Grade: A-

And here’s yet another adventure from the brother and sister psychic detective team who like each other a little too much. Yay! No, perverts, they still don’t have sex in this one, but our heroine Harper Connelly does look at her brother Tolliver a little inappropriately this time and the seeds of quasi-incest love have been planted in her lightning-fried brain. She’s even begun to tell people that she and Tolliver are not brother and sister, but BFF. This change in Harper is facilitated by someone who mistakenly identifies them as lovers and asks if they have children together. Ewww! But this totally freaks out Harper and she is understandably unable to tell Tolliver why she can’t look him in the eye. Tolliver appears oblivious to Harper’s pre-incestuous crises, but since we don’t get anything from Tolliver’s point of view, we can’t possibly know what he’s thinking. Speaking of Tolliver, we get another affirmation of his utter irresistability to women when yet another woman throws herself at him like a crazy person. For realz, yo, Charlaine describes him as a sullen, black-haired pockmarked dude (the sullen and black-haired part sounds hot, but nay on the pockmarks). Does that sound hot to you? Is Ms. Harris just setting the stage for Harper inevitably throwing herself at the altar of Tolliver worship? Eww and ooh at the same time.
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The first chapter of All Together Dead is up on Charlaine Harris’ website. There’s tons of Eric goodness. Check this out:

Despite the fact that the room was full of people waiting for his attention, Eric lay down his pen and stood to stretch his tall and magnificent body, perhaps for my benefit. As usual, Eric was in tight jeans and a Fangtasia T-shirt, black with the white stylized fangs that the bar used as its trademark. […]

Eric made the shirt look good, and I remembered all too well what was underneath it.

Fan girl squee! It smells like hope and vampire politics, children. What fun! I think Ms. Harris may be throwing a bone for us Eric-Sookie shippers. We gotta come up with a shipper name. Sooric? Erkie? Ickie?

Oh and speaking of totally addicting authors, I swiped this from Mrs. G’s blog. It made me laugh, scream in agony, claw out my own eyes, then laugh again. Apparently, according to LKH:

I seem to have started a sub-genre. Is it paranormal romance, gumshoe fantasy, urban fantasy romance? No one’s really come up with that perfect phrase. If we could just come up with something as cool sounding as cyberpunk, but alas, I don’t know what to call it either. My books read more like hard-boiled mysteries, or horror novels in tone of writing, but the romance and the magic is most definitely there, too. What do I write? What I want to read. Isn’t that what all writers write?

I’ll answer that for you, Ms. Hamilton. You write crap. You write badly written fanfic porn crossed with dogshit. The only thing “hard-boiled” about the Anita Blake series is the rotten egg smell that permeates from each sex scene. And the “mystery” part is why we keep buying your books (I’m the first to admit that I’m addicted to it). For fuck’s sake, get over yourself. May I suggest industrial-strength therapy or a visit to websites dedicated to bashing your work for a reality check?

Hey kids, sorry for the lack of posts. I’m in the middle of finals and have been doing nothing but studying my ass off. I’ll be back next week as good as new and twice as snarky. As of now, I’m totally delirious because I’m running on four hours of sleep. I swear, I’ve got caffeine instead of blood running in my veins right now. My mind is racing like crazy. I need a nap. But I gotta study. Stupid, stupid school. On the upside, I think I kicked the shit out of my Latin final. Oh, Science, I hope I just didn’t jizz jinx myself by saying that. Oh, and here’s a picture of a hot schoolgirl anime chick for no reason whatsoever. Actually, there is a reason. She’s wearing panties. Panties are awesome. Especially if they’re soft cotton and don’t ride up your asscrack. It’s a little something our celebutards should learn! Nobody wants to see your meatflaps, dude. Not even perverts like me. No, seriously, put them away. I mean, what is the deal? Why would you want to show your nasty ass flapjacks to anyone when you’re supposedly trying to put your life back together? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. In fact, nothing makes sense to me right now except Latin declensions.

Man, I’m so dizzy, I don’t even know what I’m talking about right now. Where am I? Nighty-night!

(blurb now included)

Here’s another book that’s got me in knots. I have mad love for the Sookie Stackhouse series and I am so feeling ill about our beloved telepath’s inevitable descent to Mary-Sueville and indiscriminate whoredom. The last book was such an “Everybody Loves Sookie” fuckfest that I still throw up a little every time I think about it. But there’s something about this cover that really truly excited me about this series again. Can you guys guess what it is? Uh, yeah, the biggest one being THERE ISN’T A GODDAMN TIGER ON IT! Maybe that means no Quinn? For realz, kids, I hated that guy. If I’m not mistaken, the dude that our favorite telepathic waitress is clinging to is a frickin’ vampire and oh, he’s blond. Like Eric Northman! (Cue fan girl squeeee) Before I get so excited that I begin hyperventilating and pass out, confirm something for me, kids. Vampire Bill has DARK hair and Eric the Viking has BLOND hair, right? The focus of this story just HAS to be Vampire Eric or I’ll just die, die I tell you! Unless it’s a new vampire we’ve never met… NOOOOOO!!! I refuse to hear it. That’s just mean, yo! And who do you think is in the coffin? Bill, of course! Maybe this is Bill’s redemption book. See how Eric (I hope) and Sookie are flying off with him? Maybe they’ll rescue his cheating, lying ass or something and he and Sookie can be friends again. But for Science’s sake, NO QUINN! I’m even willing to endure a little Alcide if there’s little or zero Quinn. Do you guys have any speculations or hopes/fears on what this book is going to be about? Do share. Dear Science, I don’t think I can wait till May. Who do I have to kill to get an ARC of this thing?

Update: Courtesy of my buddy Syb, here is the blurb.

Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life—the shapeshifter Quinn—but also contend with the long-planned vampire summit. The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she’ll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.

Nooooooooooooo!!! The cover is A BIG FAT LIAR! There is no tiger on the cover! NO, THERE ISN’T! That blond-haired vampire featured on the cover is Eric Northman, damn it! And he’s not even important enough to be even mentioned in the blurb. Noooo!!! Man, I hope that science-damned Quinn turns out to be an evil man who eats babies and stomps on kittens and puppies! Science, I am so heart-broken right now that I don’t know if I can continue studying for my finals. Science damn you, Sookie Stackhouse! SCIENCE damn you!

When I saw this post on Karen’s site, I thought, “Oh, those crazy Europeans! Surely our Amazon doesn’t sell such things.” But they do! Oh they do! I’m surprised Amazon hasn’t yet come up with a 2-for-1 deal on their site. Buy Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton and get the Deluxe Crystal Wand Acrylic Kegel Exerciser for free! Eww! Oh, and Amazon wants you to know that if you do decide to get a Deluxe Crystal Wand Acrylic Kegel Exerciser, you also get a fancy purple velvet pouch. Just like the one you get with Crown Royal! By the way, if it’s made of “crystal wand acrylic,” does it make your hoo-ha magickal? If you used it regularly, would you be able to heal countless supernatural warriors with your magickal vagina alone?