Grade: B

Hmm… a contemporary vampire romance that makes nada-zero-zilch reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you say? I’m in! Not that I’m not fond of the vapid vampire-slaying bimbo, but for once I wanted to read a vampire romance that didn’t invoke that show as though it were the beginning and end of all vampire mythology. This book is even blissfully free of supposed big-shit tough guys who sound as if they’re high school valley girls. Oh, there are big-shit tough guys abound, but their lingo is more in the vein of white faux-street thugs who have watched too much Yo! MTV Raps. To put it bluntly, this book—and its sequels—are just like the Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter series except without the annoying mythology clusterfuck… and oh, no Acheron! Whoo-hoo!
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I feel like I’ve finally tapped out my snark resource. Every morning, I try to come up with something funny to attach to a book cover, but I’ve found that, lately, I can’t seem to think of a thing. I feel like I’m forcing the snark and when the snark is forced… well, it’s just not funny. Hopefully, this is a temporary thing because my friends tell me I’m funny and if I can’t be funny anymore, I wouldn’t know where I’d be. Anyway, it’s time that I paid more attention to my other blog, which ignores the cover entirely and concentrates on what’s inside the book. Gasp! Yeah, I know, it’s a novel concept. Get it? Novel? Did you see what I did there? I… oh, shut up.

But I’m tired. And I seem to be making the same baby jokes over and over again. I’ll be back soon. Till then, take care and check out my archives. Later, bitches!

Grade: A

I fell in love with the works of P.C. Cast because of Goddess By Mistake. After reading that book, I believed that she could do no wrong. After all, this is the woman who brought me centaur sex, for God’s sake, and a truly kickass heroine. She also brought me mermaid sex with Goddess of the Sea, but that was marred by the Little Mermaid rip-off heroine. Goddess of Spring was about Hades and Persephone and I was all set to love up on that, but the whiney heroine who was supposed to be a mature woman in her forties really pissed me off. As for Goddess of Light, I couldn’t even finish it. It was just so “mundane” and dull and the heroine was such a frickin’ Barbie Doll that I stopped reading a quarter of the way through the book. But Goddess of the Rose… P.C. Cast, I think I love you again. Come back into my arms, girl, and let me love up on ya! Freaky-deaky crazy fan girl style!
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Aww… look at this. Ain’t it sweet? They’re preparing their baby’s nursery together! Too bad that the baby is going to come out retarded because Mommy is inhaling paint fumes! What the hell is wrong witchu, beeyatch? Get the hell out of there! That shit is bad for your baby! As if the paint fumes is not enough to damage the kid, look at the father! He’s got a look on his face like his IQ is barely two digits… it’s a shit-eating grin, you know? Like, “lookee here, I got these purdy little yellow-haired lady knocked up all by meself. Git ‘er done!” Yuck. Also this woman is suspiciously skinny. Where’s her little baby bump? Maybe it’s her first baby and she’s not showing yet. Or she’s a liar!

This next one is also special because I’m kind of old-fashioned and I like to think that if a man got his woman pregnant, he would do right by her and marry her right quick… Wait, what? I love that she penciled it into her date book that she’s “having the boss’s baby”. That’s nice. Would that be the same day that she goes into the HR office to bring up sexual harassment charges against him? Also, where did they have their wedding reception, the office cafeteria? Just look at that ugly linoleum. And is the groom wearing a burgundy smoking jacket, for God’s sake? He couldn’t even bother to wear a nice black suit jacked for his own wedding? That’s messed up, yo. What’s even more messed up is that look on his face that says, “I have got to stop impregnating my secretaries. This is the fifth one in the last six years.” It’s called a vasectomy, dumbass! I really love the look on the woman’s face, though. It totally says, “I’ve got you now, sucker!”

Covers courtesy of my buddy Amber.

Grade: C

I’ve never read a romance novel with gargoyles in it. I suspect this is because gargoyles are not traditionally sexy creatures. When I think of gargoyles, I think of those creepy stone statues with giant wings perched on some old building or something. I have never found them hawt, mostly because they are usually bald, and have big ears and big fucking teeth. That shit ain’t sexy. The hero of this book is a gargoyle… a real honest to goodness gargoyle with claws and wings and big fucking teeth. Fortunately for the heroine, his human form is a hunka hunka burning hunk of a man complete with rock-hard, gleaming man-titty. In this story, the heroine is a sex slave to a pack of evil gargoyles, and the hero is a good gargoyle who infiltrates the gang and saves her. Oh, but don’t worry, the heroine doesn’t sleep with anyone but the hero. Worst. Sex slave. Ever.Our girl Mara Kincaide operates a battered women’s shelter in Chicago. But she’s not an average do-gooder. In fact, she grew up in East LA where she was exposed to all sorts of violence, drugs, and just plain evil. This means that she is not a naïve little milkmaid whom the hero has to teach and guide along. Oh, yeah, and she has served time in prison for killing a man in Memphis (just kidding, it was in LA), and she wasn’t framed by some corrupt, shadowy figures, either. She killed a man (who was trying to rape her), owned up to it, and was punished for it. When her best friend Angela goes missing, she does the smart thing, and goes to the cops. Unfortunately, they’re zero help to her, so she decides to investigate for herself. She finds out that the job ad that Angela had answered was completely bogus, so she applies for the “job” herself, and ends up in the same deep shit as Angela. Worst of all, Angela is still nowhere to be found and the other women who have been kidnapped before Mara are being raped and used as brood mares by the evil gargoyles.
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