The steamy Sapphic vampire fantasy Oakley Falls in not only available in print once again, but also in audiobook format.
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Find it on Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/oakley-falls/id1837713875
This 43-minute book is only $1.99.
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Back in Print (eBook): Oakley Falls, a Sapphic Vampire Fantasy
Back as a stand-alone ebook: Oakley is a lesbian, a vampire, and a stripper. She and her mortal lover Hollie have their issues, but Oakley's unlife is going well...so why does she find herself waking up chained to a chair in the basement of The Third Eye Gentleman's Club? Could it have something to do with her favorite pro basketball player, flamboyant, New Orleans-bred Johnny Lee Bayliss?
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(Yes, I named a character after Timothy James Bayliss from Homicide: Life on the Street.)
"Oakley Falls" was originally published in the Vamps anthology from Torquere Press. Get the ebook for 99 cents now from these retailers:
Apple Books
Barnes and Noble
Kobo/Rakuten/Walmart
Smashwords
Tolino
Vivlio
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Short #HistoricalFiction Audiobook for #Summerween: Rhapsody in Blood
Stream "Rhapsody in Blood" now on Spotify.
For fans of historical fiction and readers of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, this vampire fantasy features fictional versions of blues singer Bessie Smith and composer George Gershwin. Vampire Bessie senses that George is not long for this world and offers to pass on her dark gift to him.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
'A Discovery of Witches' Is Coming to TV (and Other Reasons I'm Happy Today)
One of my favorite books in the history of time, A Discovery of Witches, is becoming a TV series, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
Matthew Goode, who appeared in The Imitation Game* with Benedict Cumberbatch, will play my fictional boyfriend, vampire-scientist Matthew Clairmont.
Badass witch heroine and mother of dragon (technically, firedrake) Diana Bishop is to be played by Teresa Palmer, the Australian actress I thought was very good in Warm Bodies.
Quite nice. Another favorite getting a TV adaptation is Robert Galbraith's (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling's) The Cuckoo's Calling.
It looks like Cormoran Strike - another of my fictional boyfriends, although I truly want him and Robin to get together - got a bit of an adaptational attractiveness upgrade, but no matter. Holliday Grainger looks like she'll be an absolutely perfect Robin Ellacot.
Elarica Johnson, who made a brief but notable appearance in the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is playing Lula Landry. I still like to imagine that Lula is dating Fred Weasley in the afterlife.
Grainger is also set to play the lover of Anna Paquin's character in Tell It to the Bees, a novel written by Fiona Shaw. Shaw did a stint on True Blood with Paquin, playing the lead witch of a coven, but is perhaps more famous for playing Harry Potter's witchcraft-phobic Aunt Petunia.
"Telling the bees" is an ancient folkloric custom.
Also adapted for TV was Charlaine Harris's Midnight, Texas series. I'm missing it because I don't have cable, but my parents are watching it. Maybe some day they'll put it on Netflix.
*Which I never finished watching because sad LGBT+ history makes me sad.
Recently Watched: Much Ado About Nothing at Notre Dame on Sunday, then my second viewing of Twelfth Night, with my niece this time, also at Notre Dame but on Monday.
Currently Listening To: Wil Wheaton reading the audio book of Ready Player One.
Currently Reading:
Sunday, February 14, 2016
'Blood Kiss' by J.R. Ward #paranormalromance #vampires
Wow. Wow. Wow.
This is a return to the good old days. It's everything you want in a Black Dagger Brotherhood novel, even though technically it goes under the Black Dagger Legacy label:
1. More Butch and Marissa is always a good thing. They're probably my third favorite pairing, after Zsadist/Bella and Qhuinn/Blaylock.
2. Paradise, a kickass new(ish) heroine! We did meet her in The Shadows, and her father Abalone has been around for several books now. But here, she is absolutely the central protagonist. She does kick ass, and the heart-warming twist at the end is that her father supports her fully, even in her choice of (non-aristocratic) mate.
3. Craeg, the non-aristocratic mate, is a hot, hot hottie. I love it when J.R. Ward includes a character who's a person of color. Well, unless she's going to be mean to them, like she did to Trez. **takes Trez away from J.R. Ward and hides him so she can't hurt him anymore**
4. Novo is not only a woman of color, but also canon!pansexual. J.R. Ward, I think I'm in love. I really hope Novo is the protagonist of the next BD Legacy novel.
5. Peyton and Novo - I ship it. Two warriors, one a brown-skinned woman, one a suit-wearing white man, in love? Sounds like my ultimate OTP of OTPs, Careese. Fingers crossed for a happier ending, though. (The Scribe Virgin knows we can no longer count on Ward to deliver us the happier-ever-after, true?)
Monday, February 8, 2016
"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 3
Raven had Loki escort Persephone and Theodora upstairs. Loki stopped outside a bright red swinging door. “What’s in there?” Persephone asked.
“The locker room,” he said. “You can lock up your valuables, shower, and change into a costume, if your fantasy involves a costume. Which one did you pick again?”
“Number Seven.”
“Seven . . . that’s Raven’s favorite. The ancient Greek pirate ship. You can wear a pirate costume, if you like. The seat of the wooden bench lifts up and the costumes are inside. But for that one, I think you look fine the way you are.”
“Thank you,” Persephone giggled. “Where do I go when I’m done freshening up?”
“At the end of the showers there’s another door. It will take you to a hallway, and you look for your fantasy number on the door. Knock on the door with the seven on it. Your guy will be expecting you.”
“Thanks again.” She handed Loki another tip and disappeared behind the red door. Persephone noticed a long mirror. She checked her makeup, but didn’t feel like she needed a shower until afterwards. "Theo?" she said.
"Yeah, Seph?"
"How do you think Jack will feel when I tell him I've been with another man? Jack isn’t human, but he still has feelings. He'll be jealous."
"Why should he be? Right now, he's probably got his fangs in some highly suggestable virgin's neck. If she's really impressed with the way he sucks, he'll have his cock in her pussy before the sun rises."
"He does get horny when he feeds," Persephone admitted.
"So get yours, girl! Jack will understand. Either that, or you won't tell him."
"Thanks, Theo." Persephone put on a fresh coat of lipstick and went off down the hallway until she found the number seven.
Theodora took off her clothes and showered. She put on the costume Loki picked out for her. It was a cute little thing, a blue schoolgirl’s uniform, complete with Mary Jane shoes. She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed. She could pass as a French schoolgirl, she was sure she could. She tried out the prop that came with the costume, too, swishing and flicking her wand and watching the effect in the mirror. Then Theodora went through the far door, into the hallway, and looked for the number nine.
She found herself within the stone walls of a castle. There was a great fire roaring in the fireplace, and around it, four stout armchairs. Outside the window, the sky was cloudless and lit by a shimmering silver moon. She stepped inside and was suddenly aware of a young man sitting in one of the armchairs, watching the fire. In one hand he held what appeared to be a cherry lollipop.
“Fleur Delacour,” the young man said with a heavy Bulgarian accent.
“Bon soir, Viktor,” she answered in her best French accent. “Is this something you do often, sitting alone staring into the fireplace?”
To her surprise, the sulky Bulgarian smiled at her. “No, not often. Only when I have much to think about.” She came and sat on the arm of his chair. Their eyes locked. The boy had beautiful brown eyes, and the little bit of brown stubble on his chin was incredibly sexy.
“Are you worried about the tournament, Viktor?’
He shrugged. “I’d be foolish if I weren’t a little worried. But that’s not what I’m thinking about.”
“Let me guess,” said Theodora. “You’re thinking about little miss perfect.” She leaned in closer, so close that their noses were almost touching. “Well, let me tell you something about her you might not realize. She may be smart, and she may be pretty, but she’s in the same year as the little boy Harry Potter. She’s a baby, Viktor.” She closed her eyes and waited. The wait seemed eternal. She had almost given up and opened her eyes when she felt his lips against hers. The kiss was brief.
Afterward, she licked her lips and finished her thought. “I am a woman.”
“Yes you are,” he said, leaning in to kiss her some more. Only then did she notice the unusual flavor on his lips. She sniffed at the lollipop. Rather than cherry or strawberry, it smelled like human blood.
"A Honeyduke's specialty," he said. "Blood-flavored lollipops for vampires."
"You're a vampire?"
He nodded. "Did you not suspect? I am a student of the dark arts." He smiled widely, and she saw how long and sharp his canines were. They were no prosthetics, either: the young dead man playing Viktor Krum in this fantasy scenario was really a vampire. He tossed his lollipop into the fire and said, "I lose my taste for candy so near the throbbing veins of a young Frenchwoman."
Carefully she maneuvered herself into his lap. Viktor looked around to make sure they were alone, and then unbuttoned Theodora’s blue jacket. Soon her uniform was lying on the floor in front of the fire.
Viktor stood as Theodora settled into the chair. His fur-lined cape was resting on the back of the chair. He wore black pants and a black sweater, but shed them as Theodora watched. She felt guilty then, because underneath his clothes, the boy playing Viktor in her fantasy looked so young. She wondered if he was any older than twenty. But then again, this was the Underworld, and he was a vampire. He might have died hundreds, even thousands, of years ago.
Either way, he looked strong in the firelight, especially as took off his black sweater and exposed the hard angles of slick, gleaming muscles. His skin was pale bathed in the orange glow, making Theodora want to see more. She reached up to help him with his zipper and quickly learned he wore nothing underneath his black pants. His face exhibited pure gratitude as her hand caressed his cock.
