'The Loss,' A Book Based on a Series Based on a Series Based on a Book

The Originals: The Loss by Julie Plec

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Loss is an appropriate title for this book, which centers on Klaus Mikaelson's oh-so-very ill-fated marriage.

I didn't read the first book in this trilogy, so I don't know if Vivianne Lescheres was an important character in that book. If she was, I'm guessing the plot of that one centered on the 1722 battle between the Mikaelsons (the Original vampires) and the witches over who would rule New Orleans. We learn from The Loss that the battle culminated in witch-induced hurricane and an explosion, and that Vivianne died.

Now it's 1766. The Mikaelsons rule New Orleans with a firm hand, keeping the witch clans at bay in the surrounding swamplands. The werewolves, too, have fled the city for fear of Klaus. And Klaus still mourns Vivianne. She's the great love of his long, long, unnatural life.

...Which leads to a terrible decision. Pining for his lost love, Klaus goes to the leader of the witches, Lily Leroux, with an opal pendant from his witch mother. The pendant has magical properties, and Lily uses it to bring Vivianne back from the land of the dead.

This is a lesson literature has tried to teach us before. Bringing someone back from the dead worked out very poorly in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, in Douglas Clegg's Isis, and in J.K. Rowling's "Tale of the Three Brothers" in The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Klaus is many centuries old by the 18th century and should have known better.

The side effect of the spell creates an evil not yet seen in the Vampire Diaries world: zombies. In fact, Vivianne herself is slowing becoming more and more like the walking undead, who have a penchant for eating the hearts out of living things. Their first victim is Elijah's lover, Ava.

Don't worry about Elijah, though - he's learned not to get too attached to other vamps who aren't his siblings. By the end of the book, he's moved on to the lovely gray-eyed vamp Lisette.

Is Lisette a character on the show? I haven't watched very much of The Originals, although I'm familiar with Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus from the TV version of The Vampire Diaries.

Some of the most delicious bits of this book are Klaus's love scene with Vivianne and Elijah's love scene with Lisette. Rebekah doesn't get a love scene in this one, unfortunately. The great love of her life, Eric Moquet, lost his life in the hurricane.

Klaus is a difficult character to love because of his destructive tendencies, but I find Rebekah quite sympathetic. She causes her fair share of destruction as well, but she's also been epicly mistreated by her older half-brother.

"By" Julie Plec is a bit of a misnomer; this was ghostwritten, with Plec credited as creatrix of the Vampire Diaries spin-off. She gets a lot of fandom hate, but I like her a whole lot more now that I know her horror film credits include Cursed, the stupidest werewolf movie I ever loved.

I received this book through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

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Authentically-Told Historical Fiction About Two Amazing Women

Miss Emily: A Novel by Nuala O'Connor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First, a caveat: this will be a very difficult book to read for anyone who is sensitive to depictions of sexual assault. An incident of sexual violence is described in detail and becomes a key plot point for the second half of the novel.

That said, this novel is a winning depiction of a fictionalized Emily Dickinson, told in part in Dickinson's own voice and in part through the voice of her Irish-born housemaid, Ada Concannon. Emily sees Ada as a friend and an equal. Over the course of the novel, Emily will confront her own agoraphobia (if we may apply that late 19th-century word to a mid-19th-century woman) and put herself in danger for her new friend. My favorite thing about this novel is its beautiful depiction of female friendship.

The only verified photo of Emily Dickinson, taken in 1847-48. Public domain.

My second-favorite thing about this novel is the fiction Dickinson's characterization. Personally, I believe Emily Dickinson is the English language's second-greatest genius after Mr. William Shakespeare. It's wonderful to spend time with the poet in her home environment, getting peeks into the origins of some of her best-known verse. If you read Seth Grahame-Smith's The Last American Vampire (and I don't necessarily recommend that you do), you may remember a footnote that suggests Emily Dickinson's famous reclusiveness was a result of her being a vampire, and a not-heterosexual one at that. I liked that image, and although this novel has nothing to do with vampirism, it does make it clear that Emily's feelings toward her sister-in-law are of a romantic nature. This Emily may be married to words and to her homestead, but she's clearly neither asexual nor heterosexual. And it works as characterization in this context, whatever one may believe about the historical Emily Dickinson.

Nuala O'Connor is the Anglicized name of Irish author Nuala Ní Chonchúir (not to be confused with Northern Irish technology expert Nuala O'Connor). I'm not sure why, in the 21st century, an Irish name would need to be Anglicized, even for the American market. That the English tried to ban the speaking of the Irish language and cut my European cousins off from our ancestral tongue is a sad historical fact. Our indigenous language might well have died out if not for the systematic attempt in Irish public schools to reconnect the current generation with the mother tongue. So I say, at the risk of sounding like a Hyperbole and a Half comic: Irish language all the things!

But that's a bit beside the point unless you're a passionate Irish-American word nerd like me. Bottom line: this is a beautifully written novel about two amazing women and the people and things they care about. Whether you're a devoted American literature fan or simply a lover of authentically-told historical fiction, you will find much to appreciate here.

I received this book through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for this review.

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Another book that's available for Amazon Vine review is Amherst: A Novel by William Nicholson. It centers on Alice Dickinson, an English advertising agent who's researching the story of an affair involving Emily Dickinson's brother, Austin. While conducting her research, she begins her own torrid affair with an Amherst College professor.

But I shouldn't order another free book for review from Amazon Vine because I need to finish my library book (The Shadows by J.R. Ward - you know I can't stop reading the Black Dagger Brotherhood series).

On top of that, I have two more Vine books already coming: The Originals: The Loss by Julie Plec (a book based on the TV series The Originals spun off from the TV show The Vampire Diaries based on L.J. Smith's book series) and Unmasking Juliet by Teri Wilson, a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet centering on two rival chocolate-making families. Amazon Vine knows my dirty little secret: that I love books that are intertextual with books I've already read.