy that the MC just wanted to bang right against the door jamb.  Yeah, because all of my delivery men look like that.  And she constantly had to throw mental ice water on herself.  I was just not cool with it.  Especially since she was already married.  It's okay to look but this woman might as well have just ingested a keg of Spanish Fly.  Gross.

And then there was the name-dropping.  Burger King, Coppertone and a few others.  In eleven pages there were five that I counted, four of those within three consecutive paragraphs.  Annoying.  Why can't you just say you stopped for burgers?  Why can't you just say you slathered on sunscreen?  Do you get paid for every name you drop?  Blech.

But the kicker?  Samantha was viewing video footage of some dude getting gunned down.  And the assassin was using a .22.  NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.  Did the guy sit down to pee too?  But I kept reading.  And then that same gun totally shredded a tree big enough to hide a guy the size of a Coke machine.  And we're done.  Fucking seriously?  Dear authors: if you're going to write about guns, DO YOUR GODDAMN RESEARCH.  I hate it when authors want to use guns but instead of actually looking into them they just watch some movies with guns in them.  I'm sure this author would have people flying back after getting hit with a .22 too.  Boo.  Sorry, author.  You've totally blown my trust.  We can't be friends.

So yeah.  Eleven pages into book one and done.  Could I recommend this to someone?  If you like mediocre writing, name-dropping and know nothing about guns and can thus swallow such fallacies, by all means take a stab at it.  I won't be making it.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires, assassins and a way-too-horny married woman.  Yeah, cooked.

V Wars by Jonathan Maberry

Pub date: May 29, 2012.

Author website.

A sweeping, threaded narrative of the global phenomenon known as the Vampire Wars! Mankind is silently infected by a millennia-old bacteria unknowingly exhumed by a scientific expedition in Antarctica. Now, in some rare cases, a person’s so-called “junk DNA” becomes activated, and depending on their racial and ethnic heritage they begin to manifest one of the many diverse forms of the “others” that are the true basis for the legends of supernatural creatures. These aren’t your usual vampires and werewolves — it goes much deeper than that.  (netgalley.com)

V WARS is actually more of an anthology centered around a single spine of a plot.  Maberry is in the middle of it all, weaving the basis of the world with JUNK, ESCALATION, SPECIES, GENOCIDE, EMBEDDED and LAST BITES.  JUNK takes up the biggest chunk of the story, centering on Michael Fayne, aka Patient Zero (not Joe Ledger).  The guy that started it all.  I only know Jonathan for his zombies but let me tell you he can do vampires too.  I just LOVED the science behind it, how it was basically a virus that activated dormant, or junk, DNA in our genetic code giving humans vampire tendencies.  Unlike zombies most of these guys blended into society so you would have no idea if the person standing next to you on the subway is leering at you because you're hot or because they're hungry.  To pun terribly, it's a more evolved pandemic than something like a zombie virus, as that's what people with the mutations come to think of themselves as.  Evolved.  They've moved on to the next phase of humanity.

Each subsequent story of Maberry's moves on to how the reaction to this virus would escalate in the world, the breakdown of the species (which I loved because all of these authors delved into some seriously off the beaten path vampires, the variety was awesome), deeming the mutants enemies of the state by the government and thus sanctioning their slaughter, the vampires teaming up to fight back and then vampires hiding in plain sight.  These stories were sprinkled along the book, mixed in with other authors and they created an excellent complement to everything else going around.  Everyone really wrote so well within Maberry's imagined world that while the voices differed the stories seemed authentic.  Seriously loved it.

Nancy Holder authored ROADKILL about bikers defending the border and then ultimately losing their grip on reality and who is really the enemy.  I liked this one for the ambiance.  The story didn't hold me so much as its setting.  I could feel the grit and the grime of the desert and it ground out the unreality of the situations into something tangible.  Probably because I've been to Arizona and could actually picture it.  Made it all the more real.

John Everson wrote LOVE LESS about a talk show host that's pretty much a closet sociopath.  I liked this character for her ingenuity but that's where it pretty much ended.  She wasn't sympathetic although she presented a really interesting variety in the vampire species going around.

Yvonne Navarro wrote EPIPHANY which was quite possibly my second favorite story in this compendium.  Also set in Arizona, it focuses on a seventeen-year-old Native American girl still living on the reservation and ostracized from her society in part because her parents were nonconformists to their world but also because she was raped.  She begins to morph into a kind of snake-like vampire that was just super crazy from the beginning.  She even adopted slightly snake-like features (if you're thinking Voldemort you've gone too far) and made a pretty good job for herself because of her, um, talents.  Between the setting and the fantastic character in Mooney, I didn't want this particular narrative to end.