He smelled incredibly good; she wanted to take him into her mouth, but remembered what Seph had said about vampires. Never breaking the connection between her hand and his dick, he helped her out of the chair, and the two of them tumbled onto the Persian rug. They wrestled for position for a moment. She let Viktor win, eventually, though Theodora was far stronger than she let on while she was play-acting. She ran the palms of her hands over his rock-like muscle. As he ascended to the top, Viktor took "Fleur's" face in both hands and kissed her passionately. Like a teenager, his kiss was a bit rough; like a vampire, he nipped her with wickedly sharp fangs. Her lip bled, and Viktor licked the blood away.
When Theo showed no signs of objecting to the bite, Viktor moved from her lips to her neck. She inhaled his scent, sweet and exotic, like tropical fruit. It was strange to feel his lips and tongue on her neck without feeling the warmth of his breath; he didn't breathe. If his body was cold, she couldn't tell so near the hearth.
Viktor's knee gently pushed Theo's legs apart, and she complied with this bodily request, spreading her legs further. As his cock entered her wet, waiting pussy, his fangs entered an artery in her neck. Pain and pleasure swirled in a dizzying sensation in her brain. She wasn't aware of how much blood he was taking, but his persistent sucking seemed to go on forever. So, too, did Viktor's hard, supernaturally quick, persistent fucking. He seemed able to go forever. Theo lost count of how many times she came, with no indication that Viktor was near his own crescendo. He had either a teenager's stamina, or centuries of practice, she was sure.
After his fangs retracted from her artery, though, Viktor's release came. Theo enjoyed the feel of his cock pumping into her, his body shuddering on top of hers...and tried not to think about his bloody ejaculation.
They separated. Theodora kissed his forehead tenderly as she picked her clothes off the floor. She was covered in sweat, but she didn’t care.
When Theodora reached the locker room, she changed back into the clothes she came in with. She didn’t bother to shower. She liked the sweaty smell of boy clinging to her. When Loki returned Theodora to the bar, she found Persephone waiting for her, sipping on a cosmo that might have contained cranberry juice or blood. She smiled broadly.
“How was yours?”
“It was wonderful,” Persephone said. “I mean, I really love Jack. I can’t wait to return to the world of the living to be with him again. But today was—well, what I think about sometimes when I’m with Jack. How was yours?”
“Just like being in the book, except dirty. I loved it.”
“Was he that good?”
“Totally.” The women laughed. Raven appeared and took Theodora’s drink order.
“And could we see a food menu now, please?” Persephone asked. Raven nodded and produced one from under the bar. “I’m starving. Are you hungry, Theo?”
“Like the wolf,” Theodora said, giggling.
“The locker room,” he said. “You can lock up your valuables, shower, and change into a costume, if your fantasy involves a costume. Which one did you pick again?”
“Number Seven.”
“Seven . . . that’s Raven’s favorite. The ancient Greek pirate ship. You can wear a pirate costume, if you like. The seat of the wooden bench lifts up and the costumes are inside. But for that one, I think you look fine the way you are.”
“Thank you,” Persephone giggled. “Where do I go when I’m done freshening up?”
“At the end of the showers there’s another door. It will take you to a hallway, and you look for your fantasy number on the door. Knock on the door with the seven on it. Your guy will be expecting you.”
“Thanks again.” She handed Loki another tip and disappeared behind the red door. Persephone noticed a long mirror. She checked her makeup, but didn’t feel like she needed a shower until afterwards. "Theo?" she said.
"Yeah, Seph?"
"How do you think Jack will feel when I tell him I've been with another man? Jack isn’t human, but he still has feelings. He'll be jealous."
"Why should he be? Right now, he's probably got his fangs in some highly suggestable virgin's neck. If she's really impressed with the way he sucks, he'll have his cock in her pussy before the sun rises."
"He does get horny when he feeds," Persephone admitted.
"So get yours, girl! Jack will understand. Either that, or you won't tell him."
"Thanks, Theo." Persephone put on a fresh coat of lipstick and went off down the hallway until she found the number seven.
Theodora took off her clothes and showered. She put on the costume Loki picked out for her. It was a cute little thing, a blue schoolgirl’s uniform, complete with Mary Jane shoes. She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed. She could pass as a French schoolgirl, she was sure she could. She tried out the prop that came with the costume, too, swishing and flicking her wand and watching the effect in the mirror. Then Theodora went through the far door, into the hallway, and looked for the number nine.
She found herself within the stone walls of a castle. There was a great fire roaring in the fireplace, and around it, four stout armchairs. Outside the window, the sky was cloudless and lit by a shimmering silver moon. She stepped inside and was suddenly aware of a young man sitting in one of the armchairs, watching the fire. In one hand he held what appeared to be a cherry lollipop.
 |
| Creative Commons image by KMHCandy |
“Bon soir, Viktor,” she answered in her best French accent. “Is this something you do often, sitting alone staring into the fireplace?”
To her surprise, the sulky Bulgarian smiled at her. “No, not often. Only when I have much to think about.” She came and sat on the arm of his chair. Their eyes locked. The boy had beautiful brown eyes, and the little bit of brown stubble on his chin was incredibly sexy.
“Are you worried about the tournament, Viktor?’
He shrugged. “I’d be foolish if I weren’t a little worried. But that’s not what I’m thinking about.”
“Let me guess,” said Theodora. “You’re thinking about little miss perfect.” She leaned in closer, so close that their noses were almost touching. “Well, let me tell you something about her you might not realize. She may be smart, and she may be pretty, but she’s in the same year as the little boy Harry Potter. She’s a baby, Viktor.” She closed her eyes and waited. The wait seemed eternal. She had almost given up and opened her eyes when she felt his lips against hers. The kiss was brief.
Afterward, she licked her lips and finished her thought. “I am a woman.”
“Yes you are,” he said, leaning in to kiss her some more. Only then did she notice the unusual flavor on his lips. She sniffed at the lollipop. Rather than cherry or strawberry, it smelled like human blood.
"A Honeyduke's specialty," he said. "Blood-flavored lollipops for vampires."
"You're a vampire?"
He nodded. "Did you not suspect? I am a student of the dark arts." He smiled widely, and she saw how long and sharp his canines were. They were no prosthetics, either: the young dead man playing Viktor Krum in this fantasy scenario was really a vampire. He tossed his lollipop into the fire and said, "I lose my taste for candy so near the throbbing veins of a young Frenchwoman."
Carefully she maneuvered herself into his lap. Viktor looked around to make sure they were alone, and then unbuttoned Theodora’s blue jacket. Soon her uniform was lying on the floor in front of the fire.
 |
| Public domain |
Either way, he looked strong in the firelight, especially as took off his black sweater and exposed the hard angles of slick, gleaming muscles. His skin was pale bathed in the orange glow, making Theodora want to see more. She reached up to help him with his zipper and quickly learned he wore nothing underneath his black pants. His face exhibited pure gratitude as her hand caressed his cock.
He smelled incredibly good; she wanted to take him into her mouth, but remembered what Seph had said about vampires. Never breaking the connection between her hand and his dick, he helped her out of the chair, and the two of them tumbled onto the Persian rug. They wrestled for position for a moment. She let Viktor win, eventually, though Theodora was far stronger than she let on while she was play-acting. She ran the palms of her hands over his rock-like muscle. As he ascended to the top, Viktor took "Fleur's" face in both hands and kissed her passionately. Like a teenager, his kiss was a bit rough; like a vampire, he nipped her with wickedly sharp fangs. Her lip bled, and Viktor licked the blood away.
When Theo showed no signs of objecting to the bite, Viktor moved from her lips to her neck. She inhaled his scent, sweet and exotic, like tropical fruit. It was strange to feel his lips and tongue on her neck without feeling the warmth of his breath; he didn't breathe. If his body was cold, she couldn't tell so near the hearth.
Viktor's knee gently pushed Theo's legs apart, and she complied with this bodily request, spreading her legs further. As his cock entered her wet, waiting pussy, his fangs entered an artery in her neck. Pain and pleasure swirled in a dizzying sensation in her brain. She wasn't aware of how much blood he was taking, but his persistent sucking seemed to go on forever. So, too, did Viktor's hard, supernaturally quick, persistent fucking. He seemed able to go forever. Theo lost count of how many times she came, with no indication that Viktor was near his own crescendo. He had either a teenager's stamina, or centuries of practice, she was sure.
After his fangs retracted from her artery, though, Viktor's release came. Theo enjoyed the feel of his cock pumping into her, his body shuddering on top of hers...and tried not to think about his bloody ejaculation.
They separated. Theodora kissed his forehead tenderly as she picked her clothes off the floor. She was covered in sweat, but she didn’t care.
When Theodora reached the locker room, she changed back into the clothes she came in with. She didn’t bother to shower. She liked the sweaty smell of boy clinging to her. When Loki returned Theodora to the bar, she found Persephone waiting for her, sipping on a cosmo that might have contained cranberry juice or blood. She smiled broadly.
“How was yours?”
“It was wonderful,” Persephone said. “I mean, I really love Jack. I can’t wait to return to the world of the living to be with him again. But today was—well, what I think about sometimes when I’m with Jack. How was yours?”
“Just like being in the book, except dirty. I loved it.”
“Was he that good?”
“Totally.” The women laughed. Raven appeared and took Theodora’s drink order.
“And could we see a food menu now, please?” Persephone asked. Raven nodded and produced one from under the bar. “I’m starving. Are you hungry, Theo?”
“Like the wolf,” Theodora said, giggling.
The End
Like A God's Kiss: Erotic Mythological Tales
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| Creative Commons image by Rick A. |
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| http://www.amazon.com/Like-Gods-Kiss-Mythological-Selections-ebook/dp/B002NGO4YW/ |
Sunday, February 7, 2016
"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 2
After Jack’s death and rebirth, Persephone needed a little cheering up. Theodora said she’d heard of a little place, and persuaded Persephone to put on one of her good dresses, brush on a little makeup, and go out for a couple of margaritas.
