Blah, blah, blah

Friday I went to Borders so that H-Bomb could use up his gift card, and I was wandering around looking at all the new book displays, and I was feeling awfully underwhelmed. Lots of vampires and vampire slayers. It looks like Urban Fantasy (less focus on the romance) is on the upswing. But nothing calling to me. I'm definitely suffering from book ennui. I feel like I had a couple of really good, different reads in the past couple of weeks. Now I'm looking around at the piles and piles sitting around and just...bleh. I'm looking for a "dare-to-be-great situation." I think I'm going to have to hit the e-pubs.

I almost bought The Dream Hunter by Sherrilyn Kenyon, just to get something, but I'm so glad I didn't, because the anonymous paranormal reader struck again. I bought it for 75 cents at the library yesterday, along with Dead Sexy, by Amanda Ashley. which got some bad reviews on Amazon. I thought they had the same cover image there for a minute. Not sure if I'm feeling the close up cover. The guy on TDH looks like Adrian Grenier, and the DS guy looks like he's going to cry. See? The chin, it's almost trembling.





I was surprised to find myself genuinely offended by something in Romance Blogland.
I usually am amused, and sometimes interested by the various debates, but I have to say I really disliked the title of this post. You know she wanted it, Part the second,deals with the book Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell, which has been garnering a lot of attention. I'm not too into the "forced seduction" trope myself, but I could care less if others are. But the title of this post, oy! I find myself unable to take what's written seriously, because of the reference to the mindset of date rapists everywhere. Ewww. As for the post itself, eh, but Jane said it better than me. Anna Campbell herself was at Sybil's recently. Although I wasn't planning on reading this, I may have to, just to make up my own mind.

Things I've Read...

*Fear the Darkness by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I got this online short story from Nath. Worthwhile for completeness, for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing. Pretty much more Nick angsting/bitching. Bleh. I'm sure he'll be redeemed and all, but at this point I could give a rat's ass. The excerpt for her next release, The Dream Hunter, didn't particularly excite, either. But I popped on over to her website, and I did do a little dance when I discovered that Ash's book will be out at the end of the year. I'm still excited for it, but there's so much build-up, I can't see how it won't disappoint.

*New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. Another winner. One might think that one would not like this book, given that Bella and Edward are apart for 3/4 of the book, Bella was in a lot of emotional pain, and she grows close to another guy, Jacob. But the angst was good angst. I felt awful for Bella, but I felt for her. It wasn't just whining (I'm looking at you, Nick) And I really liked Jacob. There. I said it. I actually kind of wished it was more of a triangle. All I am saying is oy, the break up scene, and the scenes after Bella and Edward see each other again. Must be read several times.

*Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. A decent read, not stunning but I'll be looking for the next one at the library (August 2007). I think that half the books I read as a teenager had a young woman travelling to a foreign country to investigate a mystery regarding her family and meet an enigmatic stranger. I have an affinity for that type of thing. Plus I'm a sucker for Ireland and the Fae. There were two issues that I hope go away. First off, this a recounting of events that happened to the narrator, MacKayla Lane. So "Mac" seems to feel the need to say something like "Little did I know..." or "If I had only known then..." or some other hokey foreshadowing phrase, at the beginning and end of each chapter. Y'know, the kind of thing that screams "DUN, DUN, DUN! Ruh-roh, some bad shit's about to happen." Heavy handed and lame. Next problem is the main male character. His name is Jericho Barrons, and for some reason, I have taken a violent dislike to that name. And I don't like him much either. It's too early to tell if he's the hero of the series, and I kinda hope he turns out to be a bad guy. He crosses the line from enigmatic to dickhead. Actually, I have a theory about who he'll turn out to be, so hopefully I'll stick with the series long enough to find out if I'm right.

Best of 2006...

Some other stuff...

Best Non-J.R. Ward Vampire Book:

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. A very engrossing read. Anyone who likes stories about teenagers or vampires would like this one. Worth a try even if you don't like vampires.I just finished New Moon, and I can't wait until Eclipse.

Best E-book:

Bone Deep by Bonnie Dee. I debated whether or not to make a separate category for this one, because I don't want to make it seem as though e-book are somehow different or less than print romance. I just wanted to mention more books. All jokes about crappy covers aside, one only has to visit an EPublishing site like Samhain, Ellora's Cave, or Liquid Silver to see that some of the most interesting and unusual stuff is being published in electronic format. Whenever I drop by, I always want to read so many of them. Damn my tight budget! [Will review for free books!] Tatooed guy from the carnival! Forties setting! You won't be seeing Avon publishing something like that anytime soon. I just loved this one. It was very sweet, yet very sexy. I think I might re-read it tonight. P.S. Great Cover.

