... AND WHY I LIKED IT ANYWAY

In her excellent post, CJ observed the hugeness of Kresley Cole’s plots. Everything is so extreme. The stakes are high, the obstacles to HEA are near insurmountable; everything is larger than life, particularly the heroes.

Take the first sentence of Dark Desires After Dusk:

Cadeon Woede came upon the headless bodies of his foster father and brothers first, the three slain in a desperate defense of their home

.
Naturally, Cade blames himself for the gruesome death of his foster family, and he blames himself (and is blamed by others) for the loss of his brother’s kingdom, now ruled by an evil sorcerer who - naturally, he's evil - brutally oppresses its people. So Cade is like the guiltiest person in the world.

To top it off, the only way he can win back the kingdom and redeem himself is by grossly betraying his fated female.

Holly the heroine is also The Vessel (see previous post) and she will bear a child of ultimate evil or ultimate good, depending on the father.

The extremes don’t stop there. Cade is a larger-than-life, slobbish, hedonistic, philandering rage demon. Holly is a tightly repressed virgin mathematician with OCD.

Cade is huge, and he has horns. Holly is a tiny, demure blond.

And so on.

But it’s all very compelling: of course it is. Mix in a little self-referential humour and most times even a grumpy reader is disarmed. A little.

Her brows drew together. “Wait. I’m called a Vessel? Could there be a more derogatory term? By its very definition, a vessel is of no importance compared to its contents… Couldn’t these Lorekind have gone with baby maker or bun oven?

“I lobbied for cargo hold, but just lost out.”

Reading the Immortals is like going on an old fashioned adventure: there are quests, and magical swords and maps marked with X; there are talismans and ancient curses and journeys to the outer reaches of the world (okay, Alaska).

In another nod-and-wink moment, Holly likens her predicament to being in a computer game (“Level one, defeat pervert. Level two, engage army of revenants…")

Throw in some wacky side characters, like the soothsayer Valkyrie Nix (or, Nucking Futs Nix), who enters the story with characteristic élan:

Half an hour had dragged by when a red Bentley pulled up behind them, hopping the curb in an alignment-wrecking jounce…. There were dings in the body, mud all over the tires, smoke tendrils rising from the hood, and at least two bullet holes. A Garfield doll was stuck to the rear window.

That Garfield makes the description gold.

What you get is a perfect cupcake* of a story; light and fluffy with a dramatic swirl of icing on top. Just don't think too hard about the ingredients.



A solid B for Dark Desires After Dusk, though all my points in the post below are still there, niggling. I suppose there’s a lot to be said for charm and slapstick, and a personal chemistry with the writing that can make allowances for all kinds of wrong.

*The cupcake analogy might be flawed, but I spent half an hour looking at cupcakes on the internet. Who knew?

Oooh: Alien cupcakes!

Is anyone else hungry?

A GRUMPY READER REVIEWS DARK DESIRES AFTER DUSK, BY KRESLEY COLE

Have you ever read a book in a bad tempered sort of way, picking out faults and trying very hard not to be won over?

I’ve been doing that a lot recently, and the latest victim of my reading blues was Kresley Cole. This was particularly sad as I truly enjoyed her Immortals After Dark series last year; I even glommed.

What set me off (other than a generally grumpy disposition)? The Glossary of Terms preceding the story. In it, The Vessel is described thus

At the cusp of each Ascension, a chosen female will beget a child who will become a warrior of either ultimate evil or of ultimate good –

(gah!)

- depending on the father

(Double gah!)

Way to strip the female of even the faintest whiff of autonomy.

Riled, I continued on and sure enough poor Holly the heroine/ vessel is summarily stripped naked and placed on a ceremonial altar by evil demons, so that she might be raped/ impregnated. In the first twenty pages. Later that night, Holly’s bare legs are ogled on by the hero, who admires their smooth, sleek and toned perfection.

(Yeah, I thought sourly. If I were unexpectedly kidnapped by demons and stripped naked, my legs too would be smooth and sleek and worthy of admiration. Except, no, they wouldn’t.)

Cade, the ne’er do well demon hero veers towards the obnoxious. Any guy who ends the majority of his sentences with a ‘yeah?’ would probably drive me nuts, but then he has the temerity to label an amorous lady bar owner ‘a slag’ to dispel Holly’s suspicions, which – hello, if anyone’s a slag, it would be the unrepentantly lecherous and horny Cade, whose reputation as a man-slut precedes him.

But it’s different for boys.

Cade also has the cheek to say:

“For the record, male Lorekind have higher opinions of females than human males do. The playing field’s more equal in our world.”

This coming from a breed of Demon who ‘claims his female’ by turning fully into his demon form and biting her into submission… plus, Vessel, anyone?

The other thing that really irked was all the rampant consumption that goes on between the covers of an Immortals novel. Burbury, million dollar sports cars, Ipods, Wiis, Bentleys, and expensive silk and lace undergarments that are the staple of any self-respecting virgin heroine’s attire.

