I just couldn’t finish Demon Angel. I gave up just before I would have hit the 50% mark. It’s part of my attempt to find something in the romance genre that I like. The truth is that Demon Angel is better than a couple of the other attempts, but just barely. It met my first basic criteria in that the female lead is not Too Stupid To Live. She’s actually kick ass, and likes to subvert the wishes of her master Lucifer (she’s a demon). In the part I read, there’s one conversation between two women, and it’s about a murder investigation rather than a man, so I can check off the Bechdel test. Good so far…

Lilith is a half-human demon. Hugh is a half-human angel (or guardian). Lilith is actually the proximate cause for Hugh becoming a guardian. This all occurs in the 1200s (I.I.R.C.). A demon’s job is to tempt a human to sin, so that if the human dies he/she will go to hell and become part of Lucifer’s army. Demon’s do not kill humans, and they must respect human will. Their job is to entrap. Then for the next 600 years Lilith and Hugh meet up periodically on opposite sides, though they do not really fight. Eventually Hugh kills Lilith, violating his guardian code and causing his Fall to being human again. But Lilith isn’t really dead, and they meet up again with her still being demon, but now Hugh is human.

It’s all very convoluted, and it takes a long time to develop. There’s all sorts of side things going on in the war. Lucifer has another rival fallen angel called Belial. And there’s vampires and nosferatu, who are enemies of both good and evil. What’s hard to follow and boring is all the backstory involved on all the sides and all their motivations, which aren’t usually clear anyway. It takes forever! We’re only just starting to get to the real story around page 200.

And really, could they just get on with the sexing? The romance is all Breathy Whisperings in Hugh’s ear from Lilith. He wants it. She wants it. But they don’t do it. There’s only so much teasing a guy can take before he just walks away. It’s one thing to have the romance develop slowly. But here the romance is pretty far along around page 3 or 4. They just don’t consummate.

First D.N.F. of the year. Was feeling hopeful I’d finish the year without one. Alas. And I feel bad because some of the other romance I’ve tried was worse, but I just don’t have the patience any more.

Title: Demon Angel
Author: Meljean Brook
Cover creator: Franco Accornero (illustrator) / Lesley Worrell (designer)
Series: The Guardian Series; 1
Imprint / publisher: Berkley Sensation / Penguin
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 412 p. (194 read)
Publication date: Jan 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-425-21347-6

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to try out a romance novel. Since then, I read Weddings Can Be Murder. I didn’t really like that too much, but it was good enough that I think there might be hope for me to find something in the genre I will like. So I will keep on trying occasionally.

My latest attempt is J. R. Ward’s Dark Lover, recommended by romance author Carolyn Jewel. If you read her post, she wasn’t sure a guy would like it, but I was willing to sacrifice myself in the interests of science. Ms. Jewel kindly sent along the first three books in the series.

The verdict? Meh. Not awful but not particularly inspiring either. Some of my problems are related to the paranormal part of the paranormal romance subgenre, and it being the first book in the series. Things I liked: the characters all participate in their own lives, the romance is attached to the plot (rather than the other way around). Things I didn’t like: changes to the vampire myths have to be explained, overly macho male characters, the pacing feels like a teenager’s first attempts at driving a stick shift, and the romance and sex are both too quickly consummated.

Beth Randall is the daughter of a vampire, but she doesn’t know it. Raised in an orphanage, she now works as a copy editor in the Caldwell, New York newspaper. Beth doesn’t really have any interest in men, instead throwing herself into her work. Her father Darius lives nearby, but doesn’t reveal himself to her. As a vampire prince, he’s a target of the vampires’ enemies, The Lessers (soulless converted humans), who murder him near the beginning of the novel. The vampire king Wrath fulfills his promise to Darius to help Beth through her transition (basically a quick but risky vampire puberty) should she need it, even though he doesn’t want to.

Wrath and Beth quickly fall in lust, have sex, and then each of them spends much time having second thoughts about the wisdom of the relationship. Meanwhile, the threat of the Lessors on the Black Dagger Brotherhood (the vampire race and Wrath’s personal Republican Guard), complicate matters.

Beth Randall is a pretty good character. Stands on her own feet. Smart. Works hard. Has her own opinions. The men, on the other hand, remind me of the drunken idiot rednecks I knew when I lived in Idaho, always challenging each other to fights, taking easy offense at slights, and pretending they are better than any woman ever lived.