Scott Nicholson wrote HEARTSICK, a short I wasn't all that impressed with.  Loved the lore of the Raven Mockers that would eat people's hearts but the characters were a bit too stereotypical heehaws for my liking.

James A. Moore added STALKING ANNA LEI which had a not-so-appealing vampire (something kind of cat-like) but a great plot.  A brother is on a mission to find his sister who he thinks was kidnapped by an ogre-looking vampire.  Except this nasty vampire is leaving a blood trail that points right back to the MC.  Definitely suspenseful and an author that's rather unforgiving with his characters.  I liked it.

Keith RA Decandido wrote THE BALLAD OF BIG CHARLIE which deviated from the truer vampire line just a bit to add in shapeshifters.  Charlie is a Bronx DA who also happens to be a werewolf.  This is the story that, for me, really zeros in on something more political in terms of equality.  Is Charlie even human anymore?  Should he be allowed out of the house?  Is he safe?  Obvious parallels to society's current issues with gay people and their rights, or minorities, or any people in adversity really.  It takes place an extended amount of time after the zero event so society has had a chance to thoroughly react to the issue and polarize itself.  I normally don't like moralizing but I was okay with it here.  It didn't seem contrived and fit really well with the story as a whole.  This one probably came in a solid number three from the top for me.

And last but not least Gregory Frost wrote VULPES about a Romanian scientist getting exposed to the virus in Antarctica but it doesn't go where you think it might go considering her home (as people's mutations depend on their heritage).  She is actually the antithesis to the vampires, a protector of mankind.  A great way to end the book, really.  Her line of mutation is the medicine for the vampire virus.  It's not pretty but with the "bad" mutations come the "good" ones that'll help protect society.

With the ridiculous mix of vampire lore going on in V WARS, there is definitely something for every vampire lover in here.  From the scientific aspect (which I found believable) to the emergence of little known vampire species (and the authors' willingness to deviate from the beaten and cliched path) and the various effects it has on the world, V WARS kept me entertained from beginning to end.  This is a serious Christmas gift for at least a couple of my die hard vampire-loving friends.  And I'm not talking about Twihards either.  They can stuff it.  These vamps would devour Edward whole, pound his granite glitter skin into eyeshadow and hand it out at strip clubs.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires, gore and sex.  This one's not for the kiddies.

Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper

Published February, 2012.

Author website.

The Book of Eador, Abjurations 12:14, is very clear: Suffer ye not the life of a witch. For a thousand years, the Church Knights have obeyed that commandment, sending to the stake anyone who can hear the songs of the earth. There are no exceptions, not even for one of their own. 

 Novice Knight Gair can hear music no one else can, beautiful, terrible music: music with power. In the Holy City, that can mean only one thing: death by fire—until an unlikely intervention gives him a chance to flee the city and escape the flames. 

 With the Church Knights and their witchfinder hot on his heels, Gair hasn’t time to learn how to use the power growing inside him, but if he doesn’t master it, that power will tear him apart. His only hope is the secretive Guardians of the Veil, though centuries of persecution have almost destroyed their Order, and the few Guardians left have troubles of their own.

 For the Veil between worlds is weakening, and behind it, the Hidden Kingdom, ever-hungry for dominion over the daylight realm, is stirring. Though he is far from ready, Gair will find himself fighting for his own life, for everyone within the Order of the Veil, and for the woman he has come to love.  (goodreads.com)

I tried.  I really, really did.  I WANTED to like SONGS OF THE EARTH, despite the utter creepfest on the cover.  Fantasy is what I write.  I want to be inspired by the fantasy I read.  And I tried.  I gave it more leeway, read a little further than I would have normally because it's adult fantasy (not sexy times adult, just not YA) and thus carries more fat.  It can take longer to get into the story.  So I was patient.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  By the 300 page mark I was done waiting.  I couldn't stand in the rain any longer.  I closed the book for good.

It was just so unbelievably dull I found myself falling asleep more times than not, not to mention kind of grumbling as I picked it up to keep reading.  After my hopes fell I didn't WANT to read it anymore.  But I kept trudging because maybe . . . nope.  And it's written in that standard "this is how fantasy novels should be written" voice that pretty much blends all the characters together and everyone sounds like they stepped out of Oxford in 1562 or something.  The only voice that really stood out to me was Darin's.  A spunky little thing that was blooming with personality.  If only there were more of him.  There wasn't.  I got Gair who's about as fascinating as a stump.

