#BookReview: The Vampire Diaries, The Return: Midnight (Spoilers)

Previous Vampire Diaries series book reviews on this blog:

The Awakening 
The Return, Book 1: Nightfall
The Return, Book 2: Shadow Souls

Midnight by L.J. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last book in the Vampire Diaries series to be written by L.J. Smith herself - or at least it was until Kindle Worlds opened up the VD franchise to fan fiction writers. You can read here about how LJ Smith, hired by Alloy Entertainment to create the series in 1990 and then fired in 2011, used Kindle Worlds to flesh out her own vision. As I write this review, Smith's two newest "fanfic" entries in the series she created are #1 and #2 on Amazon's Kindle Worlds Young Adult bestsellers list.

I read the previous installment, Shadow Souls, two years ago in March 2012. In that volume, Elena and her friends rescued Stefan from prison in the Dark Dimensions. Stefan had hoped a magical rose would make him human again, but Damon became human instead, and wasn't at all happy about it.

The town of Fell's Church is still under attack from the demonic kitsune (fox spirit) siblings. As the clock counts down to the Last Midnight, the town's possessed children intend to carry out a terrible plot, which kitsune sister Misao hopes will restore her evil powers. But, as Matt, Meredith, and wise crone Miss Flowers discover, the kitsunes are acting as minions for an even greater, even more black-hearted entity. Smith has introduced more Japanese folklore into her tale, which is one of the things I love most about this series. She's kind of like J.K. Rowling's American cousin.

Shrine to Inari no Kami at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, with many kitsune statues. Public domain image by Ph0kin.

That black-hearted entity is Inari, the Shinto goddess of rice and mistress of all the fox spirits. Encyclopedia Mythica says that Inari is a shape-shifter, sometimes a god and sometimes a goddess. She has a springtime festival and is sometimes associated with the agricultural goddess Uga-no-Mitami and with Hinduism's Lakshmi. In Smith's tale, Inari has the largest starball - a repository of spiritual power - in the Dark Dimensions. Using the kitsune as her messengers, she intends to cause ritualistic destruction.

For further reading on the mythology of Inari:

"Goddess Inari" at Journeying to the Goddess
"Inari and Her Kitsune" at Goddess School 

Miss Flowers plays a more important role in this book than in any of the previous ones, using her benevolent witchcraft to its fullest extent. If you've only watched the TV show, you'll be unfamiliar with Miss Flowers, but you can think of her as the book version of Bonnie's Gran.

Damon, meanwhile, is determined to become a vampire again as quickly as he became human. To do so, he returns to the Dark Dimensions, unwillingly bringing Bonnie McCollough with him. Damon still has very strong feelings for Elena, but at the same time, he's drawn to the very innocent, almost child-like Bonnie.

At first I thought the red-haired woman on the cover was supposed to be Bonnie, who is described as a Scottish-American teen with curly, strawberry blonde hair. She doesn't resemble Kat Graham, the multiracial actress who plays Bonnie Bennett on the TV series - but then again, the TV character Dr. Meredith Fell bears little resemblance to the book series' olive-skinned Latina teen Meredith Sulez. Dr. Fell is played by Torrey DeVitto who, when the Meredith character first appeared in Season 3, was married to Paul Wesley, who plays Stefan. But then AGAIN, book character Tyler Smallwood is not described as Latino, while Michael Trevino who plays TV Tyler Lockwood is Mexican-American. The TV series is more ethnically diverse than the book, which is good. I favor adding diversity over subtracting it.

However, it turns out the woman on the cover isn't Bonnie but Idola, a Guardian of the Celestial Realms (a sort of embassy of heaven that exists in the Dark Dimensions). The Guardians spill some secrets in this volume, including the true revelation of how Elena's parents died. They also explain some of Elena's angelic qualities since she died as a vampire and came back as a specially-gifted human.

Bonnie gets herself into some serious trouble with a craving for a simple sugarplum - but Damon saves her. Stefan and Elena enter the Dark Dimension to join them, and they must work together with those left behind in Fell's Church to keep the Last Midnight from happening.