Best guilty, guilty pleasure:

Unleash the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Abandon reality, all ye who enter here. The hero is a "tigard" (a mix of of tiger and a leopard), the heroine is a wimpy law student/senator's daughter. Since this is an SK, they have cartoonishly nasty parents. There are also cartoonishly nasty preppies named Todd and Blaine, a trip back to 1981, and a general disregard for rules set up by Kenyon in previous books. Even for the over the top Dark Hunter series, this one was over the top. I used to wait for one of this author's releases with baited breath (reality be damned is my motto), but her output has been increasingly disappointing, and I find myself increasingly uninterested in reading. But although I found UTN a bit ridiculous, it was fun and sexy, and very readable. I think this might be due to the absence of Ash. I actually love Ash, but his story has started to overshadow that of the primary characters in some of the more recent books. Hopefully, things will get back on track this year, and thanks to Nath, I have a new online Kenyon story to read.

Well that's all for now. Off to console the family over the Jets loss. Hopefully 2007 will be full of good, and so bad it's good reads.

Spoiler-filled review ahead...

Dark Side of the Moon by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Her Website

Dark Side of the Moon@Amazon

Ravyn is having a bad day. This Dark-Hunter and Arcadian Were-Hunter Leopard guy has been captured in kitty cat form and locked in a cage in a Seattle animal shelter, totally vulnerable. Disgraced investigative reporter Susan is having a bad day too. Humiliated to be working at a cheesy tabloid called the Daily Inquisitor (wasn't that Dorian's newpaper on One Life to Live?), she has been summoned by her friends to an animal shelter, where her allergies kick in right away. Her friends are behaving very strangely, and send her away with a big cat who makes her sneeze. When the cat turns into a rilly, rilly hot guy in her living room, things
can only be heading downhill from there. Soon Susan and Ravyn are up to their necks in weird doings, vicious Daimon killers, corrupt policemen and hot sex.

Okay, enough synopsis. I remember the days when a new SK release meant a immediate trip to the bookstore. I would read and read and read and not be interested in talking to anyone until the book was done. Sadly, this no longer seems to be the case. DSOTM is another disappointment from Sherrilyn Kenyon. Now let's be honest, it's not as though Kenyon is William Faulkner. She is often guilty of broad characterization and sloppy writing. Her book balanced the fine line between total cheese and escapist adventure. But I felt she did it so well. I can forgive a multitude of sins for a totally involving world and a compelling love story. But between Sins of the Night, Unleash the Night, and now this book, SK appears to be losing sight of what made her books so much fun: the interesting world she built and the hot love story. I'm just warning you now, the rest of this review will be filled with spoilers as I explain just what made this book so disappointing.

First of all, the heroine, Susan, is hella annoying. Her main trait appears to be her sarcastic sense of humor, and all I can say is, "Shut up, already." Her dialogue consists of such witticisms as "You know, I would bring you up on sexual harassment charges, but that would imply that you have actually had sex in your lifetime...(p.5)" [which, huh, I don't get it], or, "Oh gee, golly, goodie Mr. Leo! Can I have my eyes gouged out too (p. 70)", or,"I'm the one who should be having a hissy...(p.263)" It's nothing but juvenile comebacks with this one, which make it hard to care what happens to her. The hero, Ravyn, while not annoying, was merely generic Dark-Hunter. Betrayed by lover, and then by family, he's really tough and has not felt close to anyone for years, until Susan and her big mouth start his cold heart beating again. Nothing particularly new or interesting there.

Even more problematic, I felt that (much like Sins of the Night), their love story took a back seat to advancing Acheron's (the leader of the Dark-Hunters) story arc. Some major conflict was set up between Ash, Nick Gauthier and Stryker, the leader of the Daimons. Their parts of the book were more interesting. And boy, Nick's character was assassinated. Talk about a whiny bitch! At one point I laughed my ass off when he accused Acheron of being responsible for the destruction of New Orleans because he didn't call off Katrina. Only in a paramormal romance folks! Conveniently, there are two books about Ash coming out next year.

Kenyon spent the first five or six books of the series building her fictional world, and has spent the last three books playing fast and loose with the rules of she created. I ignored it before, but it's getting jarring. All you have to do to become a squire, apparently, is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So much for secrecy. And forget about the big ol' rule about Dark Hunters getting involved. Now they can get married to humans or Apollites or anybody, and screw that silly getting their soul back issue, such a big deal in the other books. I have a feeling that Kenyon had to end the book and was just like oh well, he doesn't really need a soul anyway. At least they had the "mating mark", unlike in Unleash the Night.