For 300 pages I read about people traveling, complaining about others and nominally conspiring.  Perhaps it was me zoning out while I read but not too much got absorbed.  The "conspiring" I felt was lackluster, not even a proper lady's gasp-worthy.  Gair's plight was so convoluted in stilted text that I just didn't care.  When some magic started appearing I was focusing far more on how much the voice bored me than anything that was going on.  He and one of his teachers transformed into animals together and he and another student got into a sword fight.  That's the extent of it.  There's some talk of the Veil and that thinning and stuff getting through but it's lost in the words.  I barely found it.

The story alternates POVs from Gair to one of the Gatekeepers of the Veil and then to the big nasty at the head of the kingdom that keeps everyone in a religious furor.  And the religion?  Far too Christian to be anything but Christian.  Sure, some words in the prayers were swapped out and the one god was a female but let's not call it something it's not.  It's thinly-veiled Christianity.  Why this book wasn't set during the Inquisition I have no idea.  That would make far more sense than ripping all of those elements and setting in a different "world."  Of which I wasn't thrilled with on the whole.  It had some potential but since its religion was overbearing it tended to overshadow everything else around it.  There were some token villages, horse-riding and the like.  Nothing special, really.

I started reading SONGS OF THE EARTH all super amped.  Yes!  A high fantasy!  I could get inspired!  And then my flower slowly, and then more quickly, started to wilt as I kept reading.  My own fault for getting my hopes up but quite frankly I expect a little more coming from the fantasies I read.  I'm not even harping on the whole Chosen One Syndrome but just written in a way that doesn't cure insomnia.  Who is spreading the vicious lie that fantasies need to be written in such stilted language?  I shall hunt him or her down.

Anyway, some might have more patience for it but in a book of about 450 pages with nothing more going on by page 300, that's the patience of a saint right there.  I commend you.  I couldn't do it.

Ban Factor: High - Bastardization of Christianity with magic.  That is all.

Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright by Justine Saracen

Pub date: March 13, 2012.

Author website.

Twelve years of terror end with a world in flames. Behind filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s stirring footage of a million joyous patriots, the horror of Nazi Germany slowly unfolds. It engulfs Katja Sommer, a “good German” with dangerous desires; Frederica Brandt, a traitor to her homeland; Rudi Lamm, a homosexual camp survivor and forced soldier for Hitler; and Peter Arnhelm, a half-Jewish smuggler on the run. Under the scrutiny of the familiar monsters of the Third Reich, their enablers, and their hangers-on, these four struggle for life and for each other. Love does not conquer all, but it’s far better than going to hell alone. (netgalley.com)

First off, let me say that TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT is NOT Nazi propaganda (I'm looking at YOU, Photobucket!). It's a book about German citizens, four in particular who are gay, fighting the regime from the inside. Two end up in camps with one signing up for the SS in order to get out, one goes into hiding in plain sight and the fourth bides her time working for the Ministry of Propaganda in order to smuggle confidential information out of the country to the Allies.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a total sucker for World War II era books. I love them. In order for me not to love it it's need to tank pretty badly. And aside from some pretty mechanical writing, TYGER, TYGER was a pretty good story. What I especially liked reading was the war from a perspective other than the Americans or British. Seeing it from behind enemy lines, from traitorous people working against the fascist regime, it gives that whole era yet another dimension that one wouldn't get from just reading it through a single set of eyes.

The story, for the most part, is through Katja's eyes, alternating to Frederica, Rudi and Peter for short amounts of time but you end up feeling for them all. Irrespective of the style of writing, when the camps come into play and two of the characters end up with first hand accounts, nothing is glossed over. To see what the Germans did to their own people is horrifying and TYGER, TYGER didn't cut corners with that. In fact that's when I felt the book was being the most detailed and gritty: when it was describing the horror around the characters. Their lives were a little dry and at times emotionless but when the outside came in, it came with a force that knocked everything else away. It was just so powerful that I was literally taken aback when reading certain parts of the story.

I also liked how this could have really happened. Real people were used, like Goebbels and Riefenstahl and the things that happened in their lives happened in this book. It rooted the more dramatic aspects, like the level to which Frederica gets, into greater reality. While it probably didn't happen, it felt like it could have reading the story.

Because of the mechanical writing it did feel like it was missing something. I think at times it could have been a passion. Yes the events that were recounted hit deeply and I could feel what the characters were going through but at times it felt more like a statement than a story. Good, yes, but a bit too technical. But really that would probably be my only complaint about TYGER, TYGER. Everything else hits home quite well.

If you're a World War II reader like I am, you'll want to add TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT to your list of reading material. For it's single fault, it provides a great story through relatively unfamiliar eyes and I think it's because of that that makes the story feel somehow fresher than a lot of other WWII fiction out there. At least to this American.

