#BookReview: 'Dead Ever After' by Charlaine Harris (spoilers)

Thank you, Charlaine Harris, for the years of enjoyment your Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries has given me. I absolutely adore this series, a wild 13-part paranormal ride. Dead Until Dark was one of the books that first drew me into the paranormal romance genre, even though it isn't strictly speaking a romance series.

I got this book at the library. 

I've always wanted it to be that, though. I wanted a continuous romantic arc from the first book through the last, with Bill and Sookie rediscovering and rekindling their love for one another. I imagined that ending the series without Bill and Sookie being together would be like ending the Twilight Saga with Bella running off with Mike.

(I've never liked book-Eric.)

However, Harris had a different story arc in mind, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I truly enjoyed reading how it played out. At the moment when Sam and Sookie discovered their mutual attraction, I was rooting for them. I was satisfied with the ending, despite any preconceived notions I had before I started reading.

It was a pleasure to read about consummate ladies' man Jason Stackhouse finally settling down and getting married. It was deeply satisfying that some long-term villains finally got their comeuppance. The book doesn't break any new thematic ground for this series, and in this case that was a comfort, since Harris was wrapping the series up. As usual, there's a murder, and Sookie's life is in almost-constant danger. As usual, she gets horribly injured.

Southern Vampire Mysteries Gifts at Cafe Press

As usual, she does the thing that makes her annoying as a narrator: gets jealous of and/or slut-shames any other female character who crosses her radar. To my everlasting shame, I didn't take much notice of this until I read ACrackedMoon's "Meet Charlaine Harris: Racist, Misogynist, Talentless." I don't agree with everything in that post, and I certainly wouldn't call Harris "talentless," but once Sookie's slut-shaming tendencies have been seen, they can't be unseen.

Sookie isn't a perfect character, and she remains a magnet for paranormal troubles of all kinds (and often a damsel in distress), but after 13 books and now knowing her full story, I'm glad I stuck with Sookie. I don't ask for perfection. I ask for a good story, well told. Charlaine Harris delivered.

I'm really going to miss this series. I'd like to know if Sookie and Sam ever get married, or if they decide to just be friends with benefits. I'd like to know if Bill ever finds someone, and if Eric really spends the next 200 years with Freyda. I'm sure Pam has many fascinating adventures as the new sheriff of Area 5 - and we never really got to see Karin in action.

Fortunately, we still have at least one more season of True Blood to look forward to. I won't lie - I'm hoping for a lot of exploration of the budding Pam-Tara romance.

Review: Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The positives: An interesting cast of characters, including exactly one vampire (with brief appearance by a few other supernatural creatures), a psychic, a witch, and a talking cat.

This new series seems to be set in the same world as Harris's other books, with references to Lily Bard and Harper Connelly (I haven't read those series, only the Southern Vampire Mysteries). Interesting female characters, including Fiji, the witch, who is a curvy/average-sized woman (I like that every single heroine doesn't have to be skinny), and Olivia, who seems to be some kind of trained warrior/assassin.

This small, exceedingly quirky Texas town is not without its charms, and there are enough plot twists and turns to keep the reader interested. I engaged with these characters, and I'll look forward to the next book in the series.

The not-so-positives: There is exactly one Black woman in Midnight, Texas, and she is in a perpetually bad mood. To be fair, if I were the only Black woman in town, I would probably be a bit bummed out myself. However, Harris not writing the story's one woman of color, Madonna, as a likable person is part of a larger pattern in Harris's writing. Maybe in future books she can expand on Madonna's character and give us some other sides of her personality.

Another thing is that the victim in this murder mystery is not well-liked around Midnight, specifically for the reason that she was famous for flirting with every man in town. Shaming women for their sexuality is another negative pattern in Harris's novels, once again rearing its ugly head. There's even a whiff of blaming the victim for her own murder.

Charlaine Harris isn't unproblematic, and I'm not defending the flaws in her characterization. Still, I miss Sookie Stackhouse, and I'm willing to accept Fiji Cavanaugh, Olivia Charity (I keep imagining her being portrayed by Olivia Wilde), Bobo Winthrop et al. as a substitute.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

This is a book I checked out from my local public library. I was not obligated to review it in any way.

Sookie Stackhouse: Racist/Misogynist?

Via my Facebook friend Tim Lieder (the editor of She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror - awesome short story collection you should read if you haven't already. I wrote the editorial review that appears on Amazon), I came across this article last night:

http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/meet-charlaine-harris-misogynist-racist-talentless/

Its writer is ACrackedMoon, and the article's contention is that Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels are filled with racism and misogyny, and that Sookie herself is one of the worst offenders. Characters of color are disposable, women are incompetent man-stealing bitches and men are the answer to all of life's problems.

Charlaine Harris in a Creative Commons image by lbshopgirl

At the risk of my college Women's Studies professor tracking me down and slapping me upside the head with the collected works of Bell Hooks, I've never picked up on this in any significant way, and I've read every Sookie Stackhouse book there is. Granted, I did pick up on Pam making racially insensitive remarks to Tara on recent episodes of True Blood. But I never came to the conclusions that Moon does, calling Sookie "a judgmental fuckwad," "a petty, worthless little shit," and "an ignorant shitstain."


Actually, I think True Blood tried to present a less all-white, more realistic version of the racial makeup of Bon Temps, making Tara an African-American woman, and keeping Lafayette on as a character long after he'd been murdered in the book series.

Caught in the same net of misogyny are urban fantasy authors Jim Butcher and Laurell K. Hamilton. I've never read Butcher, and all I know of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake is from a single short story I read in some anthology or other.

I wouldn't call Charlaine Harris "talentless," but I will be more aware of Sookie's biases when I read the final novel in the series. I did notice that Sookie was getting mentally tougher after all of her horrifying paranormal experiences, but I never thought of her as mean or as a "redneck stereotype." Moon's got a lot of vivid examples, though. Read the article and decide for yourself.