One problem that might go away with later books in the series is the need to explain how Ward’s version of vampirism works. See, they don’t take wives. They’re shellans. And vampire women are only in hear every decade. And there’s a separation between vampire civilians (weak) and the Black Dagger Brotherhood. They don’t bite people; they bite other vampires for sustenance. All well and good, and nothing I have a problem with. I do get bothered by the fact that the narrative has to stop to explain all these things periodically. Fight! Sex! Drinking! Fight! Fight! As you know Bob, vampires are subjects of the goddess the Scribe Virgin. […] Fight! Sex! I’d hope that the need for these explanatory interludes would lessen in later books, as the background has already been revealed. In addition to other quirks, this makes the pacing very uneven. The level of plot movement looks like the graph of my grandfather’s heart after he had a heart attack.

But all of that I think I would be just fine with if the romance and sex were romantic and hot. But not really. The sex is mostly of the the chemical attraction so must insert penis/mount penis as fast as possible variety. Once it’s of the Oh my god I love you so much I must be very romantic and gentle with youvariety. The romance problem is that most of the interaction is overwhelming lust (ZOMG! Your hair is so luscious!) or navel-gazing worry about whether the character is doing the right thing. Very melodrama.

Since I have the next book in the series, I’ll probably read it to see if there’s an improvement because it did have some good points. But the bad and annoying definitely dominated.

Other blogged reviews:

• Mindful Musings
• Sarah’s Book Reviews
• Story Wings
• Tynga’s Reviews

Title: Dark Lover
Author: J. R. Ward (pseudonym for Jessica Bird)
Series: The Black Dagger Brotherhood; 1
Imprint / publisher: Signet Eclipse / Penguin
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 393 p.
Publication date: September 2005
ISBN-13: 978-0-451-21695-3

A month or so ago I promised I would read a romance novel. Two weeks ago, the Barnes & Noble Friday free ebook was Christie Craig’s Weddings Can Be Murder. Rather than investigate in depth the recommendations of romances that men would enjoy, I went with easy and read this. This romantic suspense novel was actually passable, though still not good enough for me to recommend it. The mystery element of the story was surprisingly good, at least as far as the plot goes. Parts of the romance were pretty good too. Where Craig’s novel fell short was the characters. Each character is pretty much a standard role: the tough as nails ex-cop who has a heart of gold, the good girl, the supportive but slightly wild friend, the nice but no spark fiance, and the bad guy with vague but obsessive mental illness. Familiar, but none of them had much of a spark of real character in them. If this were a Coen Brothers movie, they could turn it into something awesome. But reading it was pretty pedestrian.

Katie Ray’s engagement to Joe Lyon will come to an end in two weeks with her wedding. Only 18 months after her entire family died in an accident, she’s a good girl looking for safety. But then while meeting with her to finalize ceremony details, her wedding planner is brutally murdered in the next room over. Katie Ray flees to a back room looking for an escape, but gets locked in by the evil-doer. Tabitha Jones, the planner, had suspected someone was killing her clients; her soon-to-be-hired-but-not-quite-soon-enough private investigator Carl Hades arrives on the scene just in time to get locked in the room with Katie Ray.

Meanwhile, Katie Ray’s best friend Leslie Grayson waits for her at a restaurant where Katie plans to introduce Leslie to her fiancé. But Katie’s nervous about the whole thing, so she doesn’t tell Joe or Leslie that they are about to become acquainted. Katie doesn’t show, being locked in a room with an Antonio Banderas look-alike in a prison-like mansion by a crazy killer, so the unknowing Leslie and Joe chit-chat and sparks fly. Well, not fly. But there’s a little glow.

Can you see where this is going? Despite this being only my fourth ever romance novel, and that’s if you count the two Twilight books, this setup was Obvious with a capital O.

There may be minor spoilers that follow.

The bad things out of the way first. The minor bad thing is that the prose in the first part of the book, where Katie and Carl are locked together, and Joe and Les join forces, does not flow. For everything that happens, the participants stop and reflect on how much desire they have and then consider how much of a bad idea following through would be and finally guilt themselves into a pretzel for even having thought non-Catholic priest approved thoughts. The navel gazing was tedious and broke up the flow way too much. A little too much introspection in later parts too, but it didn’t hamper the narrative later on.