Ban Factor: High - I think the homosexuality and lesbianism would set the banners in a tizzy as it is.

Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry + Giveaway!

Published October 25, 2011.

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite. (goodreads.com)

I continue to be amazed by the awesomeness that is Jonathan Maberry. He writes zombies like none I've ever seen. But it's not just the zombies. It's the lives of the people around the zombies, and even the lives of the zombies themselves. He knows what he's doing so well that if there's room for improvement, then I'm a natural blonde. I am continuously struck dumb at the end of Maberry's novels, in complete awe of the awesome that they are. From ROT & RUIN to DUST & DECAY and now DEAD OF NIGHT. I have the first two Joe Ledger books in my pile and I look at them longingly. But once those are read, my Maberry library dwindles and I'm left with little else. That's a sad day.

DEAD OF NIGHT is written in alternating viewpoints using mainly Dez, Billy Trout and Doc Hartnup as the rotating POVs. Dez is the hot white trash cop that's a total hard ass and will sooner kneecap you than compliment you. Billy is a reporter just striving to get a hit when he stumbles onto this mess. And Doc who unintentionally at the forefront of the apocalypse and hating every minute of it. We get peeks through other eyes and while those moments are small, they're no less significant. Each provides valuable insight into the greater story. Without it all, each and every piece, the story would be missing something. Thankfully it's not.

The thing is, even with all of the characters that we do end up bouncing around to, they're all written so uniquely that it's impossible NOT to tell them apart. They each pop off the page in their own singular way that all you have to do is read a few words from that particular chapter and you'll immediately know whose head you're in. Really, it's phenomenal.

And then there's the heart factor. One of the best parts about Maberry's ROT & RUIN series was how he humanized zombies. In DEAD OF NIGHT he takes it a step further and puts you behind the eyes of the single-minded corpses to see what's really going on. And it's truly horrifying. The deal with this strain, it detaches the conscious thought from the body, letting the parasite control the physical while the mental still belongs to the person. It is horribly, horribly, horrifying to be looking through Doc's eyes as he's doing things he can't control and begging for a real death. Not to mention a bit nauseating. I would not recommend reading this one while eating. I keep making that mistake.

The best heart, though, is Dez's. You see her as the immovable rock that she is in the beginning and slowly all of the horrors around her break through her defenses and you see her crumble only to build herself back up just as quickly. She's such a moving, dynamic character that it's hard not to like her. Yeah, she's a loud-mouthed bitch that shoots first and probably won't ask questions later but there's hope in her, buried pretty deep. But it's there. And as the story goes on it crawls its way out and really, the end is pretty touching. There were tears on my end. I won't lie.

I can't forget the human horror in the story. These apocalyptic tales are bound to have them. Enter the military and martial law and all that comes with it. Even though that part was pretty much expected, I didn't care. I loved every second of it. Because in reality, I believed it. I believed everything Maberry wrote. Seriously. This guy writes guns and battle and form like he's done it all himself (and I'm pretty sure he's done a lot of it). No cocking triggers for this guy! I was able to see, feel and hear it all. I'd get so sucked into the story's reality that I'd lose chunks of time and actually lift my head disoriented. How many books can do that to you?

If you love zombies, Maberry's got the front-running mark in that category. I've read three of his books so far and they're all astounding. DEAD OF NIGHT carries on his awesome writing, his eye for specifics and his insane character development to the next level. How he keeps hitting these marks he sets with his own books I have no idea. But I continue to be surprised bythe epicness that is Jonathan Maberry every time I read one of his books. Really, you'd think I'd expect it. But to say Maberry surpasses my expectations is like saying Pamela Anderson's boobs aren't that big.

Giveaway time!!!

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Afterlight by Elle Jasper

Published November 2, 2010.

Author website.

Savannah's most unconventional tattoo artist, Riley Poe, lives on the edge. Now she's put over the edge when her younger brother is taken by a sinister cult led by vampires. Her only ally is the hot-tempered vampire Eli Dupre, attracted to Riley's beauty and rare blood type. To save her brother from certain un-death, Riley faces dangers she's never dreamed of, ruthless bloodthirsty enemies, and an evil of endless hunger that wants to devour it all... (goodreads.com)

I stumbled across AFTERLIGHT purely by accident. I was searching Goodreads for one title, of course similar, but this one got stuck in my head. When I pulled it up I knew it wasn't what I was looking for but I was intrigued by the cover. I read the blurb and decided to add it to my want-to-read list. It sat there for a little while and when I went on one of my book-buying binges I picked it up, where it promptly sat in my tangible TBR pile for a while. When I finally got around to reading it I was SO, SO, SO happy that I came across it.

