Grade: B-

“In this place I will dwell, destroying the surface dwellers who pass through the mist. This I vow upon my life. This I vow upon my death… I exist for no other purpose. I am the Guardian of the Mist.”

I procrastinated about reading this book because I was put off the by this author’s previous effort, the Stone Prince. I am not a big fan of the Me-Tarzan-You-Jane kind of hero and from the back blurb of this book, it was obvious that Darius en Kragin is a he-man type that would annoy me to no end. What convinced me to read this book was the cover. I dug the dragon tattoo and the navel piercing on the heroine and before I knew it, I was plunking down $6.99 plus shipping on Amazon for this thing. As soon as I got it, I put it on the TBR pile on my bedside table (I usually keep about five there), but completely forgot all about it. Two weeks ago, while I was packing up my books, the cover caught my eye again and I decided to read it once and for all. I read the prologue, was sufficiently intrigued, read a couple of chapters, then set it down again. I read a couple of books on my TBR pile, including Sunshine by Robin McKinney and Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom by A.L. Haskett, re-read Perfect Partners by Jayne Ann Krentz for the fiftieth time, then ordered myself to pick up this book again. This morning, I finally finished it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and found that I even enjoyed it a little. It wasn’t an amazing book or anything, but it’s not bad.

The heroine Grace Carlyle is a twenty-four year old flight attendant whose archaeologist brother Alex goes missing, so naturally, she decides to drop everything, and look for him in the jungles of Brazil. Why would anyone in their right mind do this? What the hell does this girl know about surviving in the wild? There are poisonous plants, snakes, weird-ass natives who probably eat other people, parasitical worms in the water that burrow under your skin and have little worm babies in your blood stream, and other crazy shit that I’ve seen on the National Geographic channel, and this girl thinks that she can find her dumbass brother by herself? Anyway, the man she paid to guide her tries to rape her or something, so she escapes him, and predictably gets lost. In her desperation to find shelter from the elements, she stumbles into a cave where she finds a big, brawny warrior type wearing skin-tight pants that proudly display his manly package, and airhead Grace who has probably never seen a naked dude in her entire life, stares at him in awe, until she realizes that he’s holding a giant ass sword and intends to cut her head off. Naturally, she screams and panics and holds a gun at him, until he knocks it out of her hands, and shows her his guns. Man, I crack myself up.

Our hero, Darius En Kragin (sounds like a Dara Joy character), is the Guardian of the Mist. Speaking of the Mist, wasn’t there a Stephen King short story where this thick ass mist invades this small Maine town and hidden in the mist were these giant monsters with tentacles and talons and big fucking teeth and they ate people and shit? Or is that the Fog by John Carpenter? Anyway, the mist is actually this gateway that protects the entrance to Atlantis (yes, that Atlantis) from our world. When Darius was a kid, his family was slaughtered by some Travelers (outsiders), and Darius vowed revenge. In the prologue, a Guardian of the Mist named Javar tells Darius that the only way he can avenge his family’s death is if Darius himself slaughtered anyone who dared enter the mist. In order to effectively do this, Javar tells Darius, he must bury his feelings and emotions, and devote his entire existence to becoming a badass guardian. Naturally, when Darius meets our intrepid heroine, he is suddenly seeing colors and smelling flowers, and wants nothing more than to dance and twirl around and sing about the hills being alive with the Sound of Music like he’s Julie Andrews or something. As much as he wants to lay her down on a bed of flowers and make sweet, sweet love to her, however, she is still an outsider, and because she dared to enter his cave, he’s gotta kill her. Tough break, dude. He raises his sword and is about to chop off her dumb ass head when he notices that she’s carrying a medallion that he recognizes as Javar’s medallion. He puts the sword down—oh, man—and decides that he will take her back to his castle for “interrogation”.

