Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I tried, for example, one of the Argeneau books, and I had to stop reading it. One, the one I picked featured a heroine with absolutely no personality, who turned into a most irritating Mary Sue at the end (she adjusts to vampirism effortlessly and faster than most, and SURPRISE she’s a NINJA! Ok, not a ninja. A martial artist. But still. No conflict + Mary Sueism + Surprise Ninja? COME ON NOW.) And two, every time the explanation of vampirism was given by one of the vampiric characters, which, if you’ve read the books, is predicated on the existence of “nanos” in the bloodstream, I had a most disturbing mental image: how DO Nanos fit in one’s capillaries? What about headphones or an attachment to play the Nano in your car? Or a case to keep it from getting scratched? What then? If your vampirism is based on millions of little iPods flying through your veins, wouldn’t that get a little painful? I love me some Macs, too. I’ve personally lusted in my heart for an iPhone, despite my unwillingness to tie myself for two years to a sub-par wireless carrier, and I’ve been a faithful Mac laptop user for years, but give my bloodstream over to Steve Jobs? I don’t think so.

And despite the presence of hippy colored iPods dancing through their bloodstream, it seemed, despite the comedy of the plot itself, many of the vampires in that series as well take themselves entirely too seriously. Hence I was light-my-panties-on-fire excited to meet a happy vampire. Gleeful undead! Whee!

In fact, I was SO eager to get me some giddy vampire action that I was willing to spend a healthy portion of my normal limitations of belief. Here is the receipt for my purchase:

No, I’m not kidding. Their quest: to seek the Crystals of Change. NOT because Trevor wants to return to mortal status, because he doesn’t – and has a marvelously sound reason for not wishing to do so. They seek the Crystals of Change because it would tip the balance of power in Trevor’s favor, as he is the current elected president of International Vampires, or IV, for short.

No, I’m not making that up.

If IV possesses the Crystals of Change, then anyone who doesn’t want to be a vampire, happy or otherwise, anymore can change back, presto crystally-like. I don’t know how it works; I didn’t read that far because once Trevor and Kay started jetting around the world questing after the Crystals of Change and staying at luxury hotels all over Europe, and Kay started putting her life on the line because she loves him, even if he won’t return to mortality for her, and they started saying “Crystals of Change” with great emo-rific earnesness, the whole damn illusion of happy vampire staked itself and crawled off into the sunrise to die in a sound of death that can best be described as “Pfft!” The minute they started Crystal of Change hunting, the emo, it was back. It was back and bigger and badder than ever. Gone was the silly air-guitar playing, the references to his ponytail, his joie de un-dead-vivre. It was emo-city, with dark, longing looks and much angst and I developed a major case of the “Oh, fuck its” and stopped reading.

It was almost like there were two books, one featuring an off-the-wall vampire who’s the administrative head of an international unifying body of vampires (one that makes them promise not to feed on mortals) and another featuring a questing emo-riffic vampire atoning for his own immortality and seeking the power held in the mythical Crystals of Change.

And COME ON NOW. Crystals of Change?! I was so willing to toss most of my insistence on at least a moderately close parallel to reality until the hokey name kept reappearing.  What’s next, Skeksies and those loafy mammoth harmonizing creatures from The Dark Crystal? Does Kay have wings?

So needless to say, this book isn’t graded. However, even though I didn’t finish the book, I have been ruminating on the topic, and asking the types of questions I usually don’t presume to ask. Is it possible to have a character who is a vampire who isn’t maudlin, depressive, emo and angsty? Is a happy vampire possible, despite the necessary questions of immortality, bloodsucking, and the frailty of mortal existence? I don’t know. I’ve been pondering it, and maybe the idea of vampirism and an immortal life as a parasite is just too much emo to ever get over emotionally. As one character in this book says, vampires either outlive those they love, or out live the love itself.

However, I can’t give up my secret hopes for a happy, or at least mellow and positive vampire hero.

Allow me to back up a step and explain the plot. Warning! Herein be paranormal action romance cliches, but fear not! They are served up marvelously. Rardin manages something rare and downright awesome: she takes what could be a retread of so many stock characters and plots and does that thing with the frying pan and the huge flaming leap of fire from the burner and behold: awesome sauce.