******

Now, about this movie version of From Here to Eternity from 1953; I watched it yesterday. I figured there were certain aspects of the novel that couldn't be portrayed in films in the early '50s, but it was still a bit shocking to see how much was actually left out. No Violet Ugure, for one thing. No Jack Malloy - the film script doesn't even have Prew going to the stockade. No stockade scenes whatsoever.

No Dana Holmes Jr., either. Instead of bearing Dynamite his heir, then having to have a hysterectomy after he gave her an STD, Karen had a hysterectomy after she went into premature labor and had a stillborn son. That was sad. It precludes the scene in which Junior comes home for lunch, and Milt Warden has to hide in the bedroom closet.

I'll always think of Burt Lancaster in terms of Elmer Gantry. What a great movie that is, based on a Sinclair Lewis novel (which I never read). Arrogant con man (like Sawyer on Lost - I'm up to mid-season 3) tries to roll a Salvation Army preacher, falls in love with her, makes her more worldly while he becomes more spiritual, culminating in great tragedy. Watch that if you haven't seen it already. But I digress.

Clearly, Prew and Lorene are the great love story of the movie, despite the famous beach scene between Karen Holmes and Milt Warden. When Karen and Milt say goodbye to one another, it's not a romantic scene at all. It's much better in the book, when she's trying to feel like he loves her without needing her sexually, and the best he can do to prove this to her is to make love to her without them having intercourse. Of course, that couldn't be filmed in 1953, so instead we have a very sterile scene with them on a park bench, a goodbye with no real emotion. When Lorene begs Prewitt not to go back to his company, it's much easier to believe she's actually offering to give up her life to be with him because she truly loves him. Of course, in the movie there's no implication that he slept with her roommate Georgette. Not that this made Prew a bad guy, necessarily, but he did tend to take advantage of an opportunity. 

Public domain image

The emotional climax for Milt Warden is listening to Prew play taps. This is also a very heartfelt and dramatic moment in the book, too. It calls for Burt Lancaster to convey a lot of sadness and thwarted admiration, mostly with his eyes, and it's very beautifully filmed. Monty Clift, playing with huge tears rolling down his cheeks, truly looks as if he's just lost his best friend. 

In the movie, you see, Prew is mourning the death of Angelo Maggio. Yeah, the movie killed off Maggio! The whole reason I liked that stupid kid (19 years old in the book, by the way - portrayed by 38-year-old Frank Sinatra) is that he was tough enough to take repeated beatings, fake (mostly fake? It's probably a little bit real, too) a mental illness and thus earn his discharge. Then he rides off into the sunset, off to Mexico to become a cowboy. But in the movie - dead. 

Also left out of the film is Isaac Nathan Bloom. Maggio's great drunkenness, for which he ends up in the stockade, stems in the book from Maggio and Prew going out on the town without money on the expectation that gay guys will buy them drinks, although clearly they do not expect to have to do anything in return for these drinks. Maggio, Prew and the two "queers" have a long, philosophical conversation about whether or not homosexuality is a choice - but again, this could not be filmed in 1953. So we don't have the scene with Bloom being investigated on suspicion of being a homosexual. Nor do we get the scene in which Maggio attacks Bloom for Bloom's crude sexual remark about Maggio's sister. In the movie, it's the late Ernest Borgnine as James "Fatso" Judson who whistles at a picture of Angelo's sister. Yeah, they bring in Judson a lot earlier than he appears in the book, and have Judson kill Maggio to give Prew a clearer motive for killing Judson. 

I miss Bloom, though, despite his unfortunate tendency to play the "you hate me 'cause I'm Jewish" card. He's like the Finnick Odair of From Here to Eternity: at first he just seems like a jerk and you kinda hate him, then you sympathize, and then he dies and you're like, "Oh, gawd, no!" 

So, no Bloom, no "rolling the queers," no Violet, no Malloy, no Junior, no long-term consequences from sexually transmitted diseases in the movie. You have to read the novel, or you're only getting a small portion of the story, with some of the humanity sweated out of it for the sake of a 1950s audience. The movie's a snack, but the book is a delicious buffet. 

Audio Book Review: 'Grave Sight' by Charlaine Harris

My last audio book for my commute to and from my corporate day job was Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris. This is the first book in the Harper Connelly series. Harper is the book's heroine. After being hit by a lightning strike as a child, Harper developed the ability to locate dead bodies. She feels a kind of sixth sense, a buzzing sensation, when she's near a corpse, and she gets a vision of how the deceased came to be deceased.

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong about the identities of the murderers. My first inkling was that Harper's love interest, Deputy Hollis Boxleitner, would turn out to be the killer. But no, he's just a pleasant and slightly lonely blond-haired man in his 20s who, very tragically, lost his wife.

I was a bit disappointed when Harper didn't show any inclination to stay with Hollis, or at least see him again. But she's a young woman, only 24, and she and her brother/manager Tolliver live a nomadic lifestyle. I don't judge her for having a brief romance; I'm simply more used to romance novels, where the relationships are decidedly longer-term. I didn't enjoy this as much as the first Sookie Stackhouse book because it wasn't as romantic, but that's just a personal preference.

I'm not usually much of a mystery reader. I wouldn't have listened to The Cuckoo's Calling if it hadn't been written by J.K. Rowling. Also, audio book choices are somewhat more limited than paper and e-book choices. A lot of the bestsellers that make it into book-on-CD format aren't the ones that interest me. But I do love paranormal themes, which is what makes Charlaine Harris an author of choice to me.

This was a perfectly satisfactory story with an interesting heroine with an unusual ability. I don't know yet whether or not I'll finish this series, but I certainly enjoyed listening to this audio book.