I found myself hoping Holly and Cade are affected by the global financial crisis in a brutal way. (Also tiring: nauseating articles about how the mega-rich are really glum about losing their money.)

And while I’m on my nit-picking rampage – why does Holly have to be delicate?

What exactly is a ‘masculine jaw’?

What is a ‘feminine scent’?

Grumpy Romance reader will stop there.

In tomorrow’s post: why I loved Dark Desires After Dusk despite everything.

ULTIMATE WEAPON, BY SHANNON McKENNA

When I stated my intention to read and review the latest McKenna, despite my troubled relationship with this author’s previous work, it was suggested that I might end up reading ‘with extra suspicion,’ or ‘looking harder for the wrongness.’

Guilty. Despite my protestations, that is exactly what I’m doing. See, I’ve read up to page 71, and - most un-Mckenna like - the hero (Val) and heroine (Tamara) haven’t even met. I mean, sure, Val has inappropriately purloined video footage of Tamara naked, and gotten suitably worked up over it (there should be a drinking game), and there has been some disturbing Skanky-Villain-Sex, and a most satisfying torture/execution of Random Henchman No. 1 (more to follow), and the evil guys (there are two sets of insane villains in this one - neat) are so over the top Eeevil they positively cast the last lot (the child ‘organ pirates’) into the shade.

And yet... and yet, I'm not hooked/ enraged/ cackling with glee and self-hate.

Is it because Val is supposed to be a cold blooded killer, without conscience, personality or desire - an efficient operative - and yet everything he does belies this? Despite constantly reaching for his analytical calm, employing his mental ‘data processing technique,’ Val has so far been jerked around by everyone he's met.

As for Tamara, deadly assassin, seductress and unrepentant badass in previous appearances - well. Tamara has a developmentally challenged adopted daughter, and nightmares of a past in which she had to bury her mother and baby sister. And nightmares, and crying jags. And endlessly long inner dialogues in which she questions her suitability to mother.

It’s been 71 pages and no one has even mentioned any ‘yummy girl juice.’ Could it be... am I disappointed?!?

Actually, no. A little bored, though.

WAS THERE TOO MUCH SEX AND PROFANITY IN THE HBO PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?

To those of you who give not one fig, apologies, but this was far too funny not to share.

Warning - profanities galore (including one inventive turn of phrase I've never heard before; but then, that's HBO for you).

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTER "C"

Many moons ago, I agreed to take part in a meme over at Tumperkin's. This involved getting a random letter from Tumperkin (in this case, the letter ‘C’), then thinking up five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter.

Easy, I thought. Easy peasy.

Not so much, as it turns out.

I ran out of steam after two. Strange how the names of so many romance heroes and heroines are totally interchangeable: I couldn’t think of any. Below, I’ve listed two romantic characters from the classics. I guess they’re classics for a reason, no?

Cyrano de Bergerac


Ah, poor Cyrano. Witty, smart, creative, sensitive, dueler extraordinaire - and in possession of a large, a huge, nose that completely inhibits him. Believing himself to be hideous and unlovable, he is too scared to admit his love for the beautiful Roxane.

This story has been done to death by Hollywood, in various permutations (including Steve Martin’s Roxane and The Truth about Cats and Dogs) but the play written by the French poet Edmund Rostand in 1897 came to my attention when I found this quote -

A kiss is a rosy dot over the ‘i’ of loving

This is the passage that the above quote came from. I think you’ll agree it’s a whole lot better. (Cyrano is pretending to be his handsome friend, Christian, who is also in love with Roxane).


CYRANO:
A kiss, when all is said,--what is it?
An oath that's ratified,--a sealed promise,
A heart's avowal claiming confirmation,--
A rose-dot on the 'i' of 'adoration,'--
A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,--
Brush of a bee's wing, that makes time eternal,--
Communion perfumed like the spring's wild flowers,--
The heart's relieving in the heart's outbreathing,
When to the lips the soul's flood rises, brimming!

Catherine Earnshaw, Wuthering Heights


I can’t say anything about this that hasn’t been said before, but I loved Wuthering Heights when I read it as a teenager, then read it again when I was older and wondered what crack Emily Bronte was on when she wrote it. Its a great classic for teenagers, actually, and a great romance, too, disregarding the death and tragedy of it all. I think Kinsale has a bit of the Emily Bronte crack in her, and there are some Kleypas heroes that might fit the Heathcliff mould.

Here’s a snippet from the mouth of the delightful Catherine.

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

Ah, romance.

(Feel free to suggest all the obvious C's I've missed)

CATCHING UP

I’ve been underground these last couple of days, watching season three of Supernatural, emerging periodically for fresh air, then going back to ground. After the atrocity of season 2 (with a season ender that was worse, even, than the infamous racist monster truck episode), I vowed never to watch the show again, no matter how cute the boys - see left - and stuck to my guns for all of three months... until I saw the season 3 box set on sale. Who can resist a bargain? A bargain with cute boys? (see left) Not I.

