“Lake of Dreams”, a novella by Linda Howard in the anthology Everlasting Love, has always been one of my Howard favorites. It’s haunting, romantic, suspenseful, and very erotic. Lake of Dreams is about a young woman on vacation in her family lake house and encounters a man she has never met before, but something about him is naggingly familiar. She dreams about him night after night and the dreams are increasingly erotic, but each one somehow ends with her pleading for her life and him killing her. She is afraid of him, but also obsessively drawn to him and finds herself seeking him out when she should be running in the other direction. It’s not only my favorite “love never dies” story, it’s one of my favorites, period. I just love the idea of a love so strong, so passionate that not even death can tear the couple asunder. Basically, the two lovers come together twelve times and each one has ended in tragedy. On the thirteenth try, they get together and remember everything that had happened in the past because this is their last chance to be together and therefore the last time to get it right. This is the premise of Emma Petersen’s “Make Me Remember,” a novella about a doctor in a small reservation town who falls in love with a Native American sheriff because of the sexy dreams she’s been having about him, apparently stemming from a previous life they may have shared together. Whereas Ms. Howard’s “Lake of Dreams” was emotionally resonant, however, Ms. Petersen’s novella is not as effective because not only is the story too short for the narrative to work, it is also seemingly bogged down by the numerous sex scenes, which oddly enough, prevent the hero and heroine from getting to know each other in a way that rings true to the reader.

Hannah Bryant has always been different. Since she was a child, she’s had vivid dreams of death and loss. Years later, Hannah is a successful doctor who’s gotten past the terrors that used to plague her. In a flash, everything she has worked so hard for is in danger when the dreams return with a vengeance.

But the dreams haunting Hannah’s sleep now are nothing like the ones from her childhood. No longer does she dream of death and destruction—now her dreams are of a man who elicits a reaction from Hannah’s body that’s strangely familiar and startlingly brand new at the same time.

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Have you ever wondered what the Lion King would have been like if it had some sex in it? Have you ever thought to yourself, “Man, you know what the Lion King was missing? Hot sex. And lesbians. And dudes having sex with each other. How about some of that?” It took me a few pages to figure out that the story is set in Africa (honestly, I thought it was set in Canada at first—don’t ask me why) and once I had Africa on the brain, that song Circle of Life started playing in my head. My only frame of reference for Africa is what I’ve seen in movies: like the first part of Roots, that Matt Damon movie where he plays a rugby player and Morgan Freeman was the president of South Africa, the really awesome District 9 by Neill Blomkamp (which does not apply here at all), Leonardo Dicaprio’s awful accent in Blood Diamond, and most influentially, The Lion King, which is my favorite Disney movie of all time. Basically, while I was reading this book, I had the Lion King soundtrack playing in my head and I was imagining the characters walking around talking with an awful South African accent. That really says more about the state of America’s public school system than the author’s writing. Since 90% of what I know about life is derived from movies, I should probably watch Out of Africa with Meryl Streep, I Dreamed of Africa with Kim Basinger, the Ace Ventura movies, and The English Patient (scratch the last part: nothing in the world will ever get me to watch The English Patient. The title alone BORES me). Is there an Ernest movie where he goes to Africa? There is! YES!!!

I picked up this book because I was intrigued by the author’s nom de plume. Unless this is her real name— how awful would that have been? I bet she would have gotten in trouble at school and maybe while applying for a job, her resume would have gotten passed over even though it is awesome because the hiring managers thought her name was porny. And maybe on dates, the guy would have assumed she puts out on the 1st date and it would have been awkward every time she has to tell them she doesn’t have sex till the 10th date and then the guys would get mad and only pay for their half of the bill and yell at her for false advertising. Anyway, “Kama” is the Tagalog word for bed. It is also a Japanese word for sickle. But maybe the author was making a grammar joke “comma splice.” There’s also Kama Sutra, which I’ve heard is some kind of sex book with step-by-step instructions on how to do The Wheelbarrow (I’ve never read it— I’ve only seen excerpts on Glamour and Cosmo whenever they publish things like 25 Sexual Positions That Will Help You Keep a Man Excited and they tell you the positions are from the Kama Sutra). Or maybe Kama Spice is a spice like saffron that you add to paella and it has the same effect as Spanish Fly.

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There are spoilers.