I did have a bit of a hard time picturing Harper and Tolliver, though. He's supposed to be tall and pale, with straight black hair and a mustache. I keep thinking of the Guy Fawkes mask from V For Vendetta. Harper has short, curly black hair, but when I try to picture a Caucasian women with curly black hair I keep thinking of Mother Gothel from the Disney movie Tangled. It may be that I imagine more vividly when I'm physically reading that when I'm having the book narrated to me.

I checked this book out from my local public library and was not obligated to review it in any way. Next up, I'll be listening to A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle, read by Jennifer Ehle. I actually had no idea Ehle was American, because I remember her mainly as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, opposite Colin Firth. Her mother is English, which I suppose is why she can do a passable English accent. In any event, she makes a lovely audio book narrator of the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time.

I'll still be aggressively imagining Alexis-Bledel-as-Rory-Gilmore in the role of Meg Murry in my mind's eye.

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris ~ A Mother-Daughter Review

My mom and I both read Deadlocked, the 12th Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris, this week. So that you can better visualize the reviewers of this book, I present this photo, taken three Mother's Days ago at a fancy-schmancy brunch. We're drinking mimosas.

I am the dark-haired one. 

This is the impression I recorded on GoodReads. I do not promise a spoiler-free zone.

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sookie Stackhouse, you listen to me: Eric is a jerk. Except when he was under a witch's spell, Eric has always been a jerk. You do not love Eric. In your 13th and final novel, you'd better decide to get back together with Bill, or you will break my heart.

This wasn't the most exciting volume of Sookie's adventures, and the ending was abrupt. The climactic scene almost felt tacked on, as if Charlaine Harris needed a last-minute excuse for Sookie to use the powerful faery-magic object she possessed. But reading a Sookie Stackhouse novel is like visiting a long-established friend. Whatever happens in the next book, I will tear through it in three days like I did this one, and I will sob when it ends, however it ends.

Bill says he'll refuse to make Sookie a vampire, but we'll see.

View all my reviews on GoodReads

My mom must have finished it last night. She e-mailed me her impressions, which were as follows:

"OMG!  Why, why was Claude so bad!   Why did Eric leave Sookie! 

 Why did Quinn suddenly call?  

 Why did all the faeries have to leave America?? What about Sookie,  won't she need some fairy connection?    This book was so good.   I can't wait for the answers to all these questions.

I bet Sookie ends up with Sam or no one, just her nephew."

I love that my mom e-mails using the phrase "OMG." (I'm going to die laughing the day I get an OMFG.) I composed an in-kind reply, which went like this:

"Eric is a jerk. Eric's always been a jerk, except when he was cursed. 

The Quinn part, I think, was just wrapping up a loose end. 

Sookie will be fine without the fairies. Besides, Dermot stayed. 

You think she'll end up with Sam? I don't know. I'll be sad if it's not Bill."

"Sad" won't begin to describe it, actually. I'll be bereft. But I was wrong about one point, which Mom corrected me on:

"Dermot didn't stay.  At the last minute he went.   His father finally acknowledged him."

Of course you're right, Mom.

Season 5 of True Blood, please hurry up and get here. Now, gratuitous werewolf flesh.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021086936007/

'Night Shift' Wraps the Midnight, Texas Series Up In a Neat Little Package

WARNING: SPOILERS! 

Midnight Crossroad Review
Day Shift Review

Charlaine Harris wraps up her Midnight, Texas trilogy this year with Night Shift. Since I can no longer look forward to new seasons of True Blood in the summer, I get my supernatural fix from the annual May release of these books. (What will I do next year?)

No, Charlaine Harris is not perfect. Yes, her characters are subject to an old-fashioned double standard that punishes women when it comes to sexuality. This volume contains blatant sexuality-shaming of Fiji Cavanaugh's sister Kiki. I'd hoped maybe Harris had learned, through public criticism, not to write sexism and racism into her novels, but she's still a work in progress.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy reading these books. The third book in the series was as hard for me to put down as the other two.

Hints have been dropped all along that Manfred, the novel's psychic, is something other than a plain ol' human being. In this volume, we finally discover what his non-human lineage is. It's demon. The new guy who took over running Midnight's gas station turns out to be Manfred's biological grandfather, and said grandfather had a demon father. Manfred's mother was a quarter-demon, so Manfred is an eighth-demon. No wonder his psychic powers aren't just a cheap trick.

(I know Manfred is a carryover from another Charlaine Harris series, but it's not one that I've read.)

Other satisfying developments happen on the romance front. For one thing, we learn that "hybrid" vampire Lemuel and bow-wielding assassin Olivia Charity are now husband and wife. They got the Rev (a tiger shapeshifter, as we learned in Day Shift) to marry them so that if Olivia were killed in the line of duty, Lemuel could inherit her share of the family fortune.

To be honest, though, they probably would have gotten married anyway. They genuinely love each other, and Lemuel can be surprisingly old-fashioned when it comes to the ways to physical love.

Speaking of physical love, we learn a slightly surprising thing about Fiji: she's a virgin. That's not too terribly unusual, given that she lives in a small town with only a handful of eligible bachelors, and she's only - what, 25? Maybe 26 years old? Not that there's anything wrong with being a virgin, or with not being a virgin. It's just that Fiji is interested in pursuing romantic and sexual relationships, but she just hasn't had luck in that department...yet.

Well, that all changes by the end of this novel, in an example of Deus Sex Machina, sub-trope Mate or Die. As the town's virgin witch, Fiji must engage in a public sex ritual at the Midnight Crossroad in order to avert the rising of Manfred's demon grandfather. For several chapters, it's left open who will volunteer to be her partner in the hieros gamos. 

But I don't think too many people will be surprised to discover that Fiji's longtime crush, Bobo Winthrop, returns her amorous feelings. And then some. Their ritual mating is oddly sweet; it plays out like well-written fan fiction.

