Book Review: 'The Anonymous Girl' by Holy Ghost Writer

The Anonymous Girl by Holy Ghost Writer (HGW) is the sequel to That Girl Started Her Own Country (review here). The first novel in this series is The Sultan of Monte Cristo, a contemporary follow-up to Alexandre Dumas' 19th-century masterpiece. Sultan followed the further adventures of Edmond Dantes, Mercedes, and Haydee; That Girl switched the scenery to the 21st century, following the adventures of a descendant of Dantes and his mistress Raymee.

At least one other volume of the series - The Sovereign of Monte Cristo, which I have read - takes place in the 19th century on an American plantation. Quite frankly, I'm not entirely sure what order the entire series is meant to be read in, but Sultan definitely comes first.

The protagonist of The Anonymous Girl is Zaydee, and she's still in the process of starting her own country. She doesn't know she's a descendant of Edmond Dantes and Raymee, but she seems to be edging closer to the truth about her heritage. She's also connected somehow to a secret society called the Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo. Like the previous book, this one hints at conspiracy theories, but very little is revealed. I keep hoping the next installation will tie things together in a neat package.

Within this fictional world, Zaydee may be the true identity of the fictional character Lisbeth Salander. Steig Larsson, in this fictional world, is a pen name of U.S. journalist named Steve Larson, and Steve is a former lover of Zaydee's. This volume introduces a new wrinkle to the story, though: Zaydee has an identical twin sister named Liz. Steve didn't realize they were two different people even though he had relationships with both of them - so, chances are, Lisbeth Salander is based on some characteristics of both sisters.

This time around, Liz is extremely concerned for Steve's safety, but Zaydee seems convinced he's safe but has been taken into some kind of custody for his own protection. This is the first time the sisters have spoken in several years.

Speaking of custody, Zaydee is still residing in a federal prison in Florida. She's getting increasingly fed up with the criminal justice system, and she uses her superior hacking skills to get some sweet revenge on a couple of FBI bozos. These scenes are typical of the wicked humor throughout these stories, some of what makes them so fun and enjoyable.

Zaydee has really grown on me as a character, partly because she's so smart and competent, and partly because in some ways she resembles her famous ancestor The Count. She plays fast and loose with the American legal system, but you can't help but root for her dream of starting her own micro-nation with mostly women in all the important positions of state.

A new character in this volume is Remey, the heir of a biotech company whose father is working on a transhumanist project involving manipulating the human genetic code and furthering evolution at a greatly sped-up rate. Zaydee throws a spanner in the company's works, much to the chagrin of Remey's father. Remey takes Zaydee's side, turning his back on his family and his connections to a second secret society, Skull and Bones. Remey's character is well-written because when he comes into Zaydee's life on one of her excursions outside prison walls, it's unclear whether he's going to be an asset or a liability to her. By the end of the novel he seems to be trustworthy, but there's a bit of mystery to his character.

This fast-paced series continues to draw me in, and I look forward to reaching the end and having some answers to the questions raised by the secret societies and the exact nature of the link between the present day and the Count of Monte Cristo's time. I tended to take the series a little too seriously at first. You have to have fun with it. It's like a fun, breezy Dan Brown thriller.

"Holy Ghost Writer" is the pen name of an undisclosed author. The person who discovers his or her true identity has the opportunity to win a $1,000 prize. To enter, one has to e-mail a guess to prize AT sultanofmontecristo DOT com.

I purchased this book with my own funds from Barnes and Noble.

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Erinyes by George Saoulidis. $4.99 from Smashwords.com
When a sheltered teenager starts noticing a hazy face following her in her photographs, she begins to investigate an urban legend. But will she uncover the truth when she gets in trouble with a technology corporation, when an enigmatic hacker starts telling her conspiracy theories and when the hazy face becomes all too real and starts chasing her non-stop?

'That Girl Started Her Own Country' by Holy Ghost Writer

In January, when I read The Sultan of Monte Cristo by Holy Ghost Writer*, I didn't quite know what to make of the modern sequel to Alexandre Dumas' classic The Count of Monte Cristo (which I also read in January of this year). Recently, when the author approached me on Goodreads about reading the sequel, That Girl Started Her Own Country, I didn't know what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised by That Girl Started Her Own Country; I really enjoyed it. It appears to be only loosely linked to Sultan - the main character, Zaydee, is the great-granddaughter of Raymee, an original Holy Ghost Writer (HGW) character introduced in Sultan. Early in That Girl, Zaydee is arrested and taken in federal custody in the United States. She won't reveal her real name, and lets the authorities believe she's royalty from another country (a very Count of Monte Cristo thing to do). She intends to become just that - the sovereign of her own micronation, which will be largely a gynecocracy.

It's strongly suggested that Zaydee is the real-life inspiration for Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy that starts with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. HGW makes mention of time Zaydee has spent in psychiatric institutions; since this is the reader's first introduction to Zaydee, it appears that HGW assumes the reader is familiar with Lisbeth's story (which includes psychiatric hospitalization) and can make the connection. Zaydee also uses the nickname "Pippi Longstocking," which is likely another reference to Lisbeth, who is sometimes thought to be an adult version of the beloved children's book character. I am a bit of a disadvantage here as a reader, since I haven't read any of Larsson's novels. (I did read the summary of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on Wikipedia, though.)