The major bad thing though. Oh these characters! Straight out of central casting! In addition, despite being described as a capable take-no-prisoners type, Katie Ray displays no abilities whatsoever. She melts into Carl Hades protective arms. She faints even! The only times she pipes up, it’s because she wants to do the not sensible thing, like drag the protector with the gun into the bathroom with her instead of letting him put his police experience to good use. She’s not entirely annoying though. She’s good about using her words. All the characters are, so that’s a huge plus.

The crime fiction part was pretty decent. One of my bigger pet peeves in that genre is over-reliance on improbably coincidence. Craig doesn’t use that crutch. The killer doesn’t finish the job a half dozen times when he should, and the explanation for why seemed a little fakey. The killer is just a little too crazy to do things right. But if he had offed Katie Ray and Carl Hades in the early scene, we’d have a 75 page story with a very unsatisfactory ending. I just wish the character had been more fleshed out.

Of course, a romance needs a sex scene or two. I was this would consist of heaving bosoms and longing glances, and there’s a bit of that, but the porn payoff here is solid. It’s heavy on the foreplay. In other words, not too longing glances but also not too graphically focused on thrusting and sweating.

Overall, readable. Not high praise I know, but considering the other three romance books I’ve read I panned heavily, this is an improvement. Still gonna keep looking for something romantic that fits my sensibilities a bit more. I was not the target audience for this book.

A couple other blogged reviews:

• Enchanted by Books
• Romantic Drivel

Title: Weddings Can Be Murder
Author: Christie Craig
Imprint / publisher: Love Spell / Dorchester
Format: ebook
Length: 296 p.
Publication date: May 2008 (in paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4285-0500-1

Book Club of the Damned. That’s what Paul Constant over at the Stranger calls it when he reads an awful book on a dare. Well, that’s New Moon for me. I need bleach now. Spoilers abound here. I just don’t care enough about your enjoyment of this book to worry about spoiling it. Plus, if you haven’t read it yet and you’ve stumbled here, then you probably are reading it on your own Book Club of the Damned quest.

Plot: At her own birthday party with the Cullens, the vegetarian vampires, Bella Swan accidentally cuts herself triggering their blood lust. Luckily everything ends up okay, but the Cullens decide to leave town rather than accidentally eat Bella. Whatever will Bella do without her beloved but vacuous Edward? Why, she’s start hanging out with the hunky Indian boy Jacob down at the rez, all the while pining for Edward. But she’s too selfish to leave him alone when he develops feelings for her, and he’s too creepy to walk away himself. Then bad vampires start hunting Bella and the Indian youth turn into werewolves (good ones, right?) and Edward in South America thinks Bella has killed herself so he heads to Italy to get the King Vampire to kill him because he is heartbroken. Bella runs to Italy to save him by letting him know that she’s alive, but then the royal vampires give the Cullens an ultimatum to kill Bella or make her a vampire. Which is what she wants anyway, and we are done with the book.

Most codependent relationship I’ve ever read. Bella is just dead inside without her Edward. Edward is the same without Bella. Bella has to have a boy around to feel okay, whether it’s Edward or Jacob. I wanted to strangle her. Edward too. Also Jacob for good measure.

Hated all the navel gazing. A fair amount of action happens. But each time it’s followed by pages of badly written thoughts from Bella about what it all means for her and Edward. 300 levels of parsing.

Edward and now Jacob are just as creepy as before. And as manipulative. Jacob gets to be the nice guy who sticks with Bella in the hope that she comes around to having a thing for him. He’ll be the shoulder to cry on until he can use it to get in her pants. Of course, that’s until Edward returns and then Jacob gets overtly manipulative and somewhat scary trying to get Bella to break it off.

Truly awful tripe.

So why did I read this for Book Club of the Damned? I am being bribed. It’s a good bribe. It involves boots. Plus, sometimes this is just cathartic. And it’s a library book so my only cost was the caffeine necessary to read it.