A Caution: There is a major "squick" in this novel re: details of how Olivia was abused as a child. If you're sensitive to depictions of child abuse, you may want to skip this volume.

One loose end has not been wrapped up, though: Quinn the weretiger is still without a mate. Ms. Harris, will you please write another Quinn book? I thought he was the wrong guy for Sookie Stackhouse and the wrong guy for Fiji Cavanaugh, but he's the right guy for someone. So if we could have another Quinn novel, that'd be great.

Not too long ago, NBC announced it would premiere Midnight, Texas as a series this coming autumn. I'm likely to watch it, but reluctantly so. I like my zaftig heroines to be played by curvy actresses. Parisa Fitz-Henley, cast as Fiji, seems too thin for the part. No offense to thin women - I just don't think Fitz-Henley looks at all like the Fiji Cavanaugh in my head. If she's not at least a size 10, she's not MY Fiji.

I checked this book out from my local library and was not obligated in any way to review it. This review represents my own honest opinion.

Charlaine Harris's Stand-Alone Mystery 'A Secret Rage'

A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hello, I'm not dead. I did kind of forget that I had a book blog, though! But I have been reading. Here's a brief review of the novel I finished today.

This mystery in which the perpetrator of the murder is also guilty of a number of sexual assaults has characters who express some very problematic ideas about sexual assault in general. Even a generally skillful writer, as I believe Charlaine Harris is, must tread carefully around these issues, and this stand-alone mystery left something of a bad taste in my mouth.

Perhaps I was a bit biased because I'm a Northerner and the Southern-born-and-raised character refers to her New Yorker neighbors as sounding like a bunch of squawking bluejays. (We have bluejays in the North, Charlaine - I know exactly what that sounds like.)

I also felt the writing was a bit more unpolished and clunky than I'm used to in such favorite series as the Southern Vampire Mysteries and Midnight, Texas.

I purchased this book with my own funds from Red Dog Books and was not obligated in any way to review it.

Review: 'Day Shift' Charlaine Harris (Midnight, Texas #2)

This review will not be spoiler-free for characters, although I will not discuss the resolution of the novel's central mystery. Read at your own risk!

Goddesses help me, I am addicted to this series.

I liked this one a little better than Midnight Crossroad, the first book of the trilogy. Two characters from the Sookie Stackhouse series make appearances. This is our first summer without a new season of True Blood to look forward to, and I'll admit I kind of miss Sookie, Bill, and the rest. For me, this made Day Shift even more fun than the first one.

So, which two characters show up? For a clue, you can turn to my review of After Dead, the summing-up volume that caps off the Sookie Stackhouse series. I wrote of that rather unsatisfying, slim hardcover, "On the bright side, the entries for Barry the Bellboy and Quinn seem to imply that these characters will get some kind of spin-off or sequel."

Oh yes, there be weretigers. Not only Quinn, but his son as well - and the Rev, the quirky Midnight resident whose religious services extend to the burial of deceased pets.

No only do we discover the supernatural nature of the Rev, but of husbands Joe and Chuy as well. They're angels, although the implication seems to be that they're of the fallen ilk who sired children with beautiful human women, as captured in the Biblical book of Genesis.

Given that Joe and Chuy apparently had female partners at one point in history, is it really fair to call them a gay couple? Not that guys who identify as gay don't ever have male-female relationships in their past, but I would hate to think of this as another example of bi erasure. Perhaps they're pansexual or queer; perhaps human sexuality labels don't really apply to cherubim.

In my review of Midnight Crossroad, I wrote, "Maybe in future books she [Harris] can expand on Madonna's character and give us some other sides of her personality." Harris does, giving Madonna an opportunity to show her strength and save the day. I really enjoyed this scene, and it shows Harris continues to grow as a writer - maybe even as a person.

As I said in my previous review, "Charlaine Harris isn't unproblematic...Still, I miss Sookie Stackhouse, and I'm willing to accept Fiji Cavanaugh, Olivia Charity, Bobo Winthrop et al. as a substitute."

Maybe the most disappointing thing about this one was that Lemeul, Midnight's sole resident vampire, hardly appears in this volume at all. He's still on the quest he began in the first book, to find someone even older than himself who can read the mysterious language in the long-lost books of magic he recently rediscovered. It doesn't appear that he's found such a person (or creature) yet, so that plotline is likely to pay off (let's hope rewardingly) in the next book.

I continue to stand by that statement. I anxiously look forward to the trilogy's concluding volume.

This is a book I checked out from my local public library. I was not obligated to review it in any way.

Thoughts on 'After Dead' by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #13.5)

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I checked this book out from my local library, unwilling to pay for a book that's mostly blank space and pictures until after I'd given the text a chance. I've been a very loyal reader of the Sookie Stackhouse series, starting around 2005 or so when my mom loaned me the first book. I read this in about an hour, sitting in a restaurant waiting for dinner while my husband watched college football.

Although I've read all 13 books, I have to admit I don't remember a lot of the minor characters, so a lot of the entries in this reference book didn't mean anything to me. That will be frustrating to anyone who's a more casual reader and not an obsessed fan.

It is good to know a bit more about the fates of the main characters: Sookie, Sam, Eric, Bill, Jason, Pam, and Alcide. The information isn't very detailed, but at least it gives you a general idea of who lived happily ever after.

Hint: Sookie and Sam do.

Some of the entries show signs of what I'll generously call unpolished writing, and that too is frustrating. Harris has an unpleasant habit of telling us about a misfortune that occurred to a character and then making us infer from context that the result was death. Was it really so hard to say that so-and-so died? Clearly she has no qualms about giving her characters horrid endings, yet she can't seem to bring herself to come out and say so blatantly.

Hardcore fans may enjoy the information found in these pages (200 pages, with about 30 pages of actual text), but the average reader isn't going to enjoy this book.