The story ends on a hopeful note, and it certainly doesn't read like the end to a series. Since I don't want to read the ghostwritten The Hunters books, I'll have to download the Kindle Worlds books and give them a chance. The two books that are currently out (The Vampire Diaries: Evensong: Paradise Lost (Kindle Worlds) and The Vampire Diaries: Evensong: The War of Roses (Kindle Worlds Novella)) are 2/3 of a story arc called Evensong. After she finishes that, the Daily Dot article linked at the top of this blog post says, Smith will write her "endgame," her version of how the series ends. That'll probably be another 3-book arc, at least. Fortunately, the e-books are only $1.99 apiece.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. I purchased this book with my own funds at The Dusty Bookshelf used bookstore in Manhattan, Kansas, and was not obligated in any way to review it. This review represents my own honest opinion.

I haven't been watching the Vampire Diaries TV series very closely for the past two seasons - or the spin-off series The Originals, despite my love of Rebekah - but I did watch on Thursday, May 6. SPOILER ALERT: It ended with Katerina Petrov, a.k.a. Katherine Pierce, apparently dead but unable to enter the afterlife through Bonnie. (Bonnie is the conduit between life and death now that she herself is back from the dead.) Some unseen supernatural force dragged her kicking and screaming backwards out of the church where Bonnie stood - perhaps she was dragged off the hell? Could this really be the end of TV-Katherine? We won't know until the series returns after a short hiatus on March 20th.

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 26th

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2-For-1 Facebook Marketing Book Reviews

Using Facebook to Build Your Business by John Cruise
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Are you thinking of adding a Facebook page to help promote your business? If so, this book is made just for you. It explains the "whys" of using Facebook to help customers find and keep in contact with your company, and then it explains the "hows." It deals with social media strategies and best practices.

As the author states on page 29, "If you do something without any goal, it will only turn out to be useless." For that reason, business owners will want to read through this book once to get a basic understanding of Facebook, then develop a Facebook marketing plan - the author gives suggestions for both no-cost marketing and paid Facebook ads - and then keep the book close by for reference as the Facebook page develops.

While the book will primarily help those just starting out in the process of creating a presence on the social media network, those with established Facebook pages who want to know how to calculate their return on investment (ROI) and track their social media statistics will learn how to do so.

For me, the most helpful chapter of the book was "Applications You Can Use For Your Facebook Business Page." Even though I consider myself fairly well-versed in social media, I hadn't heard of some of these useful apps. Another particularly practical chapter is "Common Facebook Marketing Problems," which will help companies avoid some embarrassing errors.

I received a free review copy of this book from the author in exchange for a fair, honest review.

Facebook For Business Owners: Facebook Marketing For Fan Page Owners and Small Businesses by Tom Corson-Knowles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book guarantees you'll increase your sales via your Facebook business page or your money back. If you're brand-new to Facebook, it will walk you through the process, starting with the very first sign-up page. Helpfully for Facebook newbies, these pages include screenshots with notes that make it super-easy even for people who don't know social media from Cheerios.

Those who already have an established business profile on Facebook can skip ahead to Advanced Profile Setup or even further ahead to chapter three, which explains how Facebook works. This includes a discussion of Facebook's Edgerank algorithm, with tips on how to keep your Edgerank high.

The marketing tips that follow are extremely specific, which is helpful. Colson-Knowles emphasizes consistency, which is always a good strategy for any social media campaign. He gives tips on what kinds of promotions work best in Facebook ads and on avoiding being categorized as a spammer by the Facebook powers that be.

The end pages of the book contain additional resources, such as a lengthy list of motivational videos anyone can watch free on Youtube. I'm not much of a motivational video type, so what I found to be much more useful was the excerpt from Corson-Knowles' book 57 Hot Business Marketing Strategies. Readers get the entire chapter on guest blogging, including a helpful screen capture of what a spammy blog looks like and a template for requesting a guest post slot on a quality blog.

Overall, Corson-Knowles' tips seem practical and specific enough to be actually helpful. I don't know how many copies he's had to refund the money on, but I imagine it wasn't very many.

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for a fair, honest review.

View all my reviews on Goodreads!

#SexTalkTuesday Welcomes Desiree Burch As Special Guest Moderator March 4

CYBERSPACE (Press Release) – Twitter-based sex chat program Sex Talk Tuesday (#SexTalkTuesday) announced today that it is welcoming comedian and actress Desiree Burch as a special guest moderator for its upcoming show on Tuesday, March 3.





"I'm so excited that Desiree will be joining us as a guest moderator on Sex Talk Tuesday. This is going to be a fantastic event. I'm really looking forward to it!" says Angie Rowntree, publisher of Sssh.com.