Now, when I think of an unconventional tattoo artist I think of someone wearing GAP that drives a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. But that's besides the point. But aside from that, that blurb really isn't anything different. It's not. A vampire attracted to a human because of her blood type? Yawn. Really. But there was something about it that kept me thinking that it wasn't quite the same as the rest. And I was right. To a point.

It had some vague TWILIGHT-ish similarities with the family of vampires (except this one is an actual family, not adopted) that are "humane" vampires, a couple of off the cuff rogue vampires and their pack of newlings going insane in a city, Riley's rare blood that drives vampires insane and that's kinda where it ends and the original pieces pick up. Like the hoodoo/voodoo stuff. That plays a very prominent role and I really ended up liking Riley's adoptive grandparents. They just had an unusual aspect to them that one doesn't tend to find in this kind of reading that really made it all stand out. It was set in Savannah, a place I'm not all that familiar with and it's not "typical." Meaning it's not your normal New Orleans/New York City get-up. Really, it's just a random city and I liked that. Plus it was really obvious that Jasper knows Savannah with the detail that she wrote about it. All the cemeteries, the moss, the smells. It just all popped off the page and it felt like I was there while reading it.

The writing isn't stellar. I've definitely read better. Riley toes the edge of being a bit of a Sue at times (she can fight with the best of them, in super high heels no less, has a six pack to die for, tiny little body, is an awesome tattoo artist, self-made, rare blood, etc.) but she's just enough not and someone that can really stand on her own that I give her a pass. Had not all of the outlying factors existed that made me love this book then I probably wouldn't have liked her and thought her a bit too much. Plus there's her being turned on by being nearly brutalized by Eli in the beginning. Weird and a bit contrived. As was some of the dialogue (it sounded just a bit TOO hip) and some phrases got way overused ("a totally guy laugh" was one of them and made me wonder if that's the only laugh guys make in Riley's world).

But I did love Riley, despite all of that. She had her life shit on when she was growing up and had enough brains left to reform herself (thanks, in large part, to her adoptive grandparents). Life rode her like a cowboy for a little while there and she bears the marks of that. But she's surprisingly well-adjusted and deeply committed to her brother. She sacrifices everything she has to save the last remaining blood family she has. And she doesn't do it stupidly. She trains, hard, to be able to do it. She's forced to face her own limitations and while, like all good heroines, she makes some dumb ass judgment calls, thankfully the Dupre family is there to hold strong where Riley falls short. It's not just her brother at stake but a greater threat to the whole city should they not succeed in stamping out this rogue vampire threat.

And did I mention the sexy times? Yes, there are sexy times, RIFE with heinously unattainable orgasm times and vampiric loss of control. The sexy times are good but there's a sinister aspect behind them. No pillow-biting and feather-flying going on here. Eli nearly loses his shit and Victorian wraps his metaphorical hands around Riley's throat by dream-raping her. The juxtaposition of the sexy times is definitely an intriguing aspect of the story, because it's sexy times with a deeper, Freudian meaning behind it. Thinking, I like.

And I liked Eli. He wasn't shy about calling Riley on some of her idiotic moves. Like when he told her to stay put and she didn't. He got all over that. I love it when stuff like that that's overlooked in other books gets almost ragged on in ones I like. I think it was fairly obvious that it was a jab at other heroines not listening to words of advise and not having to deal with their repercussions but Eli's not about to have that. For all his brooding (not Louis-level brooding, or Edward-level, but still a bit of a brooder) he's really solid when it came to calling people out. I squealed a little every time he did it.

Of course I can't forget the Lost Boys reference. That absolutely sealed the deal. Enter rose-colored glasses. Riley could have probably skipped off with Eli in wedded bliss on a rainbow to pink fluffy clouds at the end and I wouldn't have cared. Lost Boys reference. And a favorable one at that. Vampires giving kudos to an epic vampire movie? Yes, please.

So it's not the most well-written book I've ever come across but there's so much love in this story that I just couldn't stop. It's been a long time since I've come across a title that's sucked me in in all the right places that I could just roll around with it and read it over and over again. It just hit the absolutely right spots at absolutely the right time. There's no other way to explain it. The stars aligned, I found AFTERLIGHT and it was love from there on out. EVERDARK, the sequel is already out and EVENTIDE, the third installment, comes out in March so I'll be waiting until then to get those two copies. Seriously, can't wait.

Ban Factor: High - Vampire sex. That should about do it.