Larsson himself becomes a character in the novel; he's Zaydee's former boyfriend, a journalist who wrote the Millennium books under a Swedish pseudonym, but who is actually an American named Steve Larson. In this novel, he's investigating the Bilderberg Group (a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists, or individuals we might categorize by the less-pejorative term "proponents of non-mainstream theories"), and Zaydee is giving him false leads so that his real investigation does not endanger his life and his work.

Granted, this novella suffers from some of the same faults as its predecessor: HGW gives us tantalizing bits of information, but those hints don't necessarily get fully explained by the end of the novel. The narrative doesn't always flow very smoothly, jumping from place to place and introducing new characters without much transition. That said, all of the various theories and characters who pop up in these books may very well be explained and unified by the time this series is concluded. I'm more confident in the author's ability to pull off an overarching storyline than I was when I'd only read Sultan.

I also happen to know from conversing with the author and glimpsing a later volume that the Sultan (the former Edmond Dantes), Haydee and Raymee make an appearance in a later volume.

The next book in the series is The Boy Who Played With Dark Matter.

Disclosure: The author provided a paperback copy of this book to me at no cost. The opinions presented here are entirely my own. I am an Amazon.com affiliate; if you make a purchase from Amazon after clicking through a link on my site, I'll earn a commission of a few cents.

*HGW sponsors an ongoing contest; whoever can guess his true identity wins $1,000!

This is an affiliate link:

Erinyes by George Saoulidis. $4.99 from Smashwords.com
When a sheltered teenager starts noticing a hazy face following her in her photographs, she begins to investigate an urban legend. But will she uncover the truth when she gets in trouble with a technology corporation, when an enigmatic hacker starts telling her conspiracy theories and when the hazy face becomes all too real and starts chasing her non-stop?

Currently Reading: 'The Sultan of Monte Cristo'

This is a short e-book I found by searching the Count of Monte Cristo tag on Tumblr. You can read the review by The Fashion Insider here (the link died, unfortunately). It is exactly what I wished for: a continuation of Alexandre Dumas' classic, beginning with Edmond Dantes and Haydee as a newly-engaged couple. Under 75 pages, the e-book costs only 99 U.S. cents.

But I am highly unsatisfied by this "honeymoon" scene. (It doesn't actually say that they got married, just that she asked him to ask her to marry him.)

She also realized that it would be hard to break through the Antarctic shyness that had frozen Sinbad's ability to ravish the woman he only knew how to protect; so she would have to use more than her charm, beauty and new found prowess, she would have to make him unable to resist. 

But how did Haydee, the sheltered young maiden, develop this "prowess?" On whom has she been practicing? (Valentine, perhaps?) How did she get it in her head that she would drug him with spiked tiramisu and a hookah full of marijuana? I get that the Count would approach the virgin Haydee with some delicacy, and that she would approach him with some anticipation, but this totally seems like a role reversal.

For the first time Edmond notices that Haydee is voluptuous as she takes his virgin hands and places them on her bare breasts. "Do you know the French kiss?"

"Teach me," requests Dantes. 

Haydee leaned her mouth onto his and taught him how the French kiss.

Let's forget for a moment that we've switched from the past to the present tense and then back again. His virgin hands? Is Edmond Dantes a 40-year-old virgin? I think not; I think in The Count of Monte Cristo (the chapter titled "The Betrothal Feast") when Caderousse says, "Act towards her as if you were her husband, and you will see how she will like it," and Mercedes blushes, Dumas is delicately trying to tell us that Edmond and Mercedes have kinda already been acting like they were married. (This is far more explicit in the movie, of course, wherein Mercedes is already pregnant with Albert when she marries Fernand, and Edmond is Albert's bio dad.)

One would really imagine that Edmond and Mercedes had figured out the French kiss as teenagers.



The chapter ends with:

"No, my lover, that is only a small appetizer, the nectar is reserved for later, first enjoy the main course," as Haydee began to undulate her hips over Dantes' submissive body in gentle rhythm to the ebb and flow of the Mediterranean.

The night ended in a wonderful catharsis for the newly-weds.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgh*. Awkward, and not nearly detailed enough even its awkwardness. Is the implication that they're both virgins, and the first time they had sex - him heavily under the influence of narcotics - they both had orgasms? Unlikely (at least for her). And awkward. And badly punctuated. (I added the possessive apostrophe to "Dantes," because bad punctuation hurts my brain.) Now I see why reviewers are comparing this to Fifty Shades of Grey - it's not intended to be a flattering comparison.

And also, they're not "newly-weds." He did not put a ring on it. I imagine he's a nominal Roman Catholic and she's Greek Orthodox, but they probably would've had a Catholic wedding service, on the presumption that the husband's religious preference takes precedence over the wife's. I want to read about that part.

I totally want that romance-novel cliche of the virgin in white on her wedding night - I just want it to be well-written. Or, so help me Jebus, I will write this thing myself. But I will read the rest of this book (apparently the first sequel in a 12-part time-travelling series leading up to the present day) and I will tell you how it goes.

*That's a completely legitimate book reviewer word.

P.S. Apparently by reading the abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo, I missed a lesbian subplot, wherein one of the daughters of the villains dresses like a man and runs off to Italy with her piano instructor (another woman). I have got to read the unabridged version!