Desiree Burch is a writer, comedian, actress, and solo performance artist whose full-length solo shows have run off-Broadway and across the U.S., U.K. and Europe. Her critically-acclaimed one-woman show 52 Man Pickup, which chronicles real sex and even more real self-discovery, was a hit of both New York and Edinburgh International Fringe Festivals.

Creative Commons image

She is a New York City performance art darling, having worked with the New York Neo-Futurists, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, artist Wu Tsang, Split Britches, Joe's Pub, Caroline's, P.S. 122, On the Boards, the Huffington Post, WNYC and VH1 and E4.  Desiree is a Southern California native, a TEDx speaker, arts educator and graduate of Yale University.

A fun and provocative Twitter-based chat held every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, #SexTalkTuesday is hosted and coordinated by Sssh.com, the web’s premier destination for erotica made by and for women.

Each session, a guest moderator asks thought-provoking questions to a large and active group of participants, who send hundreds of tweets during each round of #SexTalkTuesday. The result is a lively and entertaining discussion that invites participants to be open and candid with their thoughts and opinions on sex, life, love and the humor of it all, in a way that fosters a supportive and compassionate environment for the conversation.

To participate in Sex Talk Tuesday, go to twitter.com and use the #SexTalkTuesday hashtag. For more information, or to inquire about serving as a guest moderator, contact Angie Rowntree at editor (at) sssh.com.


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Snowbound, a Romance Novel by New Wyoming Writer Sarah Winter

Guest Post by Amy Kampstra

There are three things you'll notice if you've ever had the privilege of conversing one-on-one with budding novelist Sarah Winter: Her unforgettable laugh, her ginormous vocabulary, and a mischievous shine in her self-proclaimed "shit brown" eyes. (No, that's not what her eyes are really full of.) But that humor, with the ability to paint with words using stark honesty, combined with that genius wit swirling under the surface, create a perfect storm of qualities that permeate each page she writes.

1)      Author Sarah Winter (photo by Sarah Winter)

As her pen name suggests, Winter knows a thing or two about damnable snow and cold. The Northern Wisconsin native turned Cody, Wyoming gal has suffered through enough freak snowstorms and deep freezes throughout her 29 years that she could, well, write the book on it. So, it's no surprise her self-published first novel, Snowbound, is now available on Amazon as a paperback and Kindle download.

Fittingly, Snowbound was published on Jan. 6, 2014, upon the heels of Winter Storm Ion, in which a polar vortex swept through the United States, slamming several states with sub-zero temperatures and wind chills that no one has experienced in 20 years. (Hmm… a chilling coincidence or TERRIFIC marketing ploy, Ms. Winter?)

Well, let's chalk it up to a coincidence. In fact, "The idea has been with me since I was 15 or 16," Winter reminisces. "I read a romance novel of one flavor or other that had the hero and heroine caught in a thunderstorm and they wound up together in an isolated cabin. My brain ran with it, begging for more drama and more dire circumstances."

Snowbound may trigger its own vortex in the literary world. The romance does contain swear words, and it's full of detailed, explicit scenes for anyone that loves The 50 Shades of Grey stuff. But it's the fascinating world she's shaped of characters thrust against the Wyoming landscape that will hook you.

"The book is a straight romance," explains Winter, "but there is a lesson to be found about taking risks and not letting the circumstances of life beat you down to the point that you shut yourself off. There's a quote that my main character Liam says that sums it up quite well. 'We don't get to choose the things that happen to us in life. What we can choose is how to react to them, how we deal with them, and how we move on.'"

Wyoming plays a huge part in the plot. She's a siren luring Englishman Liam Freeman to see her intense beauty and rich history before throwing him into a life-threatening situation. And, if Wyoming seems merely like a cold-hearted, formidable region, we forget, because she has nudged Liam right into the arms of River, an intelligent, well-deserving heroine any reader can respect.

1)      Snowbound cover

In this Snowbound excerpt, River uses her knowledge and experience to treat Liam's hypothermia:

She kept the fire going, the grate in place to protect them from getting burnt, keeping the cabin so hot she was sweating. He moaned once in a while as soreness started to set in, the sound plaintive and pain-filled. Every time he did, she jumped up to check him and usually found him tossing and turning. His muscles cramped from the change in his core temperature and his joints stiffened from the shivering and exertion of his walk through the storm. He was nearly incoherent sometimes, his mind still shaking off the effects of the cold. He asked for water, glass after glass. She stirred salt into each warmed glass to help with the muscle cramping and fed him ibuprofen tablets.