On the bright side, the entries for Barry the Bellboy and Quinn seem to imply that these characters will get some kind of spin-off or sequel. The Quinn illustration was actually my favorite page in the whole book.

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Death's Excellent Vacation, Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner

I suspect that many readers who pick up Death's Excellent Vacation, a collection of paranormal stories with a vacation theme, will do so for Charlaine Harris' brand-new Sookie Stackhouse story. "Two Blondes" sends telepathic waitress Sookie and vampire Pam out of town to visit a casino and run an errand for vampire sheriff Eric Northman. In the course of their errand, they meet an elf, Pam is drugged, and the two blondes are forced to don scanty outfits and pole-dance. It's a good story and a welcome addition to the Sookie catalog.

There are many other worthy stories in this collection. The second tale, Sarah Smith's "The Boys Go Fishing," features a Superman-like character on an expedition to catch the Loch Ness monster. It's a strange concept, but it works beautifully. Jeaniene Frost's "One For the Money" features engaging vampire characters. "Far Across the Caspian Sea" by Daniel Stashower is in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut's immortal Slaughterhouse Five. Remember the Simpsons Halloween episode where dolphins take over the world? If you do you'll enjoy "The Innsmouth Nook" by A. Lee Martinez. "Safe and Sound" by Jeff Abbott is a twist on true events and a stinging indictment of a well-known cable TV personality.

One of the most enjoyable tales here is "Seeing is Believing" by L. A. Banks. Fans of Sookie Stackhouse will find this Louisiana werewolf tale familiar, yet different enough from the True Blood universe to make it unique.

Surprisingly, I found myself skimming through Katie MacAlister's "The Perils of Effrijim." I usually love Katie MacAlister's brand of comic romance novels, but this short story was a little too steeped in obscure fantasy language to hold my interest. I had a different problem with "Thin Walls" by Christopher Golden: the setup was good, but it seemed to drag in the middle.

The stories improve after that, so bear with this book. "The Heart is Always Right," a gargoyle tale by Lilith Saintcrow, is wonderful. "The Demon in the Dunes" by Chris Grabenstein features a realistic young narrator and a surprising twist. In "Home From America" by Sharan Newman, Pat O'Reilly discovers he's not really an O'Reilly, but has an entirely different Irish heritage. The bookend to this anthology, "Pirate Dave's Haunted Amusement Park," is a werewolf mystery with pirates - who couldn't love that? In all, there is much more to admire here than to skim through.

Commentary: 'Fated' (The Vampire Destiny Series #1) by Alexandra Anthony

Yesterday I finished reading a short Nook book, Fated by Alexandra Anthony. Fated is the first book in Anthony's Vampire Destiny series of paranormal erotic romance novels. This was the review I posted on Goodreads after I finished the book:

Fated by Alexandra Anthony
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This erotic paranormal romance is a quick, easy, fun read with lots of hot sex. I thought the mind-reading heroine, Josephine, reminded me of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries series heroine Sookie Stackhouse. The main difference is that while Sookie is blonde, Josie has reddish blonde hair.

Josie is a Southerner, but the setting of this story is Bali, where Josie is on a sort of working vacation. The hero, Stefan, is tall, blond, and Nordic. He has icy blue eyes and speaks Swedish, which automatically made me think of Alexander Skarsgaard as Eric Northman on True Blood...which is, of course, the TV adaptation of Harris's novel series. Did this read a little like True Blood fan fiction? Yes, and I didn't mind. There isn't much of a plot until the very end of the novel - the action mostly happens in bed - but I didn't mind that either, because the characters were likable and the sex scenes were well-written. It was a nice escape into a vampire fantasy world.

View all my reviews on Goodreads (review ends here)

I bought this ebook from the Barnes and Noble website. I'd discovered it on the http://bookclubreading.com/ website. The website not only lists books for sale and accepts reviews but also allows book clubs to contact the authors for book club meetings. FYI, I'm an affiliate and earn a small commission when a group books an author through my site.

Because I bought the book at Barnes and Noble, I also wanted to post a copy of my review to the B+N website. It was then that I discovered the ebook was no longer available on that site. I thought this was a little strange, but not too strange. When I read Play Him Again, I went to review it on Smashwords only to discover it's no longer for sale there.

So then I thought maybe I'd post my review on Amazon.com. (FYI, I am an Amazon affiliate, but there isn't an affiliate link in this post.) Here's where I discovered the controversy with this book. I didn't read any of the other reviews on Goodreads.

Fated has 275 reviews on Amazon, with an average of 3.5 stars. It has 120 5-star reviews and 45 1-star reviews. The 1-star reviews, for the most part, all convey the same information: namely, that Anthony plagiarized parts of Fated from a True Blood fan fiction author who went by the name of ficlet78. But how am I to determine whether these accusations are true or false?

By Googling "Alexandra Anthony plagiarism," I came upon ficlet78's WordPress blog. In a post dated July 28, 2014, ficlet78 (who signs the post as "Heather") says she Googled a few sentences of her fan fiction work titled "Pretty Kitty" and found her words being used in an excerpt on Anthony's WordPress blog (which is private, i.e. not accessible without an invitation). She then discovered Anthony's work for sale on B+N and Amazon. Heather says she's contacted Anthony and asked her to take the work down. It appears this is the reason I could no longer find the book for sale at B+N.

If you read through the comments, you'll see that in a comment posted July 31, 2014, Heather says Anthony admitted copying Heather's work. Heather writes, "As angry as I was/am, I have to take the moment and give her some credit. She could have ignored my messages. She could have taken the psycho-bitch route and denied the whole thing, then done everything in her power to discredit me. But she didn’t. She admitted it. Publicly. And while she did take one scene from my work (which is all I and several others have found so far), she did the hardest thing and was a fucking adult about it. So I thank her for that, at the very least."

