Grade: C+

A few folks have emailed me asking me if I was going to review this book and here it is. Rejoice! If you’re expecting a rant where I totally lose my shit and promise never to read LKH again, you’re reading the wrong review. I don’t know if I’ve become immune to the ardeur or Anita’s many lovers or the editorial mistakes (there’s a HUGE one on page 238 that is an ENORMOUS CONTINUITY ERROR and makes a total liar of the earlier books of the series— but I was told this was merely a typo), but… you know, I did not experience frothing at the mouth while reading this entry to the Anita Blake series. My main reaction? Meh. For those of you who have read my LKH reviews, that’s a BIG improvement from “ZOMGWTFBBQ I HATE YOU LKH I WILL NEVER READ YOU AGAIN WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS I HATE YOU AND I HATE YOUR FACE!!!!!!!!1111!!” What I will tell you is how much I dreaded reading this book (though I pre-ordered it 8 months in advance— I’m sick, I need help) because I heard rumors that my favorite ice-cold sociopath Edward is going to be in it (he is!) and was afraid this is the book in which Anita and Edward will consummate their friendship (and let’s face it, Edward is the only hold-over from the earlier books that Anita has not yet had sex with or shoved out of her life). Let me just ease your mind (SPOILER!) and say… they don’t. There. Now you can breathe. As for the rest of the book… Meh. I was bored by all the politics and the sex and the standing-around-discussing-how-cool-Anita-is (and couldn’t be arsed enough to pay attention, so I may have one or fifty factual errors in this post), but for the first time since Narcissus in Chains, I am seeing the light of the end of the tunnel. It’s a very, very tiny, faint light… but it’s there! I mean, this book didn’t make me stick a knife into my eye or anything. You guys, I think the Anita Blake we knew and loved might be coming back…

Yes, I’m sick. I need help.

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The Grand Winner of Sharon Cullars’ contest, who will receive $15 GC from Amazon and a copy of The Object of Love AND Again is…

ANIMEJUNE!

The two other winners, who will receive a copy of The Object of Love are: Jambrea and SweetNSourGirl.

Friends, please email me your info and we’ll get you all squared away.

Thanks again to Sharon Cullars for coming to visit us and providing us wonderful prizes.

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNND now, the 2 winners to Colleen Gleason’s contest are: Kimberly and Katie Ann!

Friends, you will receive either a copy of Rises the Night or if you haven’t read Rises, The Rest Falls Away. Please email me to give me your contact info and which book you prefer.

Thanks again to Colleen Gleason for coming by to visit us and hooking us up with the prizes!

Colleen Gleason’s The Gardella Vampire Chronicles has been described as “Buffy meets Jane Austen,” and yet in the space of two books, it has become more than that. It has surpassed its own gimmick, its own conceit. Victoria is not just some Victorian Regency (damn, not “punny” at all) Buffy Summers clone. And here’s Ms. Gleason herself to tell you why.

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The Top Ten Ways Victoria Gardella Grantworth is Not Buffy Summers

10. Victoria would never want to be a cheerleader– ahem– dignity, anyone?

9. Victoria’s accent would kick Giles‘ pansy-ass drawl any afternoon before tea at three.

8. Victoria + Apolcalypse = “No, darling. I think not.”

7. Lilith vs. the Master? Uh, she’d eat him for breakfast. And the Mayor too.

6. Ain’t no way, no how Victoria would fall in love with a vampire–any vampire (with or without a soul).

5. Buffy deals with a lot of bull; Victoria’s got her vis bulla instead.

4. Buffy was supposed to die before other Slayers were born (until the writers went and changed the basic premise–take backsies, naughty naughty!); OTOH, Victoria is not about to peg out just to make room for another Venator. Let there be many Vennys; V will invite them all to a Venetian Breakfast.

3. The Bronze: mortal hangout, high school kids; The Silver Chalice: thrills n’ chills with real live grownups–er, oops–real undead grownups, and plenty o’ chancy substances being imbibed

2. Victoria’s never met a giant praying mantis (And I promise, she never will)

1. Victoria prefers carriages with tall skinny wheels–which provide enhanced rocking motions for hawt, smoochy pre-staking mashing–instead of cold, hard gravestones on which to exchange bodily fluids and much groping and stroking. Sorry, Buffy. Ditch the graveyard as a necking locale!

Thanks for coming to visit us, Colleen!

For our readers, two lucky commenters will win a copy of Rises the Night (out now) or The Rest Falls Away, if you haven’t read Rises. Happy commenting!

Colleen’s contest is now over. Thanks for playing, everyone!