They got in Persephone’s car and drove past the fields of colorless flowers, past the place where the nameless dead made their homes. Few were the dead who remembered their own names and who they were in life. Among those who did were Raven Rachel Templin and the many beautiful young men who resided in her inn. One of these men, dressed in a fine old tuxedo, answered the heavy wooden door when Persephone knocked on it. When he saw the goddess, he bowed low.
“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the well-dressed boy said. “My name is Loki; please allow me to be your host tonight. What may I do for you?”
“Loki, rise. I want you to treat me as you would any other guest tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My friend and I would like to sit at the bar.”
Loki looked around, but he saw no one accompanying Persephone, other than a large silver-gray wolf. “You and your wolf would like to sit at the bar, ma’am?”
Persephone nodded, as Theodora stood on her hind legs and regained her human form. They each slipped a bright jewel into Loki’s pocket as a tip as he showed them to the bar.
Behind the bar tonight was none other than the proprietor herself. Raven was a an olive-skinned woman whose long, curly black hair was tied back in a scarf and covered with a wide-brimmed straw hat, as if she still needed protection from the sun glinting off the Caribbean sea. She wore string after string of pearls, in all colors from palest pink to shimmering black.
“You’d been Persephone, Queen of the Underworld,” Raven said. Then, turning to Theodora, “I am not sure of your name, mademoiselle, but welcome. I trust Loki saw you in with the utmost respect.”
“He did,” Persephone agreed. “But Theodora and I want to be treated like regular guests. Can you make us a couple of margaritas?”
“Frozen or on the rocks?”
“Rocks,” said Theodora. In a moment, Raven set two glasses down, with lime slices and the salt shaker. The women drank in silence until Raven wandered off.
“Can I tell you a secret about Jack?” Persephone said quietly.
“Of course, girl,” Theodora answered. “You and I are like sisters. You can tell me anything.”
Persephone giggled and confessed. “Jack’s a vampire, right? So he’s all about the oral thing. Even though his teeth are kinda sharp, he’s really good at going down on me. But when I go down on him . . .”
“What?” Theodora prompted, leaning in closer. “You can tell me.”
“He’s not like the human guys that I went out with in high school. When he comes, I mean. Jack doesn’t have--well, he doesn’t have cum like human guys do.”
“So—what happens? You’re blowing him, and he comes, and then nothing?”
“I wish,” said Persephone, still giggling, her cheeks glowing red. “Nothing would be a nice change. No, when I suck him off, I get a mouthful of...blood.”
Theodora almost choked on her margarita. “Seph, that's disgusting.”
“I know,” Persephone said. “If it was any other guy, I wouldn’t put up with it. But Jack is so sweet, and since I’m doomed to live half my life in the Underworld anyway, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my time with. I can’t wait to see him again on the first day of spring. But lately I’ve been thinking about, just once, being with a guy who’s human.”
Raven reappeared, holding a bright pink menu. “Would you ladies like see my special menu?” she asked, setting it down in front of Theodora.
“I’m not hungry,” Persephone said.
“It’s not food,” Theodora said. “Look, Seph. These are all kinds of different fantasies you can get a guy to do with you.”
“A guy or two,” Raven corrected. “Or more. Not my thing, really, but girls these days like all kinds of things. If you’re not interested in the fantasies, though, the back page shows you the basics.” She flipped over the menu.
Theodora traced her finger along a line on the back page. “There you go, Persephone. A straight blow job is the cheapest thing on the menu. Your fantasy, and a bargain to boot.”
“None of your guys are vampires, are they?” Persephone asked Raven.
“I have several vampires, naturally.”
Persephone stared at the menu for a moment longer, and then said, “I’ll have the Number Seven...but I want a human guy. No vampires.”
“Dionysus and the pirates...very edgy,” Raven said. And for you?”
“Hmmm,” said Theodora, surveying the menu again. “I’ll go with Number Nine.”
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| Public domain |
“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the well-dressed boy said. “My name is Loki; please allow me to be your host tonight. What may I do for you?”
“Loki, rise. I want you to treat me as you would any other guest tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My friend and I would like to sit at the bar.”
Loki looked around, but he saw no one accompanying Persephone, other than a large silver-gray wolf. “You and your wolf would like to sit at the bar, ma’am?”
Persephone nodded, as Theodora stood on her hind legs and regained her human form. They each slipped a bright jewel into Loki’s pocket as a tip as he showed them to the bar.
Behind the bar tonight was none other than the proprietor herself. Raven was a an olive-skinned woman whose long, curly black hair was tied back in a scarf and covered with a wide-brimmed straw hat, as if she still needed protection from the sun glinting off the Caribbean sea. She wore string after string of pearls, in all colors from palest pink to shimmering black.
“You’d been Persephone, Queen of the Underworld,” Raven said. Then, turning to Theodora, “I am not sure of your name, mademoiselle, but welcome. I trust Loki saw you in with the utmost respect.”
“He did,” Persephone agreed. “But Theodora and I want to be treated like regular guests. Can you make us a couple of margaritas?”
“Frozen or on the rocks?”
“Rocks,” said Theodora. In a moment, Raven set two glasses down, with lime slices and the salt shaker. The women drank in silence until Raven wandered off.
“Can I tell you a secret about Jack?” Persephone said quietly.
“Of course, girl,” Theodora answered. “You and I are like sisters. You can tell me anything.”
Persephone giggled and confessed. “Jack’s a vampire, right? So he’s all about the oral thing. Even though his teeth are kinda sharp, he’s really good at going down on me. But when I go down on him . . .”
“What?” Theodora prompted, leaning in closer. “You can tell me.”
“He’s not like the human guys that I went out with in high school. When he comes, I mean. Jack doesn’t have--well, he doesn’t have cum like human guys do.”
“So—what happens? You’re blowing him, and he comes, and then nothing?”
“I wish,” said Persephone, still giggling, her cheeks glowing red. “Nothing would be a nice change. No, when I suck him off, I get a mouthful of...blood.”
Theodora almost choked on her margarita. “Seph, that's disgusting.”
“I know,” Persephone said. “If it was any other guy, I wouldn’t put up with it. But Jack is so sweet, and since I’m doomed to live half my life in the Underworld anyway, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my time with. I can’t wait to see him again on the first day of spring. But lately I’ve been thinking about, just once, being with a guy who’s human.”
Raven reappeared, holding a bright pink menu. “Would you ladies like see my special menu?” she asked, setting it down in front of Theodora.
“I’m not hungry,” Persephone said.
“It’s not food,” Theodora said. “Look, Seph. These are all kinds of different fantasies you can get a guy to do with you.”
“A guy or two,” Raven corrected. “Or more. Not my thing, really, but girls these days like all kinds of things. If you’re not interested in the fantasies, though, the back page shows you the basics.” She flipped over the menu.
Theodora traced her finger along a line on the back page. “There you go, Persephone. A straight blow job is the cheapest thing on the menu. Your fantasy, and a bargain to boot.”
“None of your guys are vampires, are they?” Persephone asked Raven.
“I have several vampires, naturally.”
Persephone stared at the menu for a moment longer, and then said, “I’ll have the Number Seven...but I want a human guy. No vampires.”
“Dionysus and the pirates...very edgy,” Raven said. And for you?”
“Hmmm,” said Theodora, surveying the menu again. “I’ll go with Number Nine.”
Like A God's Kiss: Erotic Mythological Tales
|
| http://www.amazon.com/Like-Gods-Kiss-Mythological-Selections-ebook/dp/B002NGO4YW/ |
Saturday, February 6, 2016
"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 1
Peter Thackeray LeBon had been dead since 1830. The monotony of his eternal punishment was starting to get to him. He stood before the bathroom mirror, looking into his hollow blue eyes, asking himself for the millionth time how he could have ended up here, slave to that woman--if she was a woman.
“LeBon,” Maman Brigitte called from the bedroom. “What is taking so long? Get out here!”
Her voice, deep and booming with its Caribbean accent, sent chills through his body. He feared her. And there was no way to escape.
He opened the bathroom door and emerged, wearing nothing but a towel. Maman Brigitte lay across her enormous feather bed, her gown of black velvet, lace and human bone pulled up and bunched up around her belly, revealing her long, chocolate-brown legs and black panties.
Brigitte sat up and brushed the bleached-blonde locks from her eyes. She pointed to a pair of black leather pants at the foot of the bed. “Drop the towel,”she commanded. “Put those on.” He obeyed, painfully aware the death-goddess was studying his every move.
“What’s the matter, LeBon?” she asked as he crouched down to kiss the top of her foot. “Do you not enjoy being my slave? Raven thought you would really enjoy this, since you loved the slave trade so much in life.”
“That was so long ago,” he said. Every morning when he awoke, he cursed Raven Templin and wished he had never laid a hand on Raven’s friend Badu. Badu, it turned out, was a priestess of the goddess Yemaya. Yemaya, in another form, was none other than Maman Brigitte herself. He would spend eternity doing whatever Brigitte/Yemaya wished.
Right now, she wanted him to eat her pussy. Brigitte stared up at the Baroque golden cherubim decorating the ceiling as LeBon worked his way up her calf, up her thigh, and into her panties, the way she'd trained him. Suddenly, Brigitte was distracted by a scratching noise at the door.
“LeBon, be a dear and see who’s at the door,” Brigitte moaned.
Relieved, he opened the door. He looked down and saw the raised paw of a large, silver-gray wolf with a white belly. The creature looked at him with curious yellow-green eyes.
“It’s a wolf,” LeBon said.
Maman Brigitte came nearer. “Theodora! Well, this is a surprise. Don’t be a stranger, dear. Come in.”