Once I got past the “getting to know you” stage of Darius and Grace, this story became enjoyable for me. I was tempted to put it down again when Darius started in on his she’s-evil-and-a-lying- liar-and-I-have-to-kill-her-but-she-smells-so-good theatrics, but I’m pleased to report that he is not as annoying as that himbo from the Stone Prince who really, really got on my nerves because he did nothing but yell at the heroine and treat her like an inanimate object that belonged to him. I could have done without the Darius and Grace antics because the world that Showalter built here is really interesting. From what I understand, these people live in a glass dome underwater and there are mermaids and shit swimming around them. There are Fomorians and dragons and vampires and trolls and all sorts of cool shit. In fact, Darius himself is a dragon. Alas, there is no actual human-dragon sexual interaction, but the first time that Grace and Darius have sex, it is apparently so good that Darius’ wings bust out from his back and spread all around them. And he’s not really a dragon. I mean, he has wings, and can have fangs, scales, and talons, but he doesn’t turn into a cartoony dragon.

Anyway, Grace and Darius are forced to work together because Grace needs help in finding her brother and Darius needs help in finding out how to defeat the armed humans who have invaded his world and formed an unlikely alliance with the vampires, the dragons’ mortal enemies. They do some investigative work together, with Grace asking the questions and Darius roughing them up when they don’t say what Grace wants to hear. If you’re wondering why the dragons just can’t roast the humans and vampires alive, it’s because the humans have guns. The dragons can’t heal if there are bullets inside them, so Grace suggests that they buy some Kevlar vests for Darius and his men. As for the main villain, you’ll know who he is as soon as he shows up. He is a stereotypically greedy, kind of crazy villain who laughs maniacally while rubbing his hands together, and you just kind of wish that Darius would come over and cut off his head already.

There is a throwaway storyline about Grace’s moronic brother and Javar’s widow, but I found it kind of annoying because the woman is a clinging Barbie doll idiot who could only exist in soft core porn. The author could have gotten rid of this story without affecting the main storyline. I felt that this was only inserted to pad up the word count because it didn’t really add anything to the mix. I could have done without it. I thought it was kind of cute, though, that Grace’s brother develops an addiction to the sedative that the evil humans inject him. I wonder if he’ll actively seek it later on once they’ve put away the evil humans and vampires. Aww… a junky gets an HEA.

I think what really bugs me about this book is that I can’t remember anything about Grace. I just don’t think that she was developed enough as a character. All I got from her is that she’s got a crazy mom, a reckless brother, is unhappy about her weight, and that the very sight of Darius gets her panties wet, but that’s it. Whenever we get access to Grace’s thoughts, all we get from her is that she’s worried about her brother or that she thinks Darius is hot. She just didn’t do it for me. Darius, on the other hand, was a stronger character. As a child, his entire family is murdered, but before he can mourn them, his mentor tells him that he must bottle up his emotions so that he can become a more effective warrior. This means that growing up, he never laughed, cried, got pissed, or fell in love. That shit makes me sad, man. Sure, he’s a he-man who’s all growl and brawn, but can you blame him? There had been no one to hug him or tuck him into bed or comfort him and tell him that everything’s going to be alright, when he was a kid. There’s a scene in this book when Darius finally breaks down and cries about his family that made me teary a little. Sniff.

Anyway, this book is an okay way to spend a couple of hours. It was kind of cool that Showalter set it in Atlantis and shit, but it’s really nothing different from the other books that I’ve read of hers, which were the Pleasure Slave and the Stone Prince. Still, her books are still fun to read, and her heroines are never too stupid to live (Grace does have one TSTL moment, but it’s understandable given the situation). In fact, from what I remember from Showalter’s previous novels, the heroines were kind of sassy, and wouldn’t take shit from the he-man heroes. Whenever I read a Showalter book, I can expect good dialogue (except when the hero starts talking like Yoda and shit) and some hot sexual tension between the hero and the heroine, and while I’m hard-pressed to remember anything about the book a few hours after reading it (this could be due to my shitty memory that was a result of spending my formative years smoking pot in my friend Jeremy’s basement), I still have fun. This was a valiant effort of Showalter to bring something new to the genre and I give her kudos for it. In fact, I’ve already picked up Awaken Me Darkly. I’m gonna be so pissed if it sucks… I paid $8.79 for it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2005 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Paranormal, Romance: Contempo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.