The blog Book Goggles posted about the incident on July 30, 2014. Read here

However, since I'm unable to read Alexandra Anthony's response firsthand, I'm aware that this is only one side of the story. I'd hate for a hardworking author to be unjustly accused of plagiarism. At the same time, because we authors do work so hard, often for little or no compensation, it's especially egregious when someone does cross the line and pass someone else's work off at their own.

When I was a student in a Catholic high school, I was told I would automatically fail my English classes if I were caught plagiarizing in a paper, even if it was unintentional (i.e. failure to cite a source). I guess that lesson always stuck with me. It never crosses my mind to use any words other than my own, except when I let the reader know that something is a quote.

In summary, I enjoyed Fated, but I have reason to suspect it's not entirely the original work of Alexandra Anthony. I leave it for the reader to decide for herself.

#FridayReads: Books I'm Currently Reading Aug. 22, 2014

I'm having one of those "read 1,000 things at the same time" moments again, but what's new? I love books. I'm kind of obsessed with them, really.

My main book is Four: A Divergent Short Story Collection, which I picked up at the public library a few days ago. I loved the Divergent trilogy. Even though I already bought and read one of the e-book versions of "The Transfer," the first story in the collection, I haven't read all four stories yet.

I had intended to take a short hiatus from reading young adult books, but the opportunity to get this from the library weakened my resolve.

By the way, I said in my Divergent review that Tris and Caleb Prior are fraternal twins. Four makes it clear they're "Irish twins." In other words, they were born ten or eleven months apart. I missed that upon first reading.

I had been reading the final book in the All Souls Trilogy series, The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to finish more than a third of it before it had to go back to the library.

It's too wonderful. I don't want to gulp it down. I need to savor. I think I'll have to buy the e-book and read it in my Nook.

The book I'm currently reading in my Nook is Fated (Vampire Destiny #1) by Alexandra Anthony. It's a paranormal romance, and a pretty quick, easy read.

The vampire, Stefan Lifsten, is tall, blond, and Nordic, heavily reminiscent of Eric Northman in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries series. The heroine, Josephine, is a telepath who reads people's minds. She's very much like Harris's Sookie Stackhouse. It almost reads like True Blood fan fiction - and I'm not complaining. I'm liking it.

The last episode of True Blood is coming up this Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm dreading it at the same time.

The book I'm reading in my kitchen as I wait for coffee to brew and water to boil is Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott.

It's a paranormal murder mystery. Half the chapters are written from the point of view of a vampire/horror film actress who's sort of the sheriff of Hollywood the same way Eric is the sheriff of the Shreveport region. All of the victims (at least the first three) were her vampiric creations, her "children." The other half of the chapters are written from the POV of the mortal human detective who's investigating the crime. He doesn't know that vampires really exist.

I haven't read any of Michael Scott's other books, but he wrote the YA fantasy Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. And of course we all remember who Nicholas Flamel is...he created the Philosopher's Stone, the very thing that gave young Harry Potter so much trouble. Well, that's the folklore. He was an actual historical person, too.

Barbeau in a Creative Commons image by Leslie Gottlieb. 

Adrienne Barbeau, of course, is an actress as well as an author. Very beautiful lady.

The book I keep in my husband's van in case of reading time is HellFire by Kate Douglas. This is part of my PNR rotation. It's the second book in the DemonSlayers series. It's a silly-but-fun paranormal romance series with a hero from the lost continent of Lemuria. (That's an interesting subject we'll save for when I finish the book. I have a thing for discarded scientific theories.)

Okay, the cover model with the long blond hair looks exactly like Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. As I'm reading the book, though, I'm imagining the tall, white-blond hero as Lee Pace in the Hobbit movies. I'm imagining Rutina Wesley - True Blood's Tara Thornton - in the role of the heroine, Ginny. (That's Ginny as in Virginia, not like Harry Potter's Ginny. Mrs. Potter's nickname comes from Ginevra, the Italian equivalent of Jennifer or Guinevere.)

I love me some Kate Douglas. She had me hooked from the first time I picked up Wolf Tales.

Now, the serious book I'm reading is my latest Amazon Vine pick. It's called Religio Duplex: How the Enlightenment Reinvented Egyptian Religion by Jan Assmann, translated from German by Robert Savage. (I don't know what Assmann means in the German language, but it's unfortunately giggle-worthy in English. I can't help but think of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer mistakenly receives the "ASS MAN" vanity license plates.) This scholarly work describes the history of a thought, from a Greek interpretation of the Egyptian religion during antiquity to the re-emergence of this interpretation during the European Enlightenment era of the 1600s and 1700s. Assmann is an Egyptologist, and he's also a scholar of European history, so this is right up his alley. I'll write a detailed review as soon as I finish this dense academic work. I'm about halfway through.

What are you reading?

The Best Books I Read in 2013

To catch up on previous years:

The Best Books I Read in 2012
The Best Books I Read in 2011
The Best Books I Read in 2010
The Best Books I Read in 2009

If you want to, you can even go to Goodreads and see all the books I read in 2013. Now my favorite reads from 2013, in very particular order:

10. Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris. I didn't want the Sookie Stackhouse series to end - at least not before Sookie and Bill reconciled and Bill made her his vampire bride - but since it had to, I'm glad Harris did it her way.

Full review here (contains spoilers). This was a book I checked out from my local library.

9. Finding Esta by Shah Wharton. I was pleasantly surprised by this fresh take on contemporary vampire mythology, the debut novel by a talented writer from the U.K.

Full review here (contains minor spoilers). This is an e-book I downloaded from Smashwords on a day when the author gave it away as a free promotion.