The wolf took a few steps back and turned its furry head. A moment later it turned back to the doorway with a basket between its jaws. Maman Brigitte took the offering, peering inside to find a green glass bottle stuffed with habanero peppers floating in dark rum.
“Theodora, you didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did.” Brigitte offered the bottle to LeBon, who gratefully took a long drink. The potent mixture of hot peppers and rum burned his throat, but momentarily took him away from his surroundings. What was left in the bottle he returned to Brigitte, who finished it. She belched as the wolf stood on its hind legs and transformed into a woman.
“Well, bitch,” Brigitte said, “what brings you to my humble abode today?”
“Humble?” Theodora said as she looked around the room. “Your house is covered in gold.” Like Brigitte, she had a Caribbean accent.
“I was being polite,” Brigitte said. She gave LeBon a hard slap to the back of the head. “What brings you here today, my friend?”
“The Underworld brings me here today, in fact,” Theodora said. “I’ve heard rumblings, strange mutterings having to do with the Queen.”
Brigitte shook her head. “I don’t know what kind of crowd you’ve been hanging out with, to have heard something like that. But you’ve hit upon a truth. Persephone hasn’t been at all happy lately. But you know the rules. As gatekeeper of the Underworld, I’m not supposed to let any mortals down there. ”
Theodora frowned. “But Persephone and I have been friends since high school. I know a good way to cheer her up, if you’ll let me. Come on now, Maman Brigitte. There are always exceptions to the rule, aren’t there?”
“I can think of one or two,” Brigitte said. “I suppose I can allow it. But only this once, and only if you make a promise to me. Give me your hand.”
Brigitte reached for Theodora’s hand, cupping her visitor’s honey-brown hand inside her own. She drew a dagger from her boot and cut a deep line into Theodora’s palm, which began to bleed and dribble down her wrist into the marble floor. She made a similar slit in her own hand. The women pressed their palms together in a blood oath.
“What have I sworn to, my goddess?” Theodora asked.
“After you’ve passed back to the world of the living, you will be given one day to return to my dwelling with a larger offering. No mere bottle of rum and peppers this time. I want a feast, like the ones my followers used to leave in the graveyards for me in the olden days.” She pressed a black handkerchief into Theodora’s hand to stop the bleeding. “I want you to bring your drum. Play for me, and sing me some of my old-time praises.”
“You’ll have your feast, goddess, I assure you.”
“Good,” Brigitte said. "Now let’s get you through that gate.”
The women went through Brigitte’s mansion and out the French doors into the garden. Among the birds of paradise and palm trees stood the stone gate that marked the entrance into the Underworld.
Brigitte uttered the words only she knew, and the gate swung open. A cold breeze blew in from the other side.
Theodora got down on her hands and knees to resume her wolf form. She walked on four legs into the eerie world of the dead, her front paw stinging from the cut. She reached the river of blood first.
Had she been human, the ferryman would have asked her for fare to cross. Since she appeared as an animal, however, the ferryman took no notice of her. She jumped with a great splash into the red river, inhaling its musky, meaty perfume. When she reached the far shore, she shook herself, then sat for a moment to lick the blood from her silvery coat. She walked on, past the fields of unearthly colorless flowers, until she came to the palace of Hecate, Goddess of Death, where Persephone dwelled as Queen of the Dead for six months of every year. She jumped right into the palace through an open window and headed for the tower where Persephone stayed with her lover, the vampire Jack Damuzi.
Theodora climbed the winding stone stairs to the tower, resuming her human shape as she climbed. She lifted the brass knocker and knocked on the heavy wooden door. Two minutes later, the door swung open. Jack stood there, looking unusually pale even for a vampire, his red-brown eyes streaked with bloody tears.
“I heard the terrible news,” Theodora said sympathetically. “May I see Seph?”
“Persephone,” Jack called softly into his quarters. “You have a visitor.”
Jack opened the door wide, and Theodora could see Persephone lying face-down with her head on her pillow, sobbing. She looked up to see Theodora, but did not stop crying. Theodora sat beside her and stroked Persephone’s hair to comfort her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Jack sniffed the air. “You’ve been in the river of blood, haven’t you?” He moved in closer to Theodora, picking up her hand. “ And you’ve cut yourself, too. Very recently. I can smell how the blood is clotting. It smells old and stale at the surface, but the fresh blood underneath is tempting.
Just now I sensed that your heart started beating faster. Am I making you nervous, Theodora? I’m sorry. I get overwhelmed when I smell living blood. Seph, darling, would it bother you terribly if I took one tiny nibble of Theodora’s neck?”
“Yes,” Persephone sobbed.
“This is precisely the problem,” Jack explained sadly. “First Persephone came down here, and she’s not dead. Against my better judgement, I fed off of her. But although there is no blood in the world as delicious as that of a young goddess, Persephone only aroused my appetite for the blood of the living without bedding it back down. I tried to satiate myself. I practically sucked Persephone dry, the poor thing. That was when Hecate made the fateful decision to send me out into the world of the living for three months.”
Theodora nodded. “I heard through the grapevine you were going to be born.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “In three days’ time, when the Winter Solstice comes around, a mortal shall give birth to me. Hecate chose a virgin, appeared to her in a dream and made her pregnant. Next Hecate will perform an ancient ritual that will kill me here in the Underworld, so that I may be born as that child.” Here Persephone gave a loud sob. “In three months’ time I will grow from an infant into the man that you see before you now. At the Vernal Equinox, Persephone will return to the world of the living, and we shall be reunited.”
“You see, dear?” Theodora said sweetly. “There’s hope. You’ll see Jack again. In three months, you’ll get to be reunited with your true love. It sounds wonderful. Can’t you look forward to the reunion?”
Persephone raised her head off the pillow. “I guess I never thought about it like that,” she said, wiping tears and mascara from her eyes. She gave Theodora a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. Will you stay with us until . . . after?”
“Of course,” Theodora said. “That is, if it’s all right with Jack.”
“Fine with me,” shrugged Jack. “It would be even finer if you let me have just a little bite . . .”
“No,” Theodora and Persephone said in unison.
“LeBon,” Maman Brigitte called from the bedroom. “What is taking so long? Get out here!”
Her voice, deep and booming with its Caribbean accent, sent chills through his body. He feared her. And there was no way to escape.
He opened the bathroom door and emerged, wearing nothing but a towel. Maman Brigitte lay across her enormous feather bed, her gown of black velvet, lace and human bone pulled up and bunched up around her belly, revealing her long, chocolate-brown legs and black panties.
Brigitte sat up and brushed the bleached-blonde locks from her eyes. She pointed to a pair of black leather pants at the foot of the bed. “Drop the towel,”she commanded. “Put those on.” He obeyed, painfully aware the death-goddess was studying his every move.
“What’s the matter, LeBon?” she asked as he crouched down to kiss the top of her foot. “Do you not enjoy being my slave? Raven thought you would really enjoy this, since you loved the slave trade so much in life.”
“That was so long ago,” he said. Every morning when he awoke, he cursed Raven Templin and wished he had never laid a hand on Raven’s friend Badu. Badu, it turned out, was a priestess of the goddess Yemaya. Yemaya, in another form, was none other than Maman Brigitte herself. He would spend eternity doing whatever Brigitte/Yemaya wished.
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| Creative Commons image by Africaarianna |
“LeBon, be a dear and see who’s at the door,” Brigitte moaned.
Relieved, he opened the door. He looked down and saw the raised paw of a large, silver-gray wolf with a white belly. The creature looked at him with curious yellow-green eyes.
“It’s a wolf,” LeBon said.
Maman Brigitte came nearer. “Theodora! Well, this is a surprise. Don’t be a stranger, dear. Come in.”
The wolf took a few steps back and turned its furry head. A moment later it turned back to the doorway with a basket between its jaws. Maman Brigitte took the offering, peering inside to find a green glass bottle stuffed with habanero peppers floating in dark rum.
“Theodora, you didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did.” Brigitte offered the bottle to LeBon, who gratefully took a long drink. The potent mixture of hot peppers and rum burned his throat, but momentarily took him away from his surroundings. What was left in the bottle he returned to Brigitte, who finished it. She belched as the wolf stood on its hind legs and transformed into a woman.
 |
| Public domain |
“Well, bitch,” Brigitte said, “what brings you to my humble abode today?”
“Humble?” Theodora said as she looked around the room. “Your house is covered in gold.” Like Brigitte, she had a Caribbean accent.
“I was being polite,” Brigitte said. She gave LeBon a hard slap to the back of the head. “What brings you here today, my friend?”
“The Underworld brings me here today, in fact,” Theodora said. “I’ve heard rumblings, strange mutterings having to do with the Queen.”
Brigitte shook her head. “I don’t know what kind of crowd you’ve been hanging out with, to have heard something like that. But you’ve hit upon a truth. Persephone hasn’t been at all happy lately. But you know the rules. As gatekeeper of the Underworld, I’m not supposed to let any mortals down there. ”
Theodora frowned. “But Persephone and I have been friends since high school. I know a good way to cheer her up, if you’ll let me. Come on now, Maman Brigitte. There are always exceptions to the rule, aren’t there?”
“I can think of one or two,” Brigitte said. “I suppose I can allow it. But only this once, and only if you make a promise to me. Give me your hand.”
Brigitte reached for Theodora’s hand, cupping her visitor’s honey-brown hand inside her own. She drew a dagger from her boot and cut a deep line into Theodora’s palm, which began to bleed and dribble down her wrist into the marble floor. She made a similar slit in her own hand. The women pressed their palms together in a blood oath.
“What have I sworn to, my goddess?” Theodora asked.
“After you’ve passed back to the world of the living, you will be given one day to return to my dwelling with a larger offering. No mere bottle of rum and peppers this time. I want a feast, like the ones my followers used to leave in the graveyards for me in the olden days.” She pressed a black handkerchief into Theodora’s hand to stop the bleeding. “I want you to bring your drum. Play for me, and sing me some of my old-time praises.”
