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

“What I really need is to get laid to calm the werewolf.”

Thanks for explaining that one, sir! How about another bit of awkward monologue to kick the story forward three paces? Please?

The greatest flaw that tripped me up as a reader - to the point where some of it was just comedy gold - was the dialogue, especially of the dialogue that Dean carries on with himself when he’s alone. Some of it is trite and not much like anything a human would say, shifter or otherwise. And sometimes the narration addresses the reader directly; other times it exists solidly between Sunday and Dean. Details and explanations are repeated, like the definition of “were” as part of “werewolf,” and there’s a lot of Dean thinking to himself, talking to himself, or otherwise remarking on matters at hand out loud when he’s alone.

The very cool part: when they start comparing notes on the differences in their shifting natures, and how different his experience is from hers. Their honesty is what brings them together in a short amount of time, trapped in a very small amount of space, but unlike contrived erotic situations where sex happens for really lame and flimsy reasons, the attraction between Sunday and Dean is built on both their human attractiveness, their animal senses, such as scent, and the revelations they share with each other regarding both of their hidden and dangerous identities. It is not an easy task to bring two people together under a time and space constraint such as those present in category romances. It’s even harder, I’d think, in a category short story. Hauf does an admirable job both building the tension, and building the connection between them at the same time - better, in fact, than some full-length novels I’ve read where one character Must Have Sex lest Bad Things Happen.

The first sex scene, as a result of Hauf’s deliberate effort to craft tension and attraction between them, is surprisingly risky and I’m impressed with the boundaries pushed in the very electric depiction. However, a subsequent sex scene contains the most unintentionally hilarious description of coitus I’ve read in a long time: (highlight to read) “Flesh to flesh, the rasp of her nipples grazing his skin alternated with the giddy hug of her around his erection.” Her vagina was all, like, ‘Wheeee! Hugs for you?!’ AWESOME. 

Hauf uses innovative means to sustain the sexual tension even after they’ve started spinning his lugnuts, delaying half of the pleasure and lengthening the eroticism for both the reader and the protagonists. There’s climax after climax, literally and narratively, and while the set up was a bit slow, like the oppressive air before a soaking storm, once Dean and Sunday get down to business in the flatbed of his truck (Yeah, baby!) I raced for the finish line of the story as fast as my thumb could hit the space bar. (That’s not a euphemism.)

The conclusion returns to the over-explaining dialogue to sum up how their relationship will work, sexually and emotionally, but still, I have to say, the entire interlude was satisfying. I read the whole story over my lunch hour, which was even more satisfying indeed. I can read a category in an evening, but an entire romance over lunch? Boo yah.

Wanna sample some biting short story romance action? The Nocturne: Bites line launches today, and I have five, count ‘em five coupon codes to give away. Just leave a comment, any comment, and I’ll use a random integer generator this evening to pick five happy users who will go off and enjoy their own bite of romance.

There are few words that make me sigh in happiness like the word “pastry.” So when I read the synopsis and was asked to review this book, I was all up in that pastry idea. While reading this book, I nearly gave up just past the halfway mark, because while I was entirely enamored of some of the characters, like Elisabeth’s brother Rascal, and her mother, Ballard Foster, who has the Best WASP Name Ever, and who has lovely core of strength that shows up when its needed, still wrapped in a white linen and navy blue napkin that’s perfectly folded, there was one problem.

Well, with Elisabeth, there were three problems:

1. I wanted to smack a bitch.
2. The book is told in first person.
3. Go To #1.

At several points, I started talking back to Elisabeth’s narration. “Bitch, you did not just do that.” “Dear Lord, woman, why are you such an asshole? No wait, I know why. Maybe you could both recognize that your family is 75% asshole AND then choose to NOT be an asshole? No?” “Oh, Bitch, you did not just do that.” It is alarmingly frustrating to read about someone who wants to change, says she should, and then doesn’t while commenting in that moment all the ways in which she should change, just act differently this one time.