Jaz Parks is a CIA assassin whose targets are paranormal villains. Some of what she’s after are known paranormal creatures - vampires and the like - and some are creations of Rardin’s imagination that are seriously, seriously creepy. At the start of the novel, Jaz is teamed with a vampire named Vayl, also an assassin, and one of a few vampires who isn’t trying to snack on humanity. Vayl is also one of the most accomplished assassins in their field, and she’s plenty intimidated by him. But Jaz and Vayl’s partnership is brilliantly balanced, despite his being immortal and all super powered and undead. Technically, she is his bodyguard and is meant to protect him as an elite asset of the US government’s paranormal assassin team. But in their interaction, you rarely see her subjugating herself for his sake. His asskicking is neatly met by her asskicking, and never once is there an upset of power that allows the reader to think less of either character.

In the first book, Jaz and Vayl are sent to find a plastic surgeon in Miami with ties to a terrorist, find out what said surgeon knows and then kill him and go get the bad guy. Obviously, that’s not exactly what happens.

The plot is fiery. En fuego, in fact. The action is fast paced and relentless, and it took me more than a few days to read the last 30 pages because this is not a book you can skim. It’s literally nonstop, and because the book is narrated in the first person by Jaz (haters of first person, sorry to burst your bubble) you get her perspective of the action as it unfolds, as well as her own nervousness and slightly bitter, sardonic humor. There are times when her narration is too detailed, and I expect her to say, “And then I put my left foot down, and then my right, and then my left...” but when those same details are applied to a fight sequence, I have a sharp picture of the scene. The detailed narration that drags at some points is likely part of Jaz’s character - because she’s an assassin who spends much of her time under cover, she has to notice the fine points of every moment.

I’ve said elsewhere that series books that feature the same protagonist pair work well for me when each book contains an individual mystery or action plot that is solved at the end, and when there’s a smaller happy ending for the protagonists. Rardin must have heard me ranting because the spicy attraction between Jaz and Vayl is delicious. Both have issues and emotional trauma to overcome, and flaws to work through and grow through. The attraction between Vayl and Jaz is acknowledged equally, but is slow igrowing. He’s terribly into her but she tells him no repeatedly - and stands by her resistance to him because she is aware of what she needs emotionally. She’s recovering from personal loss, and she knows she needs time to repair herself. It’s not often you have a heroine saying, “No” to any increased intimacy and the hero and heroine both respecting that “No.” As a result, the slow build is delicious.

Vayl, aside from being a vampire, and hundreds of years old, and possessing of some ancient badass powers, yadda yadda yadda, is a Guy. He acts like a guy sometimes, despite his antiquated formality. He is boneheaded like a guy, occasionally jealous like a guy, and it’s refreshing to see a vampire with personality flaws. Usually they’re stone perfect and so damn dull with their perfection, like an overpriced armoire for sale with no nicks or scratches that’s allegedly 300 years old. Come on now, someone’s toddler scratched the side with a toy in the last hundred years. No way is something that’s so old supposedly so perfect. And yet so many vampire heroes are so freaking perfect it bugs the crap out of me. It’s almost as if there’s an assumption that after many hundreds of years of living one would have all the answers of how to handle any situation, that is, if the immortal person in question didn’t eschew society in general and go live in a cave like I would. I find it much more fascinating that Vayl, despite his power and age, is flawed and often acts like a petulant butthead. Moreover, Jaz calls him on his behavior.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy has a lot of story to build, and does so without collapsing under the weight of its own history. The plot has to follow the duo to Miami while also introducing the characters, explaining the origins of Jaz’s own mysterious abilities, and revealing Vayl’s history in small portions as well. Much to my delight, Rardin forces Vayl and Jaz into positions of increased intimacy under duress, and because it’s narrated by Jaz, she reveals slowly how she feels about Vayl, while she also observes Vayl, leaving the reader room to interpret Vayl’s actions in one way while Jaz explains them in another. Jaz is a master of taking in a potentially emotionally conflicting moment and convincing herself of an alternate meaning or dismissing her initial reaction in favor of a scenario she can handle. Witnessing her realization that she’s deliberately misreading Vayl is also delicious because her reaction is mixed with insecurity, hope, fear, and unwillingness to rock the not-entirely-tranquil boat of their partnership. Seriously, can you tell I really like Jaz? It’s rare that I dig a heroine this much.

As the series progresses, I have to wonder if Rardin has an endpoint in sight, or a goal towards which she’s working with Jaz and Vayl, because their attraction will eventually come to a point where they either act on it or don’t, but either way they face changing their partnership irrevocably. While I have my regular familiar fears about series books that feature the same protagonists building a bonfire of attraction toward one another, based on what I’ve read so far, I trust that Rardin has both hands steering the plot of the story, and if Jaz and Vayl’s relationship does change, it will be satisfying and ultimately for the better of both parties.