“You’ll have your feast, goddess, I assure you.”
“Good,” Brigitte said. "Now let’s get you through that gate.”
The women went through Brigitte’s mansion and out the French doors into the garden. Among the birds of paradise and palm trees stood the stone gate that marked the entrance into the Underworld.
Brigitte uttered the words only she knew, and the gate swung open. A cold breeze blew in from the other side.
Theodora got down on her hands and knees to resume her wolf form. She walked on four legs into the eerie world of the dead, her front paw stinging from the cut. She reached the river of blood first.
Had she been human, the ferryman would have asked her for fare to cross. Since she appeared as an animal, however, the ferryman took no notice of her. She jumped with a great splash into the red river, inhaling its musky, meaty perfume. When she reached the far shore, she shook herself, then sat for a moment to lick the blood from her silvery coat. She walked on, past the fields of unearthly colorless flowers, until she came to the palace of Hecate, Goddess of Death, where Persephone dwelled as Queen of the Dead for six months of every year. She jumped right into the palace through an open window and headed for the tower where Persephone stayed with her lover, the vampire Jack Damuzi.
Theodora climbed the winding stone stairs to the tower, resuming her human shape as she climbed. She lifted the brass knocker and knocked on the heavy wooden door. Two minutes later, the door swung open. Jack stood there, looking unusually pale even for a vampire, his red-brown eyes streaked with bloody tears.
“I heard the terrible news,” Theodora said sympathetically. “May I see Seph?”
“Persephone,” Jack called softly into his quarters. “You have a visitor.”
Jack opened the door wide, and Theodora could see Persephone lying face-down with her head on her pillow, sobbing. She looked up to see Theodora, but did not stop crying. Theodora sat beside her and stroked Persephone’s hair to comfort her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Jack sniffed the air. “You’ve been in the river of blood, haven’t you?” He moved in closer to Theodora, picking up her hand. “ And you’ve cut yourself, too. Very recently. I can smell how the blood is clotting. It smells old and stale at the surface, but the fresh blood underneath is tempting.
Just now I sensed that your heart started beating faster. Am I making you nervous, Theodora? I’m sorry. I get overwhelmed when I smell living blood. Seph, darling, would it bother you terribly if I took one tiny nibble of Theodora’s neck?”
“Yes,” Persephone sobbed.
“This is precisely the problem,” Jack explained sadly. “First Persephone came down here, and she’s not dead. Against my better judgement, I fed off of her. But although there is no blood in the world as delicious as that of a young goddess, Persephone only aroused my appetite for the blood of the living without bedding it back down. I tried to satiate myself. I practically sucked Persephone dry, the poor thing. That was when Hecate made the fateful decision to send me out into the world of the living for three months.”
Theodora nodded. “I heard through the grapevine you were going to be born.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “In three days’ time, when the Winter Solstice comes around, a mortal shall give birth to me. Hecate chose a virgin, appeared to her in a dream and made her pregnant. Next Hecate will perform an ancient ritual that will kill me here in the Underworld, so that I may be born as that child.” Here Persephone gave a loud sob. “In three months’ time I will grow from an infant into the man that you see before you now. At the Vernal Equinox, Persephone will return to the world of the living, and we shall be reunited.”
“You see, dear?” Theodora said sweetly. “There’s hope. You’ll see Jack again. In three months, you’ll get to be reunited with your true love. It sounds wonderful. Can’t you look forward to the reunion?”
Persephone raised her head off the pillow. “I guess I never thought about it like that,” she said, wiping tears and mascara from her eyes. She gave Theodora a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. Will you stay with us until . . . after?”
“Of course,” Theodora said. “That is, if it’s all right with Jack.”
“Fine with me,” shrugged Jack. “It would be even finer if you let me have just a little bite . . .”
“No,” Theodora and Persephone said in unison.
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| Hecate with dog. Public domain within the United States |
Like A God's Kiss: Erotic Mythological Tales
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| http://www.amazon.com/Like-Gods-Kiss-Mythological-Selections-ebook/dp/B002NGO4YW/ |
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
'Carry On' by Rainbow Rowell
This book discussion is not spoiler-free. If you haven’t read Fangirl and Carry On yet, I strongly recommend you read no further.
I bought my copy of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell on the day it was released: Tues. October 6th. I couldn’t wait to dig in and start reading the boy-boy love story. (I say “boy,” but understand I’m talking about 18-year-old adults.) I finished it a week later, on Monday the 12th. In a way, I still can’t believe I’ve finished it. Reading Carry On was an incredibly enjoyable experience. I’m not sure I can entirely explain why, but I’ll try.
Part of it was the extent to which I enjoyed Rowell’s 2013 book, Fangirl. Recall that I didn’t just LIKE Cath Avery, but also felt like I WAS Cath Avery. Because Cath loved Simon Snow and his vampire classmate Baz, I loved Simon Snow and his beloved/enemy Baz.
Another part of the puzzle is that Simon and Baz are based, in part, on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. I’ve never personally been a Drarry shipper – I’m satisfied with J.K. Rowling’s choice of Ginny Weasley as Harry Potter’s lifemate. Even if Rowling herself sometimes wishes she’d made Harry and Hermione more than friends. Let’s face it: I’m a grown adult who wears Harry Potter socks and a golden snitch necklace and whenever I hear plumbing make a funny noise my first thought is still “Chamber of Secrets!” I consider myself a member of the Harry Potter fandom. I understand the fandom impulse.
And yes, it is exciting to read a mainstream novel in which the featured romantic subplot involves a same-sex couple. It IS important to me as an out bisexual woman to have non-heterosexual (I’d say queer, but I don’t want to use that word if it will offend some readers. I personally do not have a problem with “queer”), positive representation in the media. Especially in the traditional media.
Can you imagine if J.K. Rowling went back and wrote a book about Albus Dumbledore’s unrequited love for Gellert Grindelwald? It would be heartbreaking and poignant and I would love that so much, even while it was torturing my poor little heart.
But until we get Carry On, Albus, we have to settle for SnowBaz.
In my review of Fangirl, I wrote, “Let's talk about Simon Snow. I honestly would love it if someone wrote Carry On, Simon as Cath, because the little bits of fan fiction that we get in the novel are tasty. Cath left her magnum opus unfinished (and, may I just say, I think the ending of this novel is perfection and I wouldn't want it any other way), but I still want to know if she decided to kill Baz or to let Simon and Baz live happily ever after. We're somewhat left hanging in a Hazel Grace Lancaster-type fashion. This book is meta to begin with - fiction about a fiction writer writing fan fiction about fiction - would it just be too incredibly meta for someone to write Carry On, Simon?”
Rowell hasn’t written Carry On, Simon, but she’s written something even better. Carry On isn’t written as Cath Avery writing Simon Snow fan fiction, nor is it written as if it were the original novel Cath based her fan fiction on (written by the fictional Gemma T. Leslie). Instead it’s a Simon Snow novel written in Rowell’s own authorial voice. But I no longer feel disappointed or Peter Van Houtened by Fangirl. I’ve gotten my SnowBaz story – and (spoiler alert!) Baz doesn’t even die.
Of course, I would not be sad if Rowell somehow extended this to a 7- or 8-book series…I’m just sayin’.
Ultimately, Simon Snow owes his existence to J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter. Because Rowling’s world-building is so thorough, and we’re already assumed to be familiar with it, Simon Snow’s Watford School already seems like familiar territory – yet it is its own unique world. Further, Rowling and Rowell are brilliant writers, each in unique ways. As I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Robert Galbraith novels, Rowling is intimately familiar with all 400+ years of English-language literature, plus the Latin language, plus Classical mythology and a veritable buffet of multicultural world mythologies. She’s wonderfully erudite and such a natural storyteller, she can write a children’s book filled with scholarly Classical references without either boring the reader or showing off.
I’m not implying that Rowell isn’t as brilliant or as educated as Rowling, but Rowell’s storytelling style is more inwardly oriented, more personal and intimate and less world-traveling. She writes with her tongue in her cheek, tossing in pop cultural references that might be not-so-subtly winking puns, meaningful allusions, or a combination of the two. In an early chapter, for example, Simon is nearly taken out by a taxi driver who turns out to be a goblin. In the mirror’s reflection he appears to have green skin and blood-red lips, but otherwise he’s “handsome as a pop star.” Any goblin who manages to kill Simon will become the goblin king. Wait a minute: goblin king, handsome as a pop star? Is she talking about David Bowie in the film Labyrinth, in which the pop star plays the Goblin King?
I have no doubt Rowell is making references to a wide variety of fantasy novels, films, and tropes throughout her novel. I half-suspect the surname Snow is a reference to Game of Thrones – Simon, like Jon Snow, was abandoned by his parents. Of course, it’s revealed in Carry On that Snow is his middle name. Maybe Simon officially has his mother Lucy’s last name. It’s unclear whether Davy (the Mage) and Lucy ever married – not that that would necessarily require her to change her name. I don’t recall the Mage’s last name ever being given.
Baz – short for Tyrannus Basilton – has his mother’s last name. His mother, Natasha Pitch-Grimm, was headmistress of Watford before The Mage. Baz’s father isn’t a bully like Lucius Malfoy; he’s more of a neglectful parent than an abusive one. He’s not happy that Baz is gay. Baz doesn’t identify much with his father, so he doesn’t use the Grimm last name. He’s chummy with his Grimm cousins, though.