Title: New Moon
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Cover creator: Gail Doobinin (designer) / John Grant (photographer)
Series: Twilight Saga; 2
Imprint / publisher: Megan Tingley Books / Little Brown
Format: Hardcover
Length: 563 p.
Publication date: September 2006
ISBN-10: 0-316-16019-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-16019-3
Subject: Vampires — Fiction
Subject: Werewolves — Fiction
Subject: High schools — Fiction
Subject: Schools — Fiction
Subject: Washington (State) — Fiction
LC classification: PZ7.M57188New 2006

Heather bribed me to read Twilight. I lived in Boise, Idaho for about a year. One of the few things I miss about the city is pizza from Flying Pie, particularly gourmet night when they try out pizzas not on their main menu. A pizza smorgasbord. Because people remember their pizza so fondly, the pizzeria offers a pre-made pizza option. They’ll put together one of their pizzas, then pack it in dry ice for you to deliver to your favorite people in other cities. Heather offered up one of their pizzas if I would subject myself to the dazzling angst that is Twilight. Twilight seemed like a small price to pay for a Flying Pie pizza, so I agreed.

Isabella Bella Swan moves to tiny Forks, Washington to live with her father. She soon becomes convinced the dazzling, gorgeous, aloof, smart, talented, athletic boy Edward Cullen is both a vampire and in love with pathetic, lonely, whiny, introverted, fickle, clumsy, over-analytic yet advanced placement new girl in town, herself! Turns she’s right, and chaste adventures ensue.

Surprisingly, I didn’t hate this book. It’s not good, particularly the first half of the book where the characters annoyed me so much I twittered every idiotic move, much to the annoyance of my followers. Bella thinks about two things: how much she hates Forks (go home!) and how much she likes Edward Cullen. Boys boys boys! The book only passes the Bechdel test because Bella discusses her class schedule with the school secretary. She has four local boys chasing after her, and yet she goes for the creepy distant guy who at that point had no redeeming features except for his good looks and designer clothes. Which is fairly normal I’m sure. Just annoying. Worse though is that she likes to claim she’s unattractive. She’s just a little too self-involved to care about. I started rooting for the vampires to cut her up and eat her in the grisliest fashion possible.

After Edward reveals himself, the story picks up and became more bearable. Either that or I became inured to Bella’s whining. Sure, there’s still too much self-flagellating discussion between the two young almost-lovers. He repeats a hundred times that he’s too dangerous to be around her, yet is too selfish to walk away. She breathily pleads for him to never leave her. What sees in her I do not know. Meyer’s narrative says Edward is exceptionally attracted to her scent. Although we boys appreciate a girl who smells nice, T&A is what really attracts us at age 17. But I can indulge Meyer her wish fulfillment scenario where boys are interested in more lofty pursuits.

As I noted, the story picks up. Edward saves Bella with his Superman speed and strength, preventing an out of control van from crushing her tender mortal body. Later he arrives just in time to save Bella from the clutches of dastardly would-be rapists in fair Port Angeles, center of the Northwest’s urban crime zone. Bella even gets to watch a super-fast vampire family baseball game before the evil vampire’s show up and all hell breaks loose. While the alpha-vampire-male playground fight is so derivative the Treasury has to bail it out (yes, I just made a stimulus joke), it’s still fun to watch. Well, except for the fact that Bella passes out when the ultimate confrontation takes place so I didn’t get to see what happens in this exclusively first-person narrative! Bella passes out! Next scene, let’s talk to the winners! Which vampire, the good one or the evil one, gets to claim Bella for books two through however many Meyer will write?

What came to mind multiple times while reading this is Ender’s Game. Yup. The Orson Scott Card (another nebbish Mormon writer) written science fiction classic. That one was all about introverted geek boys realizing their alpha-male fantasies of secret skills that could be revealed if given the right opportunity such as a weightless training school in space for child soldiers. This one is all about introverted geek girls realizing their fantasies of designer clothes, popularity, and Jane Austen style chaste love if only given the right situation such as the school male model heart-throb being a secret vampire. I liked Ender’s Game at the time and failed to see it’s flaws, but with a little bit of self-awareness later in life I came to see it for what it is. The girls who got sucked into Twilight should revel in the fantasy while they can.