Elisabeth fully recognizes that her family is profoundly dysfunctional, and how her role in life as a pastry chef is to cook the happiness for each of her customers and “envelop” them in it, and she recognizes that she, by virtue of being raised by a classy mother and a brash father, has a good bit of the Well Bred Asshole in her.

Problem is, she lets herself be an asshole way, way too long. Elisabeth’s story begins with an almost systematic description of all the ways in which her life is stagnant and her daily routine is largely determined by everyone around her. She has a journalist pseudo boyfriend cum fuckbuddy, Will, who stops in to stop in when he and Elisabeth find themselves in the same place. Will is a curious character; Palmer does a deft job of creating his vulnerabilities while still allowing him to demonstrate what a selfish buttmonkey he is as well. In the beginning, Elisabeth and Will are pretty much perfect for each other.

Then shit changes, as shit is wont to do. Elisabeth has an opportunity land in her lap that sends her career into a direction that her father would and does violently protest: television. (It’s evil, you know. Four out of five dentists don’t let their kids watch tv. Or eat pastry.) She watches her brother struggle to play his own FU Card with their mercurial egomaniac of a father. Both the Page children have opportunities come to them purely based on their father’s fame. But what both characters learn is that while the opportunity might have shown up for that reason, their independent and individual success is largely due to their own brilliance.

And that brilliance, on Elisabeth’s part, leads her to meet Daniel Sullivan, a very nice midwestern boy who coaches basketball at UCLA, who bids on a cooking lesson with Elisabeth as part of her mother’s latest charity event - a scene that’s toe-curlingly awkward for Elisabeth but does a laudable job of establishing the imbalance of her character between acting like an asshole and wishing she were nicer - and who is utterly enthralled by Elisabeth, not by her last name, not by her job, not by her wealth or her own relative fame. He likes her, and she realizes the difference between being liked and being used. I wish, though, that Daniel had been more developed as a character. As underdone as he was, he seemed like a catalyst for Elisabeth than a choice on her part. And there is a moment when Elisabeth is so unbelievably horrid to Daniel’s mother that it took a good hour away from the book for me to calm down.

The best part about the book? The writing. Hands down, even with a character who bugged the ever living goddam shit out of me, Palmer is an adept master at the phrase that makes one snort and nod - nod because she’s right about what she’s describing, and snort because she skewers it perfectly. The very best and poignant line of the book comes at the end, when Elisabeth realizes the full ramifications of that fact that ultimately, she has to play her FU card to her own self.

Palmer’s writing is what made the book better than the character in it, a character who so irritated me it was hard to root for her sometimes. While I can’t say I loved this book, I’d happily read another book written by Liza Palmer.

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells, or rented from Paperspine.

Gull is a young girl born of rape, whose mother was taken in the sack of Wilusa, the Hittite word for Troy. After an accident that hobbles her leg, Gull is chosen to be an acolyte to the Lady of the Dead, and she sees visions of future events, starting with an omen of black ships. The black ships arrive, carrying the remnants of her lost home after yet another sack of Wilusa, and she sails away with them, even though doing so violates many of the rules of being the Dead’s handmaiden. Gull walks between knowing what the future will look like and not knowing when it’ll show up, and not knowing at all what will happen to her or to the tiny portion of Wilusa that travels with her.

The beginning of the story is demanding. It demands your attention and your time, and it demands that you not put the book down because something is always about to happen within the first few chapters, to the point where reading becomes an exercise in apprehension. In addition, the visual imagery used in the opening scenes is bleak - white paints, black cloaks, white stones, black ships - and belies the complexity and nuances of the story ahead of it.

And the story....

If you are disturbed by discussions of war, by depictions of battle, death, and the harm of children or the rape of women, I would caution you about reading this book. I’m immensely disturbed by these things, and I have to remind myself that I’m still “post partum” with hormones and hair loss to match (oh, my freaking God, the hair loss) and I need to be cautious when I pick up material like this.

That said, this book was important to read right now, not only because it’s haunting and vivid, but it raises questions about war, about the wars that are being fought right now, and about defining countries and societies, and about how we treat prisoners of war and the widows and fatherless children left behind after battle. This story is based on the Aeneid, so fans of that particular time in history will be happy as clams in mud, but because it’s about war and the loss and recovery of peace, it also matters as a reflection of current times.