Naming traditions are more conventional in the household of Simon’s best friend, Penelope Bunce. Penelope is a British girl with a British-ethnicity dad and an Indian-ethnicity mom. She has some of the traits of Ron Weasley (including ginger hair, in their first year at Watford) and some of the traits of Hermione Granger, yet she managers to be her own unique character. Her siblings, including brother Premal and sister Priya, have Indian personal names, but they all have the Bunce family name. Penelope is technically a name from Greek mythology, but it’s not that uncommon in the English-speaking world.
Rowell, of course, is from the United States. She’s writing English characters who speak U.K. English, and occasionally (to my North American ears) this rings a little false. For example, I’ve never heard a person from the U.K. or Ireland refer to a “bag of crisps.”* The familiar expression is “a packet of crisps” where we Americans would say “a bag of chips.” But U.K. readers will have to weigh in on that matter.
(I can say that E.L. James, writing in the voices of U.S. characters, uses an occasional phrase that rings very British. It works both ways – as if we can understand, but not quite reproduce, one another’s dialects.)
The witches and wizards of Simon’s world are a bit more modern than those in Harry’s, who seem a bit stuck in the 19th century in some of their customs. Simon doesn’t speak Latin. Heck, he barely speaks English. (His dad really did a number on him when he dumped Simon in that orphanage.) Rowell’s witches cast spells in English, using concentration and intent to turn common phrases into spells. Any phrase can become a spell, theoretically, but some have caught on and are common. Song titles and lyrics often work well, and nursery rhymes are said to be the most powerful spells of all.
Baz’s family – the Pitch side – is unusually gifted with fire magic. This is a shame, since Baz (made a vampire, not born a vampire) is more flammable than the average human, something his dad and aunt (a somewhat Bellatrix LeStrange-like character, but not quite as evil) consistently remind him of. Baz is aristocratic, worldly, handsome, charming, and completely in love with Simon since their fifth year of school.
Yet it’s Simon who initiates their first kiss, in a moment of despair when Baz seems on the verge of suicide by self-immolation. Simon hasn’t quite worked out his sexuality yet. He knows he’s attracted to Baz – Baz’s huge vampire fangs impress him. It’s unclear whether he’s sexually attracted to Agatha Wellbelove or simply socially attracted to her. It’s a question the author chose to leave open. It’s entirely possible Simon is bisexual or pansexual, though.
The first kiss is magickal. Please don’t judge me, but I may have done a slight dance shortly after reading it. I really do love SnowBaz as a couple.
Of course, the dramatic climax is a traumatic climax. Not Allegiant traumatic, but still…Simon loses a person and a thing, both very dear to him. The person, Ebb the goatherd, is sort of a combination of Rubeus Hagrid and Sybil Trelawney, in a very wonderful way. Her nickname is short for Ebeneza. She’s a very powerful magician but must sacrifice herself (which she does willingly) to save Agatha.
Agatha Wellbelove doesn’t closely resemble any of the characters in the Harry Potter series. Her family name is vaguely reminiscent of Luna Lovegood’s, but she’s not quirky like Luna. In fact, she’s quite the opposite: she’d rather be with her Normal friends (the equivalent of Muggles – apparently, magicians can hear the difference between Normal and normal) than at a magickal school. She has a slight crush on Baz – one that’s destined to be unrequited, obviously. But it is not a typical young adult novel love triangle, not at all. In fact, Agatha breaks off her relationship with Simon because she realizes they’re both only going through the motions.
Penelope – Penny – has an American boyfriend named Micah. I have a deep desire to watch a sitcom starring Mindy Kaling as an older Penny living in the U.S.A. with Micah and their kids. Seems unlikely to happen, though.
Penny’s roommate, Trixie the pixie (the ridiculous name is lampshaded by the characters), is also LGBTQ+. Her girlfriend is another female Watford student, and the fact that dorm rules do nothing to keep them from snogging and flinging pixie dust 24/7 annoys Penny to no end. Technically she isn’t allowed in Baz and Simon’s shared suite, but through some unknown method she circumvents this policy – a feat never attempted by policy-respecting Hermione Granger.
SnowBaz ends more happily-for-now than happily-ever-after. They both have such grave insecurities. But I’ll take it. It’s better than being stuck, not knowing whether Baz even survives the end of Cath’s fan fiction rendition of Gemma T. Leslie’s world. (It’s not even entirely clear that Baz CAN be killed.) I like knowing Rainbow Rowell’s take.
I purchased Carry On with my own funds and was obligated to review it in any way. But I really, really, really liked it.
*Retracted. J.K. Rowling uses "bag of crisps" in one of the Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacot novels.
I bought my copy of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell on the day it was released: Tues. October 6th. I couldn’t wait to dig in and start reading the boy-boy love story. (I say “boy,” but understand I’m talking about 18-year-old adults.) I finished it a week later, on Monday the 12th. In a way, I still can’t believe I’ve finished it. Reading Carry On was an incredibly enjoyable experience. I’m not sure I can entirely explain why, but I’ll try.
Part of it was the extent to which I enjoyed Rowell’s 2013 book, Fangirl. Recall that I didn’t just LIKE Cath Avery, but also felt like I WAS Cath Avery. Because Cath loved Simon Snow and his vampire classmate Baz, I loved Simon Snow and his beloved/enemy Baz.
Another part of the puzzle is that Simon and Baz are based, in part, on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. I’ve never personally been a Drarry shipper – I’m satisfied with J.K. Rowling’s choice of Ginny Weasley as Harry Potter’s lifemate. Even if Rowling herself sometimes wishes she’d made Harry and Hermione more than friends. Let’s face it: I’m a grown adult who wears Harry Potter socks and a golden snitch necklace and whenever I hear plumbing make a funny noise my first thought is still “Chamber of Secrets!” I consider myself a member of the Harry Potter fandom. I understand the fandom impulse.
And yes, it is exciting to read a mainstream novel in which the featured romantic subplot involves a same-sex couple. It IS important to me as an out bisexual woman to have non-heterosexual (I’d say queer, but I don’t want to use that word if it will offend some readers. I personally do not have a problem with “queer”), positive representation in the media. Especially in the traditional media.
Can you imagine if J.K. Rowling went back and wrote a book about Albus Dumbledore’s unrequited love for Gellert Grindelwald? It would be heartbreaking and poignant and I would love that so much, even while it was torturing my poor little heart.
But until we get Carry On, Albus, we have to settle for SnowBaz.
In my review of Fangirl, I wrote, “Let's talk about Simon Snow. I honestly would love it if someone wrote Carry On, Simon as Cath, because the little bits of fan fiction that we get in the novel are tasty. Cath left her magnum opus unfinished (and, may I just say, I think the ending of this novel is perfection and I wouldn't want it any other way), but I still want to know if she decided to kill Baz or to let Simon and Baz live happily ever after. We're somewhat left hanging in a Hazel Grace Lancaster-type fashion. This book is meta to begin with - fiction about a fiction writer writing fan fiction about fiction - would it just be too incredibly meta for someone to write Carry On, Simon?”
Rowell hasn’t written Carry On, Simon, but she’s written something even better. Carry On isn’t written as Cath Avery writing Simon Snow fan fiction, nor is it written as if it were the original novel Cath based her fan fiction on (written by the fictional Gemma T. Leslie). Instead it’s a Simon Snow novel written in Rowell’s own authorial voice. But I no longer feel disappointed or Peter Van Houtened by Fangirl. I’ve gotten my SnowBaz story – and (spoiler alert!) Baz doesn’t even die.
Of course, I would not be sad if Rowell somehow extended this to a 7- or 8-book series…I’m just sayin’.
Ultimately, Simon Snow owes his existence to J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter. Because Rowling’s world-building is so thorough, and we’re already assumed to be familiar with it, Simon Snow’s Watford School already seems like familiar territory – yet it is its own unique world. Further, Rowling and Rowell are brilliant writers, each in unique ways. As I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Robert Galbraith novels, Rowling is intimately familiar with all 400+ years of English-language literature, plus the Latin language, plus Classical mythology and a veritable buffet of multicultural world mythologies. She’s wonderfully erudite and such a natural storyteller, she can write a children’s book filled with scholarly Classical references without either boring the reader or showing off.
I’m not implying that Rowell isn’t as brilliant or as educated as Rowling, but Rowell’s storytelling style is more inwardly oriented, more personal and intimate and less world-traveling. She writes with her tongue in her cheek, tossing in pop cultural references that might be not-so-subtly winking puns, meaningful allusions, or a combination of the two. In an early chapter, for example, Simon is nearly taken out by a taxi driver who turns out to be a goblin. In the mirror’s reflection he appears to have green skin and blood-red lips, but otherwise he’s “handsome as a pop star.” Any goblin who manages to kill Simon will become the goblin king. Wait a minute: goblin king, handsome as a pop star? Is she talking about David Bowie in the film Labyrinth, in which the pop star plays the Goblin King?
I have no doubt Rowell is making references to a wide variety of fantasy novels, films, and tropes throughout her novel. I half-suspect the surname Snow is a reference to Game of Thrones – Simon, like Jon Snow, was abandoned by his parents. Of course, it’s revealed in Carry On that Snow is his middle name. Maybe Simon officially has his mother Lucy’s last name. It’s unclear whether Davy (the Mage) and Lucy ever married – not that that would necessarily require her to change her name. I don’t recall the Mage’s last name ever being given.
Baz – short for Tyrannus Basilton – has his mother’s last name. His mother, Natasha Pitch-Grimm, was headmistress of Watford before The Mage. Baz’s father isn’t a bully like Lucius Malfoy; he’s more of a neglectful parent than an abusive one. He’s not happy that Baz is gay. Baz doesn’t identify much with his father, so he doesn’t use the Grimm last name. He’s chummy with his Grimm cousins, though.