Technorati tag: Colleen Gleason

It is my great pleasure to introduce one of my favorite authors, Sharon Cullars. Her romances are creepy, atmospheric, but most importantly, very passionate. Again is one of my favorite paranormal romances and recommend it to anyone looking for a spooky, intense love story. Her prose is clean, lyrical, and haunting. It’s to be savored like fine wine.

[cool prize alert!]

A few years ago I attended a writers conference in Dallas where best-selling author Tananarive Due spoke to a roomful of fifty or more hopeful writers about getting published. She was refreshingly candid and admitted that starting out in her career, she had a hard time finding her voice. The main thing that kept tripping her up was race, or specifically, being a black writer. She felt she had to speak with a “black voice,” which to her had the obligatory Southern or urban cadence, those voices that seemed interconnected with the “black experience.” The problem was she wasn’t from the South nor from the inner city, and these voices were not hers. But still she felt she had to use them to create fiction for her core audience. Luckily for her (and her readers), her writing stalled and she realized her mistake. After several failed attempts at stories and novels, she finally gave herself the freedom to write the characters she wanted to write – characters much like herself - middle-class and professional. She placed these characters in horrific settings that served as backdrops of her fiction and worked the stories from a freer perspective. Not that she forgot race – but she didn’t allow it to restrict or confine her voice. She decided that she had to write outside the box.

“Writing outside the box” is probably a familiar term to those of you who’ve had to listen to corporate speak at meetings. Still, it is good advice for writers, regardless of race, gender or genre. Too often, we writers fall into the same trap Ms. Due found herself in. And then we find our creativity stifled because of it. Parameters can help map out where we want to go, but when they become too restrictive, too confining, we can end up losing our way. Our voices become old and stale. They become conformed, conformist. A good depiction of this would be a fav movie of mine called Strictly Ballroom. A young dancer wants to dance to his own drummer, so to speak, creating fresher, innovative steps he wants to dance for an upcoming competition. The only problem is that the old guard don’t want to change, don’t want to have to learn new steps. They feel threatened by anything that diverges from the dances that they’ve been performing for decades. The young dancer almost gives into their fears, but luckily breaks free, holds to his own dance. The same way writers have to hold on to their own voices.
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Unembarrassed fan girl squeeage. She’s here! She’s here! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! *running around the room, shrieking*

INSPIRATION! Man-oh-man I lurve this subject! Lately I’ve been asked by several interviewers about where I come up with the inspiration for the books I write. I guess that’s because now that I have twelve novels out they’re thinking that I’m going to run out of ideas. Not a chance! I constantly have more ideas swarming around inside my head than I can possibly write at one time. So this blog subject is, as Shaunee and Erin (a couple of my YA characters) would say, easy-peasy!

Basically, I am inspired by life and by research. Okay, I’ll explain. We’ll start with research, because that’s where my career began. No. I don’t like “normal” research (as in plodding through info for papers or dissertations or other yawn-inducing stuff like that). I like research as a basis for fiction. Actually, how I came up with the idea for my first novel, GODDESS BY MISTAKE, which ended up being the basis for a 6-book series for LUNA, was through research. I knew I wanted to write a fantasy novel about a “normal” (a.k.a. – someone like me) modern woman who gets pulled into another world and acts like “we” (a.k.a. – someone like me) would. I planned to base my fantasy world on an ancient culture, or a mixture of several, so I started researching cultures I already knew a little about. I was a Lit major in college, and I’m high school English teacher now, so I’m clued into the ancient Greeks and Romans – and I checked them out, refreshing my knowledge of their myths, focusing on the pre-Hellenistic, matriarchal versions, which I prefer. I’m of Welsh descent, so I also gravitated towards the Celts. And while I was researching I found this fantastic paragraph written by a priest about a ceremonial mating Celtic fertility ceremony he witnessed a thousand or so years ago which involved the ritualistic mating of a Clan Chieftain and a mare. He was appalled and totally freaked out. I’m twisted, so I was intrigued by it, as well as by the history of Celtic Pagans and Druids. I ended up mixing all of that together, sprinkling in some Greek and Roman mythos, and creating my own world called Partholon. It’s a world where centaurs are a noble race, and they co-exist with humans (sometimes not so peacefully), and they can even mate because of the Celtic Shamanistic belief in shapeshifters. Partholon’s main deity is Epona, horse goddess of the Celts, and it is a matriarchal society. Thus ELPHAME’S CHOICE, BRIGHID’S QUEST, CIARA’S DESTINY, GODDESS/DIVINE BY MISTAKE, DIVINE BY CHOICE, and DIVINE BY BLOOD were born!

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