Other things that bugged: there was one scene where all the Dark-Hunters are trapped together and attacked by Daimons. If you are not a reader of this series, I'll just let you know that when Dark-Hunters get together, their powers begin to drain. So they're all in a circle, getting converged upon. And the Japanese one's got his nunchakus, and the African one's got a gold chain (???) and the Wild West outlaw's got her bullwhip...and no one's got a fucking gun. Geezus kee-rist, that might even the odds a bit. Just take'em all out. I don't how I never noticed that before. I also have to mention the following sentence: "As far back as she could remember, Jimmy had kept anal notes in his journal (p.143)" Am I crazy, or is this a weird sentence? I stopped and was like, "Notes about anal sex? Notes from his anus? Oh, she means he was anal-retentive about keeping his journal." No? Maybe it's just me then.

This book was hard to finish. Only my obsessive need to be complete about things kept me reading. And I haven't given up on SK yet. She's got two novellas coming out later this year, and then the Ash books. I'm stubborn like that. I can ride on the enjoyment I got from her past books for a long time. I will continue not to buy them, though. That was one thing I'm thankful for, that I didn't spend 20 bucks.

I'll stop the world and melt with you....

Warning spoilers ahead...



Disclaimer: Sherrilyn Kenyon is the author that got me back into reading romance and I am a big ol' fangirl of hers. I think she's got a great imagination, and I love the world she's created, with its roots in mythology and history. In addition, I saw her at Borders and I thought she seemed like a kind and gracious woman. And she really appreciates her fans.

However, that doesn't mean that I can't read her books critically. Her characters' quips and "wit" sometimes makes me cringe, she often repeats the same cliches over and over in describing her characters, and can sometimes be awfully light on character development,particularly of heroines. I really didn't like Sins of the Night. I felt SK was trying to give a lot more information about the Dark Hunter world at the expense of the romance, which was virtually nonexistent. The reviews for Amazon for Unleash the Night (henceforth known as UTN) were pretty bleh. So it actually took 3 days after it came out to get me into the bookstore, and I approached UTN with some trepidation.

Not without reason. About 35 pages into UTN, I decided some fanwanking was in order.
For those of you who don't know fanwanking is when the reader/viewer/fan fills in the blanks or otherwise makes something that's ridiculous or strange make sense. You know you've done it. Anyhow, this particular heroine is the daughter of a US Senator and so is surrounded by friends who are like nothing like anything I have seen outside of a John Hughes movie. Cardboard cutouts of preppy snobs. Complete with names like Blaine ("Is that a name or a major appliance"), Todd, and Whitney. They way they talked was out of control. I grew up in Preppyland, went to Super Expensive University with many New England preppies and children of senators, governors and Martin Scorsese and I've never heard anybody talk like this. Plus they're supposed to be in LAW SCHOOL, not high school, so one would think they'd be old enough have a bit of restraint. I found it so annoying that I decided that in order to enjoy this book, I would have to accept the fact that this scene was intended to be a homage to the teen movies of the eighties, and as such was tongue in cheek. I retained this mind set throughout the rest of the book, which was especially important when the evil Blaine returned and in scenes with blowhard Senator Dad, and even grumpy Mama Bear. It was fun too, to picture James Spader and Craig Sheffer or the Blond guy from Karate Kid as different characters (although Blaine should have been named Stef). And I felt especially rewarded when Wren and Maggie went back in time to 1981. Coincidence? You decide.

All in all, it was way better than Sins. Wren was a typical Kenyon hero: misunderstood, unloved, surly but secretly sweet and sexy and loving. Typically delicious, in other words. And Maggie, despite her poor taste in friends, was refreshingly practical and straightforward. Unlike, say, Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink or Deborah Foreman in Valley Girl, she remained nonjudgmental and steadfast in her feelings for Wren. And I mean, really they weren't just facing the popular kids who wanted to keep them from being Prom King and Queen, but the wrath of the whole were-hunter population! Seriously though, the action moved and the romance was hot! Some reviewers complained that too many characters were introduced. I could see that but this was obviously the Were-Hunter exposition book, like Kiss of the Night was the Daimon exposition book. It was all right with me, I don't think it halted the story that much. I'm sure it is better if, like me, you know more of the back stories. Then again, I'll bet most of the readers do.

Something just occurred to me. Wasn't Nicolas Cage's character in Valley Girl named Ren? I really think I'm onto something here. UTN is a fun, fast read, but a lot more fun if you read it as a paranormal takeoff of all those good girl/misunderstood boy vs. the cruel world/cafeteria movies. Does such a thing as a tigard exist? Oh, who cares...he's hot. I'm off to check IMDB. If you've never read any Kenyon, going in order is best. Technically, the DH series begins with Fantasy Lover, which is a very skippable book, so feel free to begin with Night Pleasures. My personal favorites are Dance With the Devil and Seize the Night.

ETA: Ren was Kevin Bacon in "Footloose." Excellent teen angst.