Moreover, while the writing is often elementary in tone and the heroine didn’t grow so much as grow older, the imagery and the characters - particularly the men, Neas, Xandros, Kos, and Hyl - are marvelously crafted and vividly entertaining. The flaws and distance in Gull, who is held apart from the group both by her vocation as an Oracle and her role as observer, not quite a member of the group and too important to be left behind, lessened my attachment to her, but through her observations I deeply appreciated the other characters.

Gull was my biggest problem with the book, which is difficult because she’s the narrator. She’s a reliable narrator in that she’s not given to deluding herself, but I found myself losing patience with her, and with the story. Gull’s role as avatar for the Lady of the Dead means that she’s an oracle, and as such she’s telling the reader the story as she’s telling the other characters pieces of stories. It wasn’t until the last third that Gull took actions on her own that weren’t at the direction of the Lady, and I wished I’d seen more of the contrast between her own life and that of her office as the Lady’s oracle. I thought sometimes she was merely a window through which to view the story just as she was a voice for the Lady of the Dead, and with my experience with other books of historical fiction, I wanted to connect more with her than I could.

Deciding how to grade this book was a challenge, and I almost didn’t review it because it didn’t fit in the existing rubric of romance novel grades assigned in years prior. However, the book held my attention and even when it hurt to read I kept going, through images that twisted my heart and made me shudder. This story leaves an aftermath in the reader.

Graham tackles some huge subjects in this book, such as peace and war, as I’ve mentioned, and what happens when children become parents but still must answer to their own parents, or, as in the case of Neas, be a parent to a society while still growing up and having to grow up quickly. Graham’s writing style is spare - at times I felt like I was reading a novel meant for an elementary reading level for the simplicity of the dialogue - but the imagery left behind after the words is bleak, and meaningful. This book will definitely leave an impression. And it will make you appreciate peace when you have it, and hold it all the tighter for its fragility.

One of the two major conflicts to be resolved in the larger story arc is a love triangle, and I am not rooting for Sebastian. He has more screen time in this book, and perhaps because I’m rooting for a different character pairing, I didn’t enjoy or become more sympathetic to Sebastian as a result of this book. And I’ve been navel gazing about why it is that the fact that *my* choice didn’t get enough face time makes me both disappointed with the present book while simultaneously eagerly awaiting the next because in my opinion? OMG MAX ANGST = HOT HOT HOT. WANT MORE MAX PLS KTHXBYE.

In this book, Sebastian has to settle one of his major conflicts - his loyalty to his powerful vampire grandfather vs. his desire for Victoria - and has to reveal the true nature of his character. By the end of the novel he is only slightly less ambiguous than it has been in previous novels, but still a large and knobby mystery to Victoria, and to me as a reader. 

The scenes between them read to me as if they were more carnal, and not so much emotional, which of course gives me real hope for Max, because I’m a pleated-skirt skimpy-top color-coordinated-scrunchie-wearing cheerleader for Team Pesaro. Rah rah rah. But then, I have to ask whether my preference for Max could have colored my perceptions of the scenes with Sebastian, and if any reader who hopes Victoria ends up with Sebastian could have reveled in their hot attraction and erotic chemistry.

In any triangle-based conflict, I have a fear that the author will invent a shallow reason to tarnish the nobility and worth of one of the characters so the other becomes an obvious choice. I don’t think that Gleason will pull such a shabby trick; my big fear now is that I’ll feel genuinely bad for the character Victoria doesn’t choose because the three of them, Max, Victoria and Sebastian, are layered, flawed, and fascinating characters individually. The three of them playing off one another is more than a little sparky as well.

Further, Gleason definitely has her eye on the larger story arc, the development of the Big Bad that will likely return to face Victoria and the other Venators, and the development of Victoria into a female leader who hopes to equal the legacy of her grandmother’s time as Illa Gardella. While this installment didn’t leave me breathless and edgy as the previous two books did, The Bleeding Dusk did cover my curiosity with accelerant and light a big ass match.