Being married, raising two sons, and crafting a novel is more than most people can handle. But, Winter determinedly tapped on those computer keys any chance she could (especially in the wee hours of the morning when all was quiet), finally giving breath to that idea she had so many years ago. She explains her writing process as "brain vomit" in which she scratches down any idea or hint of dialogue on whatever she can get her hands on. Interestingly enough, one of her Snowbound characters was conceived by scratching notes on a pizza box. No matter the method, she was relieved and quite giddy to see her baby in print.

Winter's friends, Beth and Shanna, helped her with understanding a readers' perspective and with the tedious task of editing. Formatting the novel and getting it ready for sale on Amazon was also time-consuming.

Alas, a writer's work is never done. Reviews on Amazon are positive and may create a snowball effect, one that prompts Winter to write more books.

"Snowbound is a stand-alone, but I do have other irons in the fire" Winter assures her new readers. "I have several different ideas I've been outlining, one that's being very selfish with my time. I'm far from done!"

Contact Sarah Winter via Twitter and Pinterest with username SisterSadieG. Check out Sarah's blog.

Excerpt used with Sarah Winter's permission

#Horror Book Review: Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Once upon a time, many years ago (Halloween 2011, to be exact), I took part in a Halloween blog hop. I won a prize from author J.Q. Rose, and that prize was an e-book copy of the horror novella Sunshine Boulevard, set in a gated retirement community in St. Augustine, Florida. It took me a shamefully long time to do so, but I finally got around to reading it on my Nook.

I'm so glad I did.

The book starts out with a mystery - what's killing the seniors in a most unusual fashion? Some form of spontaneous human combustion? Aliens? Or some kind of deadly new critter?

The novella contains a good amount of snarky but good-natured humor in addition to the mystery and body horror. It was a fast, fun, easy read. It reminded me of one other book I read before in the same horror subgenre, but alas, to name what that subgenre is would spoil the mystery. Best to just read it for yourself, if you're any kind of a comedy/mystery/horror fan.


Sunshine Boulevard on Goodreads

J.Q. Rose's author website

J.Q. Rose's blog

The Kindle edition of 'Midsummer Night' is now available!
Don't forget to enter to win a paperback copy from Goodreads!

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Ghosts in Houses & Other Spooky Places by Daniel Hardie. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
Enter a world of the unknown and the paranormal, where strange ghostly and haunting happenings take place all over the world. Ghosts in Houses & Other Spooky places is a book that explores ghostly realms in haunted houses, haunted hotels, historic castles and cursed graveyards. Read this book... if you dare.

Kirsty Hill to Appear in Sony’s 'The Hungover Games,' Out March 11 #ParodyFilm

CULVER CITY, Calif., - Rising starlet Kirsty Hill, also known by the stage name Sophie Dee, is set to make an eye-popping appearance in Sony Pictures’ upcoming The Hungover Games, a parody mashup of Hollywood’s mega-blockbusters The Hangover and The Hunger Games, out March 11th on DVD/Blu-ray and VOD.

Hill co-stars with a talented ensemble that includes Tara Reid (American Pie (Unrated)), Jamie Kennedy (Malibu's Most Wanted), Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie's), Ben Begley (NCIS: Los Angeles), Ross Nathan (Bollywood’s English Vinglish), and Herbert Russell (Law and Order, Robot Chicken) with appearances by Bruce Jenner, Hank Baskett, Robert Wagner, Kayden Kross and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills stars Kyle Richards, Brandi Glanville, and Camille Grammer.

“I’ve been working towards this opportunity for years, and can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to act alongside people I have admired for years,” said Hill. “2014 is shaping up to my best year ever!”

The Welsh-born blue-eyed beauty will also appear in Danny Glover’s new comedy Bad Asses and Marlon Wayans’ upcoming spoof A Haunted House 2, both out later this year. Hill is currently in Los Angeles shooting the dark thriller Criminal.

The Hungover Games DVD/Blu-Ray includes over 20 minutes of bonus content, including "Go Deep Inside The Hungover Games," behind-the-scenes footage, plus exclusive interviews with the cast and a hilarious gag reel.

Synopsis: After celebrating Doug's upcoming wedding in a cheap hotel in Laughlin, Nevada, our hungover party-ers, Bradley, Ed and Zach, wake up in a strange room in an even stranger world... and without their pal Doug. After meeting the haughty and flighty Effing and the gruff, alcoholic Justmitch, the trio soon realizes they are on a train car headed to The Hungover Games. On the way, the men must face a harrowing assortment of Pop Culture Districts, including The Superhero District, The Middle Earth District, the Puppet District, and the Johnny Depp District.