8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  I didn't give this one a full review, but the weekend I checked it out from my local library, I could hardly put it down until I was finished. It's nonfiction, the story of a woman who changed medical history without knowing she did so. Henrietta Lacks was a poor, uneducated tobacco farmer who was pregnant with her son when doctors discovered she had a cervical tumor. After she gave birth, doctors treated her cancer with radiation and, without her knowledge or consent, took a sample of her cancerous cells and kept them alive in the laboratory. This was the first time human cells were ever able to be made "immortal," or grown perpetually in the lab. These cells made a wide variety of medical research possible, and companies profited from that research while the Lacks family was too poor to even afford health insurance. Sadly, Henrietta died an awful, painful death when her cancer rapidly came back despite the radiation treatment - which, in all honesty, was fairly horrific itself - while her children were all still small.

This book is an investigation into the woman behind the cells (known in medical literature as HeLa cells, after Henrietta), her legacy, and how medical science as a business and as a pure science can improve its ethics and treatment of human beings. I chose this because it was the book of the year at the college from which I graduated.

7. In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler. This one is also nonfiction, and again it deals with cancer, although this is a memoir written by a survivor. It's infuriating, difficult, and inspiring.

I didn't write a full review of this one, but you can read a blog post on it here. This is a post about Ensler's spirituality in her memoir. I got this book free from the Amazon.com Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

6. Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. This is the sequel to See's Shanghai Girls, a work of historical fiction set in 20th-century China and then in the United States, exploring the world of two immigrant sisters, Pearl and May. Shanghai Girls is a beloved book in my family, read first by my grandmother, then by my mother, then by me. At the end of the first book, Pearl's daughter Joy impulsively moves to China. Dreams of Joy relates the story of what happens to her there, and what happens to Pearl as she goes to (she assumes) rescue Joy. I never wrote a full review; I don't know what to say except it was very good, and also very hard in places.

I purchased a used hardcover of this book at a library book sale.

5. Lover at Last by J.R. Ward. I'm hopelessly addicted to Ward's paranormal romance series with the warrior-vampires. I love all the couples, but I was SO ready for this, the only book in the series to focus on a male-male couple. They're Blay and Qhuinn, and their partnership gives me a lot of feels. I've wanted them to be together since Blay first expressed feelings for his friend, but Qhuinn was being such a jerk about it. All that angst is resolved now, though, and Team Qhuay is officially a thing.

Full review here (includes spoilers). This is a book I checked out from the public library. 

4. The Divergent Trilogy (I'm kind of cheating here, but I'm going to count them all as one book) by Veronica Roth. For those of you fresh to this young adult/dystopian series, I'm not going to spoil anything here. Let's just say that if you liked the Hunger Games trilogy, you're going to be equally enthusiastic about young Beatrice "Tris" Prior and her cohort.

Divergent review here (spoilers)

Insurgent review here (no real spoilers, just a basic plot outline) 

Spoiler-free Allegiant discussion post

Allegiant review (spoilers)

I bought a paperback Divergent at Barnes and Noble, checked out Insurgent from the local library, and bought Allegiant as an e-book for my Nook. 

3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Hazel Grace Lancaster is just a normal teen with cancer, a young woman who's already outlived her life expectancy thanks to a "miracle drug." She doesn't love the cancer support group, but she does fall in love there, with Augustus Waters, a brilliant, witty, kind young man who lost a leg to bone cancer that's now in remission. This is an important literary novel disguised as YA fiction, and I cannot wait to see the movie.

I never wrote a full review of this novel, mostly because it gives me so many feelings, I become an inarticulate sniffling mass. I paid full retail for this hardcover at a store that was not a bookstore, because I had a gift card. After I read it, my grandma read it. She liked it, too, and she's not one to read YA books normally. 

2. Hemingway's Girl by Erika Robuck. Historical fiction set in Key West in the 1930s, with a Cuban-American protagonist who's kind of in a love triangle with Ernest Hemingway? It's perfection.

I didn't write a formal review of this book on this blog, but I did discuss the first half of it here. I received this one through the Amazon.com Vine program in exchange for a review.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Without realizing it, I checked an abridged version out of the library. I wish I'd read the unabridged version, because after 800 pages, I still wanted more of this classic. The story is compelling and the characterization is interesting. It's everything you could ask for from a dead Frenchman.

Full review here (contains spoilers). I read this as a library book, and then subsequently purchased a used paperback of the unabridged version at a library book sale. 

Hooker Please ~ Prostitutes in Literature

On account of reading and writing so much about prostitution lately, I threatened HERE to write this blog post, and now I did. I don't judge people for non-monogamy or for having jobs in sex work, but just for the record, I categorically oppose human trafficking, forced prostitution of any kind and the sexual exploitation of minors.

The two former prostitutes I've known in my life were both recovering drug users, and their sex work was directly related to their addictions. This doesn't apply to any of the five characters you'll read about below - obviously, for artistic purposes, there's a bit of a disconnect between reality and fiction.

I warn you, a spoiler is coming up for Mockingjay, so don't continue unless you've finished the entire Hunger Games trilogy.

Prostitutes in Literature I've Read Recently

1. A Hu-Li, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin. A Hu-Li is a supernatural kitsune, a fox shape-shifter. Owing to her supernatural ability to influence human minds, she never actually has to physically touch her clients. Until she starts falling in love, A Hu-Li is, paradoxically, a virgin prostitute, at least in the sense that she’s never had intercourse in her unnaturally long life.

2. Lorene (Alma Schmidt), From Here to Eternity by James Jones (currently reading). Lorene is Alma Schmidt’s “house name” at the Honolulu brothel The New Congress Hotel. She’s a native of Oregon who told her mother she was going to Hawaii for a few years to work as a secretary. Alma has a legitimate reason for wanting to earn her own money: she doesn’t want to have to depend on a man. The first night Robert E. Lee Prewitt meets her, he’s in love. She won’t marry him because, in order to preserve her reputation to the extent that no one would ever believe she’d been a prostitute, she intends to marry a high-status husband.