Now that I’ve taken one bribe, I must offer the option to all. I’ve got a pretty liberal review policy already, but if you have a book you want reviewed on Rat’s Reading, I am now open to creative bribes as well. Not just any bribe will do, however. If I wasn’t willing to read a free book before, you gotta come up with something really unique or awesome to change my mind. It’s gotta be something good enough to get people to exclaim I can’t believe they did that just to get reviewed for the three schmucks that read that blog! For example, convincing your city to install a bronze bust of me in front of the main library.

Two caveats. This does not guarantee a positive review. Hence, I suggest authors and publicists avoid this opportunity. If it takes a bribe at all, much less one of my envisioned magnitude, to get me to read your book, it’s probably going to be a seriously negative review. Second, all bribes and who made them will be disclosed along with the review. Partially so folks won’t question my editorial integrity, but mostly so everyone can laugh at you (or me).

If that sounds tantalizing, offer me your bribes via Twitter or email at reading kingrat.biz.

Title: Twilight
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Cover creator: Gail Doobinin (designer) / Roger Hagadone (photographer)
Series: Twilight Saga; 1
Imprint / publisher: Little, Brown / Hachette
Format: Paperback
Length: 498 p.
Publication date: September 2006
ISBN-10: 0-316-01584-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-01584-4
Subject: Vampires — Fiction
Subject: High schools — Fiction
Subject: Schools — Fiction
Subject: Washington (State) — Fiction
LC classification: PZ7.M57188Tw 2005

Author K. S. Augustin read my editorial rant on fantasy and offered up her upcoming e-book novella for review. The Dragon of Ankoll Keep wouldn’t trigger some of my irritations with fantasy. And she ended with Yes, I know what I’m likely in for, but I’m game if you are.. Well, here goes…

It’s not the worst book I’ve read this year. That position would perhaps go to the William Bernhardt mystery I aborted reading several dozen pages in. But this book is not particularly good. This time it’s not the fantasy elements that bother me, or even the romance elements. It’s just that the writing is flat.

Gamsin is a female thief. She’s busting out of Mishkow City pursuing a legend of treasure in Ankoll. Just a small purse of gold so she can buy up a cottage somewhere. While staying at an inn in Ankoll, she’s raped and quickly heads to the countryside to escape presumed additional miscreants. After several days heading toward Ankoll Keep, she collapses in the snow. Gamsin awakes to an idyllic setting in the keep. A gorgeous manly man keeps house there. After several weeks, she learns the truth.

It seems Ankoll (he’s named after the lands, or the lands and castle are named after him, I’m not sure which) is a cursed wizard. After being bested by another sorcerer, he’s transformed into a dragon for half of each month. He’s lived for centuries this way. The curse can only be broken if a damsel feeds him three days running (as a dragon) and then has sex with him when he transforms back into human form.

Ankoll obviously wants Gamsin to release him from his curse. But will Gamsin want to do so? After all, her only sexual experience has been two rapes, one recent.

I don’t like the Gamsin character. For one, the name is just awful. But more importantly, her only redeeming quality is she’s a good thief (which doesn’t actually become apparent until toward the end of the story). Otherwise she’s wishy-washy and confused. I would have been far more impressed with her if she told Ankoll Sorry, but I don’t know you very well and you are very presumptuous and left the keep. Forcing Ankoll to convince her with… something. Because frankly, I don’t like him much either. Years ago he was an arrogant young wizard who stupidly challenged older wizards and lost. Now he has apparently spent centuries learning how to cook, making him the ideal househusband. But he’s bland. He has no personality, beyond a standard bubblehead validation club kind of soft reassurance. He doesn’t convince Gamsin to release the curse by showing how cool he is. He does it by trying to improve Gamsin’s low self-esteem. Which only works cause she has low self-esteem. I’m just not a fan of weak wimpy characters.

Reading through the story though, I kept coming back to the idea though that this would work much better as a play. Strip away the prose. Plays often need to be overacted and blunt to get across their characters in a short time period where few can see up close facial expressions.

But as a book? Eh. It’s short. It’s cheap. But it’s not very good.

Title: The dragon of Ankoll Keep
Author: K. S. Augustin
Cover artist: Christine Clavel
Imprint / publisher: Samhain Publishing
Format: E-book (review copy PDF)
Length: 87 p.
Publication date: September 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59998-609-4

Samhain Publishing provided me a review PDF at the request of the author. Obviously, I had no obligation as to the content of the review.