Kirstin in the Johnny Depp District

The Hungover Games, written by David Bernstein, Kyle Barnett Anderson and Jamie Kennedy, marks the directorial debut of Josh Stolberg. Producers are Ash R. Shah, Ben Feingold, Jim Busfield, Steve Small, and Jamie Kennedy.  The film's run time is approximately 85 minutes. The DVD/Blu-ray is unrated. The unrated and R-rated versions will be available digitally and on VOD.



Social Media, Writing, and Editing Services I Offer - Erin O'Riordan

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 27

The Fifth Element

This post is a follow-up to yesterday's Vampire Academy book review. It has to do with the elemental magic practiced by Richelle Mead's Moroi - vampires who are living, mortal beings and self-appointed guardians of the earth. I may make occasional reference to the 1997 Luc Besson movie titled The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Gary Oldman (which, I'll have you know, I think is a very good movie).

We can learn much of interest about the Classical four elements by referring to Barbara G. Walker's wonderful resource The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets.

The Four Elements

Walker's encyclopedia entry on "elements" informs us of the following:

- Naming the four elements as water, fire, earth, and air was common to many ancient civilizations, including the Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Hindus, Aztecs, and some other North American indigenous tribes. These four elements were commonly thought to make up everything that exists.

- Ancient Hindus believed the goddess Kali created the four elements. By inscribing symbols to represent them on her necklace of skulls, Kali brought the Sanskrit alphabet into being.

Public domain image by Ambereen21

- Kali is sometimes portrayed as holding one of four objects in each of her four hands: a bowl of blood symbolizing water, a lightning bolt-shaped scepter symbolizing fire, a lotus wheel representing earth, and a sword representing air.

- Kali's four symbols, once adapted by Europeans, evolved into the cup, wand, wheel (pentacle), and sword used on the Tarot deck. These, in turn, became the hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades of the modern playing card deck.

- Water and earth were feminine, and air and fire were masculine. This is why hearts and diamonds are red (feminine) and clubs and spades are black (masculine) - analogous to the concepts of yin and yang. In Hindu philosophy, the feminine elements were creative/benevolent  and the masculine elements destructive/cruel. However, to the ancient Greeks, the feminine elements were passive and the male elements were active.

- The combination of water and fire - male and female - represented sexual union. Together they made blood, which was red like fire yet tasted like ocean water.

- The "four humors" used by Western medicine are each related to one of the four elements. Blood was air, phlegm was water, yellow bile was fire, and black bile was earth. A predominance of blood in the body led to the sanguine temperament (cheerful), phlegm the phlegmatic (calm, cool, composed, imperturbable), yellow bile the choleric (irritable), and black bile the melancholic (tending toward depression).

Personification of the four temperaments. Title page of 'The Seven Planets' by Adriaen Collaert, 1581. Public domain image. 

 - In Christian iconography, the four Gospel writers (or Four Evangelists) are represented as a bull (ox), lion, serpent (according to other sources, an eagle), and a man or angel. These symbols represent earth, fire, water, and air as well as the Gospels of Luke, Mark, John, and Matthew.

The Four Evangelists depicted in the Book of Kells. Public domain image. 

The Moroi in the Vampire Academy series each specialize in one type of elemental magic in their teen years, similar to reaching puberty. Christian Ozera, for example, has fire magic, and Victor and Natalie Dashkov both specialize in earth magic. Lissa, however, has no specialization. She has some control over all four elements, but her true specialization is the rare fifth element, spirit.

The Fifth Element

According to Walker, the ancient Greeks characterized the fifth element as "ether," which means "heavenly." The gods and goddesses were thought to be made of ether - so I wasn't completely wrong in my movie review when I characterized Lissa as having an "ethereal" quality.

In the Luc Besson movie, the fifth element is both embodied in a person - Leeloo - and also representative of love itself.

Leeloo cosplay, complete with Multipass. Creative Commons image by Christopher Michel

Walker's encyclopedia entry for quintessence describes the substance variously as the blue blood of the gods (also known as ichor), specifically as the menstrual blood of the Goddess, or as the sacred wine or ambrosia consumed by the gods. Walker claims that in Homeric poetry, ichor is described as being made by the honeybees of Aphrodite. "Blue blood" is said to be the reason both the Hindu deity Krishna and the Gnostic creator-god known as the Demiurge were depicted as blue-skinned, and why ancient Celts painted themselves blue in religious ceremonies and in battle. Celts killed in battle hoped to be resurrected like the immortal gods.