3. Finnick Odair, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Mockingjay is a war novel, and many outrages happen therein, but few upset me as much as Finnick’s fate as a 17-year-old Hunger Games victor. In Catching Fire, Finnick’s flirtatious nature made him seem like he was overly confident, cocky and proud. In Mockingjay, we learn his sexualized way of relating to other people is the result of exploitation from the Capitol – he was literally pimped out to wealthy male and female clients. Unlike Alma, Finnick gets to marry his true love, Annie, who is pregnant when Finnick is killed in battle.

https://amzn.to/4cBthfu

Sidebar: What do Katniss Everdeen and Robert E. Lee Prewitt have in common? They look somewhat similar - tall and slim, with an olive complexion. They both come from a coal mining area, and both had coal miner fathers. Prew drinks like Haymitch, though.

4. Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris. 1,100-year-old French teen Sophie-Anne Leclerq is a recurring character in Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries series, until her true death. Definitely Dead is the book in which the heroine Sookie Stackhouse hears Sophie-Anne’s tale. As a mortal human, Sophie-Anne was the sole survivor of a wave of plague that destroyed her village. When she met up with other human beings again, they exploited her and put her to work as a prostitute. Her callous treatment by other humans is some of the reason why the vampire queen of Louisiana is so cold and calculating, a terrifying and powerful woman.

5. Myrtle,The Seven Descents of Myrtle(also known as Kingdom of Earth) by Tennessee Williams. I didn't actually read this one; via Kala's (TheDorkMistress') Tumblr, I heard this recording of the short story/dramatic monologue being read by Tom Hiddleston. Tom Hiddleston is one of the stars of Tumblr, beloved by fangirls everywhere for his portrayal of the comic book villain/Norse god Loki in the movies Thor and The Avengers. Hiddleston narrates the story as "Chicken," the character who steals his half-brother Lot's new wife, Myrtle.

(This is an odd image of Loki, but it resonates with the "seven descents" in the title - Dance of the Seven Veils, get it? But then again, in Norse mythology, Loki is sometimes female. He/she gives birth - the wolf-monster Fenrir, who may or may not appear as a character in The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, is one of the offspring of which Loki is the mother.*)

Myrtle and Chicken have a long, philosophical talk in which she describes being sexually harassed and then raped by her boss as a young teen. Despite the violence of her experience, she learned that she liked the sexual act itself* and became a prostitute as well as a showgirl before marrying Lot. Lot, afflicted with tuberculosis,is a pathetic figure; Myrtle married him largely out of pity. Lot calls Myrtle’s name all night while she’s up in the attic making love to Chicken, and in the morning the two come down to find Lot dead.

Prostitutes in Literature I Haven't Read

For this, I've enlisted the aid of the trusty New York Public Library Literature Companion. I feel as if there should be some character who comes immediately to mind when I think of literary prostitutes, and I’m having a brain cramp and just not thinking of him or her. Help me out here, blogosphere – who else belongs on this list?

-- Moll Flanders, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Being a prostitute is counted among Moll Flanders’ misfortunes. Later in her life, she becomes rich, repents, and dies an honest woman. Stupid Flanders. 

-- Lulu, Pandora’s Box by Frank Wedekind. Lulu is the classic literary femme fatale – she literally causes the deaths of those around her. Like Moll Flanders, she grew up on the streets. In her declining years, Lulu is reduced to prostitution, and her final client is Jack the Ripper. Louise Brooks played Lulu in a 1929 silent film.

-- Maureen Wendall, Them by Joyce Carol Oates. Maureen is the daughter of Howard and Loretta Wendall, a working-class couple. Howard, a police officer, is once busted for taking money from prostitutes. After his death, Loretta relies too heavily on her young daughter to take care of her, and Maureen works as a prostitute to build an escape fund. Her stepfather finds out and beats her, resulting in a nervous breakdown. Maureen’s older half-brother, Jules, sexually abuses and pimps out a woman. So, typical Joyce Carol Oates: heavy, depressing dysfunction all around.

I do not volunteer to read any of these things. 'Specially not J.C.O. I'm still traumatized by "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been."

*Corrected here: http://erinoriordan.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-loki-in-lughnasa.html

#WaitingOnWednesday / #OhHowPinteresting - Must-Have New Books of 2013

I'm not a usual Waiting on Wednesday blogger, but since it's still early in 2013, I wanted to get down a list of books I'm looking forward to this year. Just yesterday I found out that Dan Brown is releasing a new novel in the Robert Langdon series, to be titled Inferno, on May 14. Yay!



My mom told me if I started The Da Vinci Code I wouldn't be able to put it down, and she was right. I still love that book, Angels and Demons, and (to some extent) The Lost Symbol, and I don't care if you like them or not.

I'm also utterly addicted to J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series - that's my mom's fault, too. I eagerly await Lover at Last, set to come out on March 27. 



It will be bittersweet when this series ends, but I've got to read Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris. Amazon says the release date will be May 7th. I wonder if it's too early to put my name on the library waiting list? I never buy the hardcovers in this series - the first ones went straight to the genre paperbacks shelf, and I still contend it was kind of rude (and money-grubbing) of Harris' publisher to start putting them out in the much-more-expensive hardcover first.



...and my mom also got me hooked on Sookie Stackhouse. It was my introduction to paranormal romance, actually.

P.S. How fantastic are the Japanese covers for the Sookie Stackhouse series?!



P.P.S. Doesn't this one look like it might be about Bella Swan and Rosalie Hale?



I love vintage book covers. Now, some pins that are just cool. This is Jack Kerouac in 1944. Kinda sexy (even though he appears to be in some kind of trouble). Is anybody else looking forward to the On the Road movie with Kristen Stewart?



Anybody looking forward to Catching Fire?



This, I feel, is pretty cute. Lewis Carroll's birthday is coming up (January 27th), so I think a full Alice's Adventures in Wonderland post will be called for soon.



What are you looking forward to in 2013?