Whenever I’m about to read a J.R. Ward book, I like to put on some mood music, particularly what the kids call a “rap” song called Pimp of the Year by a genius named Dru Down. I can always count on a sexy, fun, hot time when reading a Black Dagger Brotherhood novel. If the hero and heroine get naked and dirty with each other and I start hyperventilating? If the evil nasty things called lessers are planning something insidious and gross against our protagonists and our heroes know nothing about it? If I would ever find out who those ghost-hunting buffoons are and what they have to do with the Brotherhood mythology? If the massively muscled, ridiculously handsome tattooed and pierced bois wearing designer suits worth more than my annual salary start looking at each other in a funny way and think about grinding their pelvises together? If John Matthew and Beth (who are supposed to be siblings) manage to bump into each other in this massive house and spend two minutes together and maybe just say, “Hey, what’s doin’?” to each other? These are the reasons I always have a portable electric fan on hand and my cell phone within reach so my BFF Shuzluva and I can text each other our favorite passages while giggling and swooning at the same time. It’s harder than it sounds, I assure you. Have you ever tried typing a multi-sentence text message while on the verge of passing out from over-excitement? So I was very excited to finally get my hands on this book? Because John Matthew and Xhex were my favorite characters? And I wanted to see if John Matthew was somehow going to get his voice back? And if Qhuinn and Blaylock would get drunk and make out and have dirty sex on the floor of a bar’s restroom? I was mostly wondering how Xhex and John Matthew’s story was going to play out? If it will have a similar feel to Zsadist and Bella’s story? Because Bella was kidnapped by lessers in that one and Zsadist spends a significant time in the book trying to find her? Like John Matthew does for Xhex in this book? And do we finally find out why JM keeps getting those damn seizures? Am I going to keep talking like this?

Maybe?

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I think it was Plato who said that men and women started out as one being but then Zeus got jealous and split them apart so that they will spend the rest of their lives looking for their other half. At the heart of Joe Hill’s new book, Horns, is a story about a man who discovers that without his one true love, he is lost. He could devolve into the darkest part of himself and become a real demon. It’s only April so it might be a little premature to say this, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that HORNS is probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I was riveted by it. I was in turns fascinated, horrified, repulsed, awed, and at a couple of points throughout the book, I had to look away from the pages because I was choked up and furiously blinking back tears. For a story about a guy sporting actual horns from his temple, it’s dark, funny, romantic, scary, and best all, real. I am totally in love with Joe Hill’s work. I’ve read everything he’s ever written, even the short stories and the comics. When I see an anthology featuring Joe Hill, I snatch it up (in the zombie antho The New Dead, there’s one that features an old-timey circus, Twitter, and of course, zombies). As much as I loved Heart-Shaped Box, I gotta say that HORNS is better.

Our hero Ig Perrish, the son of a Leonard Cohen-type legend and a showgirl, is an all-around good guy. He’s not as handsome or as talented as his older brother Terry, the host of a late-night show and a musician, but he is happy with his lot in life. His girlfriend, Merrin, is beautiful, kind, and going to school to become a doctor and they have been in love with each other since they were fifteen years old. For as long as Ig could remember, his heart has always belonged to Merrin and he has never wanted anyone else. The two of them meet at church when Ig notices a pretty redhead playing with her cross necklace so that it catches light and flashing it at Ig in what appears to be Morse code. Ig is convinced that he and Merrin are going to get married, have children, live happily ever after, and die in each other’s arms in their sleep. And then one day, Merrin, universally loved by man and critters, is brutally raped, murdered, and everyone in town believes that Ig did it, even his own friends and parents. All of a sudden, everything in Ig’s life starts to go wrong. He drops out of college, starts drinking heavily, shacks up with his high school’s skank, refuses to get a job, and spends every waking moment obsessing about his dead girlfriend. It gets even worse when he wakes up with a bitching headache, puts his hand up to his temples, and finds protrusions from his skull. He looks in the mirror and yep, horns.

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I was looking through the boxes of books that I hadn’t seen in years—I’m like Claudia Kishi from the Babysitter’s Club, only it’s books instead of junk food stashed in all sorts of hiding places—and came across a glutton’s trove of vintage Harlequin Presents. To a book junkie, this is like stumbling across a giant mound of cocaine and a naked Brandon Routh sprawled over a bear rug offering his washboard abs from which you could snort it with a diamond-encrusted platinum straw. Unless the book was dirty. And not just dusty. This particular book had spaghetti sauce stains on some of the pages—I may have bought this batch from the yard sale of a harangued mother with five children or Goodwill, I don’t know—and the name Elisa Harper scribbled on the back of the front page under This Book Belongs To. This book had a life before me! I hope whatever germs and other yucky things that have been living between the pages have died over the years from being in a box for so long. Damn it, that’s the problem with old books and library books. People don’t always wash their goddamned hands. And this one was published in 1980! Maybe Elisa Harper bought it from the swapmeet or AMVETS. Maybe it had four or five or six owners before me! I don’t really mind buying books from a used book store or a thrift shop, but I’ve never really thought about the other people who’ve touched the thing before I did. What if they were compulsive nose—nay, buttpickers? Gross.

OmgIhavetofindabottleofPurellrightnow. I feel so itchy now!

Enough of my neuroses, here’s the blurb.

She hadn’t even known his name…

As an inexperienced drama student, Clare had been shocked and disgusted by the sudden and rough lovemaking of Luke, an older, handsome stranger. She had turned away from love—for good.

Now, nine years later, Clare was a famous actress. She valued her friendship to Macey Janson, a leading playwright and producer, because Macey was willing to leave it at that—just friends.

But when chance suddenly thrust Luke back into Clare’s life, she faced a strange situation that was a threat to all her relationships.

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