Walker goes on to write that in medieval alchemy, quinta essentia or quintessence referred to a blue elixir associated with both bodily resurrection and spiritual illumination. She also writes that quintessence is used to reference the fifth trump suit or Major Arcana of the Tarot deck.

For further evidence, I turned to The Book of Alchemy: Learn the Secrets of the Alchemists to Transform Mind, Body, and Soul by Francis Melville. It says, "Of all the philosophical principles, none is as mysterious and intangible as the quintessence, the fifth essence or element, which is concealed within the four philosophical elements and equates with the secret fire, the spark of divinity within all things."

If Lissa Dragomir's quintessence is the spark of the divine, it certainly explains what our narrator Rose feels when she experiences Lissa's healing: a sense of all the good, wonderful, happy things in the world, a beautiful bliss.

Melville further writes, "The four elements conceal within them a fifth element, known as the quinta essentia, the quintessence, or Azoth. This has the connotation of being the absolute essence of a thing and, as such, many alchemical magisteries (products or medicines) are called quintessences, particularly those that have been distilled, because distillation releases the soul and spirit from matter. Some alchemists call the spirit of wine (distilled brandy) a quintessence, and, indeed, it fulfills the criteria described by Isaac Newton:

"'Quintessence is a thing that is spiritual, penetrating, tinging, and incorruptible, which emerges anew from the four elements when they are bound to each other.'

"Paracelsus considers it to be the extract of the elements, their incorruptible, eternal substratum. Manfred Junius calls it 'The origin and goal of all things.'

"It is often said that the quintessence is not a product of the elements, but one of the three philosophical principles. In fact, it is all three: the trinity is everything. The quintessence is the soul and spirit within all things. It is also the salt that allows it to emerge through the four elements. This reveals it to be nothing less than the secret fire, the spark of eternal light from the first combustion of creation. It is the divinity in all things, the inner sun in which all things find their true identity. Alchemists give it many names: Universal Spirit, Never-failing Source...key of the philosophers, nursery of the world, heavenly substance, Mother of the Waters and, even, Mercurius [identified with the Egyptian wisdom god Thoth, the Greek god Hermes, and the Roman god Mercury].

"The quintessence can be symbolized by the pentagram, the figure that most perfectly divides the circle. It represents the microcosm, the individual containing the whole universe within itself."

If Lissa's spirit is the "extract of the elements," that explains why she and the other spirit-users (Saint Vladimir and Sonya Karp) have weak control over all of the four other elements. By alchemy is very esoteric and every one of its symbols and terms means different things to different alchemists, and now the exact nature and meaning of the fifth element may be murkier than ever.

I'll have to read the rest of the Vampire Academy series to found out if Richelle Mead sheds any more light on it.

Shadow-Kissed Anna

That said, it may be worth noting that St. Vladimir's Dhampir guardian, according to Mead, was called Anna. Walker tells us in her entry on St. Anne (the mother of the Virgin Mary) that Anne/Anna is a name associated with the "grandmother goddess." Analogous names include the Canaanite goddess Anat, the Roman goddess Anna Parenna (Grandmother Time), the Celtic goddess Ana or Anu who made up one third of The Morrigan, Morg-Ana ("invincible Queen Death") in Arthurian legend, and even Angurboda ("hag of the iron wood") the mistress of Loki and the mother of Hel. The pentacle (a pentagram inside a circle, according to modern Wiccan usage) was the symbol common to St. Anne and Morgana, and is the ancient Egyptian symbol for the Underworld.

Shadow-kissed Anna, Ms. Karp, and Lissa make up a kind of trinity. Anna is a legendary figure from long ago, a sort of ancestor or grandmother. She was a guiding light who kept St. Vladimir from giving in to madness. Ms. Karp is like the mother-figure of the trinity, although the madness swallowed her and she became Strigoi. Lissa is the maiden figure whose spirit-power is still largely untested. "Shadow-kissed" means brought back from the land of the dead, so naturally, Anna has an association with the Underworld.

As we know from a long line of myth and literature, there is always a heavy cost to be paid for bringing anyone back to life from the Underworld - a cost that will no doubt have to be paid by Lissa and Rose, since Rose herself is shadow-kissed.

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