Naming traditions are more conventional in the household of Simon’s best friend, Penelope Bunce. Penelope is a British girl with a British-ethnicity dad and an Indian-ethnicity mom. She has some of the traits of Ron Weasley (including ginger hair, in their first year at Watford) and some of the traits of Hermione Granger, yet she managers to be her own unique character. Her siblings, including brother Premal and sister Priya, have Indian personal names, but they all have the Bunce family name. Penelope is technically a name from Greek mythology, but it’s not that uncommon in the English-speaking world.
Rowell, of course, is from the United States. She’s writing English characters who speak U.K. English, and occasionally (to my North American ears) this rings a little false. For example, I’ve never heard a person from the U.K. or Ireland refer to a “bag of crisps.”* The familiar expression is “a packet of crisps” where we Americans would say “a bag of chips.” But U.K. readers will have to weigh in on that matter.
(I can say that E.L. James, writing in the voices of U.S. characters, uses an occasional phrase that rings very British. It works both ways – as if we can understand, but not quite reproduce, one another’s dialects.)
The witches and wizards of Simon’s world are a bit more modern than those in Harry’s, who seem a bit stuck in the 19th century in some of their customs. Simon doesn’t speak Latin. Heck, he barely speaks English. (His dad really did a number on him when he dumped Simon in that orphanage.) Rowell’s witches cast spells in English, using concentration and intent to turn common phrases into spells. Any phrase can become a spell, theoretically, but some have caught on and are common. Song titles and lyrics often work well, and nursery rhymes are said to be the most powerful spells of all.
Baz’s family – the Pitch side – is unusually gifted with fire magic. This is a shame, since Baz (made a vampire, not born a vampire) is more flammable than the average human, something his dad and aunt (a somewhat Bellatrix LeStrange-like character, but not quite as evil) consistently remind him of. Baz is aristocratic, worldly, handsome, charming, and completely in love with Simon since their fifth year of school.
Yet it’s Simon who initiates their first kiss, in a moment of despair when Baz seems on the verge of suicide by self-immolation. Simon hasn’t quite worked out his sexuality yet. He knows he’s attracted to Baz – Baz’s huge vampire fangs impress him. It’s unclear whether he’s sexually attracted to Agatha Wellbelove or simply socially attracted to her. It’s a question the author chose to leave open. It’s entirely possible Simon is bisexual or pansexual, though.
The first kiss is magickal. Please don’t judge me, but I may have done a slight dance shortly after reading it. I really do love SnowBaz as a couple.
Of course, the dramatic climax is a traumatic climax. Not Allegiant traumatic, but still…Simon loses a person and a thing, both very dear to him. The person, Ebb the goatherd, is sort of a combination of Rubeus Hagrid and Sybil Trelawney, in a very wonderful way. Her nickname is short for Ebeneza. She’s a very powerful magician but must sacrifice herself (which she does willingly) to save Agatha.
Agatha Wellbelove doesn’t closely resemble any of the characters in the Harry Potter series. Her family name is vaguely reminiscent of Luna Lovegood’s, but she’s not quirky like Luna. In fact, she’s quite the opposite: she’d rather be with her Normal friends (the equivalent of Muggles – apparently, magicians can hear the difference between Normal and normal) than at a magickal school. She has a slight crush on Baz – one that’s destined to be unrequited, obviously. But it is not a typical young adult novel love triangle, not at all. In fact, Agatha breaks off her relationship with Simon because she realizes they’re both only going through the motions.
Penelope – Penny – has an American boyfriend named Micah. I have a deep desire to watch a sitcom starring Mindy Kaling as an older Penny living in the U.S.A. with Micah and their kids. Seems unlikely to happen, though.
Penny’s roommate, Trixie the pixie (the ridiculous name is lampshaded by the characters), is also LGBTQ+. Her girlfriend is another female Watford student, and the fact that dorm rules do nothing to keep them from snogging and flinging pixie dust 24/7 annoys Penny to no end. Technically she isn’t allowed in Baz and Simon’s shared suite, but through some unknown method she circumvents this policy – a feat never attempted by policy-respecting Hermione Granger.
SnowBaz ends more happily-for-now than happily-ever-after. They both have such grave insecurities. But I’ll take it. It’s better than being stuck, not knowing whether Baz even survives the end of Cath’s fan fiction rendition of Gemma T. Leslie’s world. (It’s not even entirely clear that Baz CAN be killed.) I like knowing Rainbow Rowell’s take.
I purchased Carry On with my own funds and was obligated to review it in any way. But I really, really, really liked it.
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| See what I did there? |
Sunday, July 5, 2015
'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.
This is an affiliate link:
The First Bite Is the Deepest by Elisa Catrina. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
“Funny and clever and emotionally hard-hitting” "A perfectly creepy read." Elisa Catrina's debut novel begins as a quirky send-up of vampire romance, but quickly turns sinister. High schooler Stella Ortiz starts dating the mysterious new guy, but her friends are convinced he's bad news: Sebastian misses tons of school, he day-drinks something that smells like pennies, and oh yeah, he's a vampire.
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.
This is an affiliate link:
The First Bite Is the Deepest by Elisa Catrina. $2.99 from Smashwords.com“Funny and clever and emotionally hard-hitting” "A perfectly creepy read." Elisa Catrina's debut novel begins as a quirky send-up of vampire romance, but quickly turns sinister. High schooler Stella Ortiz starts dating the mysterious new guy, but her friends are convinced he's bad news: Sebastian misses tons of school, he day-drinks something that smells like pennies, and oh yeah, he's a vampire.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Dammit, J.R. Ward!
The Shadows by J.R. WardMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
***SPOILERS*** I enjoyed reading this novel much more than I liked the previous volume in the series, The King. That said, I'm pretty disappointed in the ending. We, the readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, had a deal with J.R. Ward. She would do her best to keep the main character and his lover apart as much as possible, up until the very end, and then - somehow, miraculously - all their obstacles would be removed and they'd end up together, forever.
This is the typical romance novel formula, and some of the fun of reading romance novels is the promise of a happily-ever-after. Well, J.R. Ward has busted our deal. Selena and Trez do not get to be together forever - through a bit of authorial sleight-of-hand, another pairing (one that we readers did not anticipate coming into this volume) instead gets that fate. Does it ruin the book for me? No, but I still think it's a little sneaky and underhanded on Ward's part. I suppose I should have guessed from Ward's John Green reference that she intended to go the The Fault in Our Stars route. Have the facial tissues ready.
The other thing that keeps this from being a 5-star BDB installment for me? Layla is still pregnant. Layla, y u no have your twins already? I know vampire pregnancies are supposed to last much longer than human pregnancies, but I'm tired of waiting for Layla and Xcor to get their own HEA. It better happen in The Beast - and none of this bait-and-switch nonsense, Ms. Ward.
A couple of small things I like: Vishous now has a tongue piercing. (H-O-T.) Also, Paradise hears Butch's Boston accent and thinks "Ben Affleck accent."
As for Paradise, it looks as though she will get her own adventure when Ward begins her BDB spinoff series in 2016. I'm actually looking forward to starting the new series. I like that Paradise is a daughter demanding to be treated with the same consideration that would be given to a son. I think her story will be a good one.
Monday, June 8, 2015
I Catch Up With 'The Vampire Diaries' (SPOILERS)
Today I watched (well, listened to) the TVD episodes currently available on Hulu, which were the last 5 episodes of Season 6. I hadn't watched the show since perhaps the middle of Season 5, when Katherine (presumably) died. These were the new developments to me:
- Alaric Salzman is not dead anymore. He has a fiancee named Jo; she used to belong to a witch coven, but she's no longer any kind of supernatural being. She's pregnant - with twins. They're getting married.
- Tyler and Caroline aren't together anymore and haven't been for a while. Her mother died. She shut off her humanity and manipulated Stefan into turning his off as well. Stefan and Caroline have something of a relationship.
- Tyler and Matt are training to be police officers. Somehow Tyler is not a werewolf anymore, although he'll become one again if he kills someone. (He used to be a vampire/werewolf hybrid like Klaus, right? Is he still a vampire? I'm unclear on the finer points.)
- Damon and Stefan's mother is a vampire, but they only found this out recently. She was stuck in a temporal prison that kept her trapped in 1903. Her companions there were six very dangerous vampires who have some of the powers of witches, even though witch/vampire hybrids are normally against the rules of TVD worldbuilding.
- Damon has the cure for vampirism. He gave it to Elena and she became human again. Damon was more reluctant to give up his immortality. Damon and Elena are still in/back in a relationship.
In the penultimate episode of the season, a bad vamp/witch (they are called The Heretics) named Kai has attacked the wedding, killing the bride and her unborn babies. (So sad!) Human!Elena is injured and in some kind of a coma.
The season 6 finale has Tyler triggering his werewolf curse, so any vampire he bites will be poisoned and die. It turns out Elena's coma is a spell cast by Kai. He has some kind of grudge against Bonnie, so he magically links Bonnie's life to Elena's. As long as Bonnie is alive, Elena will remain asleep. Tyler bites Kai, but Heretics are not killed by werewolf bites. Damon has the opportunity to let Bonnie die by doing nothing, but instead he kills Kai and saves her. So now Elena is in a coma for the rest of Bonnie's life. Elena's friends place her in a coffin; the Salvatore brothers will guard her until Bonnie dies. The episode almost ends with Stefan declaring his love for Caroline as, inside Elena's mind, Damon and Elena dance.
Then there's a short flash forward to a future in which cop!Matt is patrolling the seemingly-deserted town of Mystic Falls, watched over by a solitary Damon.
Season 7 is most likely to be the final TVD season, and it's already been established that Nina Dobrev will not be returning. Further, Michael Trevino will not return in the role of Tyler Lockwood.
I'm not nearly as interested in this series as I once was, but still, it was nice to get a little caught up.