So where season one was spooky and scary (I have a low fear threshold), and season two was lame and emo, season three was GORE-TASTIC. For real. We are talking forks in eyes, decapitation by garrote, evil, demonically possessed children, evisceration, torture and a really bloody death by electric saw. Eek. And cool.

Better yet, it seemed as though the writing improved, the storylines got tighter, with a more comfortable tie-in to the overall season arc (Dean selling his soul to save his brother’s, leaving him a year to live). Jared Paladecki, who plays the younger brother Sam, is the weaker actor, and I think he’s improved tremendously. No more strange facial twitches to signify emotional upheaval/ hard thought. Which is good.

Overall, the show seems to have a better idea of where it’s going, with a mythology that puts me in mind of Meljean Brook’s Demons and Angels series (The Guardians, rather).

Anyhoot, amongst the better writers of the show is one Sera Gamble. From past interviews, I know she writes stories, and I remembered that the last time I visited her site, I found a link to a short story I liked, called Off, by Aimee Bender.

The story is about a woman, an heiress, attending a party held by an old high school friend. The woman has a goal for the evening; to kiss three different men: ‘one with black hair, one with red hair, and the third blond.’ As she goes about fulfilling her mission, a confrontation with an ex leaves her momentarily shaken, confronting for a moment her life and her actions.

This character is hard to like (though I do like her); she is disdainful of the other guests, of people in general. She is lonely and cold, contrary and perhaps a little damaged. Upon discovering the other guests' coats and purses, she thinks - I am rich but I consider stealing some of the stuff because they are so trusting, these people, and I feel like wrecking their trust.

There are so many things I like about this story, the landscapes the protagonist used to paint, with ‘something bad in it’ and the teacher who never noticed. The dog she called called Off, and her anger towards other women.

Read it!

And while I’m talking about difficult women, I might as well mention the book I finished recently, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, which I enjoyed tremendously.

So if you're hankering after some early American feminist writing...

In romance related news

The last couple of romances I've read have left me feeling mildly dissatisfied. I can't remember the last time I really enjoyed one, but I'm going to mention a couple that rose above the average mark.

Never Romance a Rake, Liz Carlyle. I've enjoyed this series, and I think Carlyle is a great writer, but she's also hugely frustrating. As with NRaR, she sets up brilliantly tortured, complex characters, with really gripping conflicts, and then... she pulls her punches. And I end up feeling a little cheated. I can't really explain it better than that. This is a solid B for me, but it should have been more.

Miss Match by Jo Leigh (Harlequin Blaze). Jane reviewed this in one of her lightening reviews, and I find myself in agreement with her assessment. A pretty decent beauty and the beast romance (the heroine is no beast, just no where near in the same league as the hero), with a strong female lead and very sympathetic characters. The hero's character arc was not entirely plausible, and the heroine's family was completely cartoonish, but it still proved to be an absorbing read. I don't read categories as a rule, but I think I'd read another Leigh. Another B.

Courting Midnight by Emma Holly. Having read the other two in this series I decided to give this a go. The only thing holding me back had been the horrible cover; my Sony reader took care of that. For a Holly (and I'm a fan) this was rather tepid fare. The romance was nice, the writing was nice (channeling the regency vibe I thought. Holly has a very good ear for dialogue and always captures the right tone for her various series). However, I was utterly underwhelmed. C+

To end on a positive note, I found in my possession an old-ish Lisa Klepas I don't remember buying - Scandal in Spring, the last in her Wallflower quartet. I'm no Kleypas fangirl (for the most part, I don't get the fuss), but I enjoyed it tremendously. It even made me laugh out loud in one scene, when the hero is playing a very silly parlour game against his inclination. When did romance novels lose their sense of humour? I can't remember the last time I chuckled my way through a good historical - any suggestions? (And Scandal in Spring gets a very glowing B+)

I'm embarking on the Joanna Bourne express and won't be back until I've got an opinion on The Spymaster's Lady. About bloody time, don't you think? I might be the last person in the blogsphere. I can't wait to weigh in with my opinion. From what I can tell, opinion is mostly favourable, with one or two voices of dissent. Bourne is kind enough to link to these reviews, both positive and negative, on her blog, which I think is very cool of her.

MY NEW TOY

Oh yes, at long last, I can consider myself a member of that oh-so-cool crew of e-book reading, techno-babble spouting, device-toting vixens (you know who you are). For I have in my hot little mitts, my very own SONY READER.

BEHOLD:




It is a thing of beauty. I have spent the evening in earnest contemplation of the manual, and all the advice available on-line for getting the Reader to a state of Mac compatibility. Which I've done (phew). All that remains is the actual reading.

Alongside the 100 free classics Sony were kind enough to send me (The Sonnets! Crime and Punishment! The complete Jane Austen...) I've got a couple of e-books I've been holding off on until the arrival of this, my precious, my baby, my Reader...

Rumors, Anna Godbersen
Dark Desires after Dusk, Kresley Cole
Never Romance a Rake, Liz Carlyle

Just to conclude - Woot!