And if not, given the skill of her writing, I’ll enjoy it anyway. Because did I mention I like Jaz a LOT? Yeah. Kick ass.

Celia Fussell loses her father, and suffers through a gaudy, rainy funeral and through the venomous behavior of her sister-in-law, who is all too eager to see the spinster sister as marginalized in their household as possible.  But when her father’s will is read, it is revealed that Celia has inherited a castle in the Black Forest of Germany - AND that her brother’s estate is double-entailed so meanie sister in law can’t enjoy herself much. Nanner-nanner, you selfish wench. Of course, Cissy has a catch to deal with as well: she has to marry the son of her father’s friend, the man from whom her father bought the castle.

So off Cissy goes, all the way to Germany to go live in her castle. Because even being alone in a country by herself in a castle facing marriage to a stranger is better than being the spinster sister under the same roof as the new Baroness. When she meets her father’s friend and his wife, they’re lovely people, so there’s some safety and shelter, but the son in question, Fenris.... He’s a tortured gothic hero who wants nothing to do with her and is horrified to learn his family hasn’t owned the castle for years, despite the fact that Fenris has been living there in solitude, nursing a healthy and damn near heaping dose of misanthropy and a horrific war injury that left him without one of his legs. He lost his leg when he ran off to fight Napoleon before the German government thought that was a good idea, and as a result of his “treason,” his family had been stripped of their titles and status. Fenris blames himself for his family’s downfall and is crushed to learn that his father had to sell the castle secretly, and that they no longer own the home he’s been living in for years.

Fenris decides that he needs to get rid of Cissy so she’ll run home to England, and that’s where the best parts of New Skool Remixed Gothic Romance as interpreted by Schwab are shown off. Schwab has a great prose style, and a deft hand at blending humor and horror, mystery and mayhem. There’s a good number of layers to this story as well, which I can’t celebrate enough because nothing makes me happier than seeing an author creatively and innovatively turn an established subgenre upside down, then right side up, after inserting a few new concepts. I never appreciated Old Skool Gothic romance, but I appreciate this book and the new ways it looks at gothic romance.

I loved Cissy, because she was innocent and idealistic, but not at all stupid. Her father, a student of mythology, was her closest friend and mentor, and even in her grief she finds soothing peace in the stories and myths they’d read together. In some novels, the heroine is a student of something, or a devoted follower of a particular philosophy or intellectual movement - but over the course of the story the reader receives nothing in the way of instruction or information about that alleged interest of the heroine’s. It’s all lip service performed solely to make the heroine seem deeper than she is. (The modern corollary, of course, is the heroine who is supposedly excellent at her job yet during the course of the story reveals herself to be a complete and utter idiot at her profession).

Cissy is a student of mythology, myth, and folklore, and that fact is woven throughout her character, and throughout the story itself. Her knowledge of fairy tales is a consistent subtext to the plotline, and Cissy’s knowledge of languages both dead and living reveal that she’s no ninny. She’s freaking brilliant. And yet, because her passion is fairy tales and myths of love and happily-ever-after, Cissy is very innocent, and exceptionally fanciful. That unending optimism and pursuit of happiness for herself fits brilliantly into the darkness of the setting and of the mystery and horror of the plot, and it’s no mystery at all why Fenris is ultimately drawn to her. 

Moreover, the book takes place in an entirely new setting for me - in a forest in Germany, which is both fanciful, creepy, and a refreshing change from merry old England.

Schwab’s storytelling also has tight turns that drop the reader like a rollercoaster from merry heights of whimsical happiness for Cissy into plunges of holy shit terror and uncertain fear - which make it bloody hard to put the damn book down. The mix of nefarious characters, mystery, intrigue, and deep, churning sexual attraction don’t help either when you might be trying to get something else done.

My disappointment was slim - but to my mind there was not enough retribution for all evil betrayals, though the revenge taken on the primary villain is freaking creepy. Moreover, the plunges from prose to melodrama, particularly in the interludes between the chapters at times left me feeling as if the paranormal element to the story were being wedged in, almost as if it were an afterthought to the story.

However, when I picked this book up to flip through it again for this review, I found myself putting it BACK in my bag to read portions again, something that rarely, if ever, happens. Schwab’s use of multiple legends and fairy tales to parallel the protagonists’ story is particularly brilliant, and this is a book that I will certainly revisit again, as the innocence of the heroine and the dark brooding woundedness of the hero are enticing and inviting. Well played, Ms. Schwab, well played.