- Alaric Salzman is not dead anymore. He has a fiancee named Jo; she used to belong to a witch coven, but she's no longer any kind of supernatural being. She's pregnant - with twins. They're getting married.
- Tyler and Caroline aren't together anymore and haven't been for a while. Her mother died. She shut off her humanity and manipulated Stefan into turning his off as well. Stefan and Caroline have something of a relationship.
- Tyler and Matt are training to be police officers. Somehow Tyler is not a werewolf anymore, although he'll become one again if he kills someone. (He used to be a vampire/werewolf hybrid like Klaus, right? Is he still a vampire? I'm unclear on the finer points.)
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| Creative Commons image by Vamplady01 |
- Damon has the cure for vampirism. He gave it to Elena and she became human again. Damon was more reluctant to give up his immortality. Damon and Elena are still in/back in a relationship.
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| Creative Commons image by JJ Duncan |
The season 6 finale has Tyler triggering his werewolf curse, so any vampire he bites will be poisoned and die. It turns out Elena's coma is a spell cast by Kai. He has some kind of grudge against Bonnie, so he magically links Bonnie's life to Elena's. As long as Bonnie is alive, Elena will remain asleep. Tyler bites Kai, but Heretics are not killed by werewolf bites. Damon has the opportunity to let Bonnie die by doing nothing, but instead he kills Kai and saves her. So now Elena is in a coma for the rest of Bonnie's life. Elena's friends place her in a coffin; the Salvatore brothers will guard her until Bonnie dies. The episode almost ends with Stefan declaring his love for Caroline as, inside Elena's mind, Damon and Elena dance.
Then there's a short flash forward to a future in which cop!Matt is patrolling the seemingly-deserted town of Mystic Falls, watched over by a solitary Damon.
Season 7 is most likely to be the final TVD season, and it's already been established that Nina Dobrev will not be returning. Further, Michael Trevino will not return in the role of Tyler Lockwood.
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| Creative Commons image |
I'm not nearly as interested in this series as I once was, but still, it was nice to get a little caught up.
Friday, April 10, 2015
'The Last American Vampire' by Seth Grahame-Smith
(Mom, since you haven't read the book yet, do not read my review. It may contain spoilers and unduly influence your opinion.)
The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
(Heads up: I'm going to use "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.) I enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but this sequel much less so. I don't understand the plot. What is A. Grander VIII's motivation for doing all the awful things they do? I can't enthusiastically endorse a book in which the villain's actions are so nonsensical.
Seth Grahame-Smith's consistent insensitivity to the female half of the species continues to baffle and irk me. It's not only his refusal to join us in the 21st century and, in the voices of his narrators, use the inclusive word "humankind" rather than the outdated, gender-biased "mankind." On the "Facts" page that proceeds the title page in this first edition, in the voice of his narrator - not, mind you, a character from an earlier century - Grahame-Smith uses "mankind" twice in three paragraphs.
It's also a return on Grahame-Smith's part to the "I used to love her, but I had to kill her" theme I so detested in his screenplay of the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter travesty Dark Shadows. "But she was a witch!" and "But she was an evil vampire!" may be acceptable excuses for violence against fictional women, but such scenes are not the least bit entertaining in a world where real violence against real women is a disturbing constant.
I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but Seth Grahame-Smith disappoints me as often as he impresses me. I did like the footnote in which Emily Dickinson's reclusiveness is explained by her being a lesbian or bisexual/pansexual vampire. Alas, the women in Grahame-Smith's fiction since Elizabeth Bennet have all been footnotes, plot devices to be used at the service of the male characters' plotlines and then violently disposed of when no longer necessary. If Grahame-Smith's next book is titled Emily Dickinson: Pansexual Vampire, I'll probably read it. Otherwise, I think I'll be done with his casually sexist, anachronistic ass. I read for fun, not to be made to feel as if my entire gender is disposable.
Judging from his photo on the inside back cover, Seth Grahame-Smith is a fairly good-looking guy. He will not, however, be one of my Hanukkah Hotties, because he is a not-very-nice Jewish boy.
I checked this book out from my local library and was not obligated to read or review it any way.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
'Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire' by Kerrelyn Sparks
Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire is the 16th book in the Love at Stake series by Kerrelyn Sparks. I'm not a regular reader of the series. In fact, I've read only one other Love at Stake novel: #5, All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire:
All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire by Kerrelyn SparksMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Good story, though it's part of a series and evidently I've skipped a few. Said vampire is a good-hearted, kilt-wearing, 600-year-old Scot who only drinks synthetic bottled blood (well, with one exception near the end). Santa, I will gladly take a vampire for Christmas, especially if he looks like James McAvoy.
So then I skipped ahead eleven volumes when I got the opportunity to order this free of charge through the Amazon Vine program, in exchange for a review. I liked the cute title, and I'm almost always willing to give a paranormal romance a chance, even though I couldn't remember all the specifics of the background characters.
As one might conclude from the title, this one is about a weretiger. She also happens to be a member of royal weretiger society. A Chinese native, she's about to become engaged to the weretiger prince of South Korea. But first, Jia is determined to exact revenge on the vampire who killed her parents and brother. He goes by the name of Master Han.
Jia isn't Han's only would-be assassin, though. He's also hunted by Russell, a secretive vampire who lives alone in a bat cave. Russell has to rescue Jia - an inexperienced assassin - and take her back to his cave. Slowly they begin to find themselves attracted to one another, although relationships between weretigers and vampires have never been heard of before. Chafed by her constrained life in weretiger society, Jia finds freedom with Russell.
Master Han is a dangerous enemy, but making him even more dangerous is his association with the demon Darafer. Darafer drags Jia off to hell, and then Russell needs the help of the angels to get her back.
In short, it's everything I want in a paranormal romance. The protagonists are likable people, they're both a little wounded by their tragic histories, and they fall in love in a natural, gradual way, not a love-at-first-sight fantasy way.
This is an affiliate link:
The First Bite Is the Deepest by Elisa Catrina. $2.99 from Smashwords.com“Funny and clever and emotionally hard-hitting” "A perfectly creepy read." Elisa Catrina's debut novel begins as a quirky send-up of vampire romance, but quickly turns sinister. High schooler Stella Ortiz starts dating the mysterious new guy, but her friends are convinced he's bad news: Sebastian misses tons of school, he day-drinks something that smells like pennies, and oh yeah, he's a vampire.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
'Wuthering Bites' - Emily Bronte's Classic With a Twist #MashUp
Wuthering Bites by Sarah Gray
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
If you've read this blog for a while now, you may recall that near the top of my all-time favorite classic novels list is Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I read or watch it or its many spinoffs and adaptations at least once every couple of years.
In October 2014, I saw it as a stage play. With Halloween being right around the corner from that night, I decided to give the vampire version a chance.
The thing that gave me tremendous pleasure about reading this novel was re-discovering all the brilliant bits that made me fall in love with Wuthering Heights in the first place. I have my favorite lines, and it's always a small thrill whenever they come up in a new version. There are also some deft bits of humor woven in.
Overall, I didn't enjoy this mash-up as much I liked Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic with a Blood-Sucking Twist, which I also recently read. In general, I'm fan of monster mash-ups, beginning with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Wuthering Bites was a fun read, but the vampire elements could have been incorporated in a more thorough way. Some of them, especially toward the end, felt very tacked-on. In a really good mash-up, we don't see the seams.
For example, for the vast majority of this version, we don't know what Heathcliff is. We know he's most likely the son of a Roma vampire slayer and that he has some power to control the vampires around Wuthering Heights. They listen to him when he tells them certain people are off-limits as food sources. But why does he have this power? We also know he's not a vampire himself. At almost the very end, we learn Heathcliff is a dhampir - half vampire, half human. Why this had to be a surprise kept until the very end, I just can't figure out. It seems like being a dhampir would go a long way to explain and perhaps even excuse some of Heathcliff's more disturbing behavior. Didn't Bronte intend for us to feel sympathy for Heathcliff, after the way Hindley treated him? He's more sympathetic if, through no fault of his own, he's caught between two opposing worlds.
The elder Catherine's fate is treated in a similarly mysterious way. Her ultimately-fatal illness, explained in the original book as being self-induced out of sheer cussedness, is explained in this mash-up by a vampire bite - not enough to turn her into a vampire, but enough to eventually kill her. We're told throughout the second half of the novel that Catherine's grave always looks fresh, and at the very end we find out it's because Catherine isn't quite dead and roams the moors in a zombie-like vampiric state. (Sounds like a job for Andrew Lincoln as a combination of Edgar Linton and Rick Grimes, no?) It would have been interesting for the other characters to come across her in this state, rather than just having Mr. Lockwood learn about her at the last possible moment.
One addition I did rather enjoy was the younger Catherine's ambition to become a vampire slayer. In the end, not only is she redeemed by her love for Hareton, but also by her new-found freedom to pursue her dream. I love a heroine with an ambition, even if her ambition is beheading bloodsucking fiends.
I love Wuthering Heights. I love vampires. This should have been the perfect book for me, but I thought it fell somewhat flat.
I purchased this book with my own funds and was not obligated in any way to review it. According to the sticker on the back, I bought it for $15 at Borders. It was published in 2010, so this was apparently one of the last things I ever bought at Borders.
This is an affiliate link:
The First Bite Is the Deepest by Elisa Catrina. $2.99 from Smashwords.com“Funny and clever and emotionally hard-hitting” "A perfectly creepy read." Elisa Catrina's debut novel begins as a quirky send-up of vampire romance, but quickly turns sinister. High schooler Stella Ortiz starts dating the mysterious new guy, but her friends are convinced he's bad news: Sebastian misses tons of school, he day-drinks something that smells like pennies, and oh yeah, he's a vampire.
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