by SB Sarah • Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 08:37 AM
Our Grade:
Title: Gold Plated Garbage Truck
Author: T.C. Allen
Publication Info: Chippewa Publishing LLC/Lady Aibell Press August 2006, ISBN: 1-933400-58-7
Genre: Erotica/Romantica
I paid $5 to read this book on my Blackberry, and took two Tylenol for the headache I got from reading on the tiny screen, and two more this morning for residual agony. I’m thinking that I might need some kind of counseling to recover from the utter badness that is this book, and that’s roughly, what, $80-100 an hour?
This was a very expensive mistake indeed, but when the Bitchery clamors for a review, I try to step up.
Even Hubby said, “You’re seriously reading that?”
I exacted revenge for his doubt by reading portions aloud, prompting the following responses:
“Oh, my God.”
“Please, please stop.”
If I had to describe this book in two words, those words would be: complete bonerdeath. This book will suck the sexy out of any known being, and leave any libido in the tri-state area dry and gasping. This book is the real reasons all those erotica novel vaginas are weeping.
It’s so awful I can’t even finish it. I already need some kind of mental restoration for having introduced the story into my head. If only I could return my brain to ‘last known good’ configuration, because my memory at present contains the following details:
Wilbur and Homer are best friends. Wilbur drives a garbage truck in Humper County, Oklahoma, and dreams of driving a gold-plated garbage truck while wearing a white Stetson and a red bandanna and some clothing of some sort. He prefers to drive said truck while high or drunk or both, and shoot the reflectors off the road signs and pepper the anatomy of billboard models with bulletholes from his handgun. At the start of our story, he runs out of bullets and goes home to find Homer boinking Wilbur’s wife, Emily.
Emily, it should be noted, is referred to repeatedly and I assume ironically as innocent, sweet, delicate and pure by Wilbur, the narrator, despite the numerous times he comes home to find her naked with some dude sneaking out the trailer door.
Homer takes off running because he thinks Wilbur’s gun is loaded and aimed at his ass, leaving Emily naked on the floor to explain what was going on. It certainly was what it looked like so at least she didn’t attempt a lame defense.
Instead, she attacks Wilbur’s manhood, tells him he doesn’t sexually satisfy her, and furthermore, she’s right pissed at him for not shooting Homer when they were both caught bareassed on the floor: “I’ll tell you what the matter is. You come waltzing in here with your truck pistol in your hand and catch me bare ass naked with another man and you don’t shoot him? I mean, even if he is your best friend, you should of shot him, at least once, somewhere.”
You can read more of the first chapter here. Bring painkiller. Or vascodilators. Or both.
Mixed in with the decidedly un-erotic content is a plot that somehow details how Wilbur, Emily, and Homer become country music stars by playing in a bar, which upsets poor Wilbur because he’s neglecting his trash collection duties. Emily gives birth to a baby that looks like neither Homer nor Wilbur, and they start calling themselves co-husbands since both of them like to boink Emily. Connie, Homer’s ex, is in there somewhere, too. And there are other ancillary characters, like some religious nutjobs who want to shut their act down. And here I am, siding with the religious right - these characters should be stopped.
Now, I’m fully willing to take a good number of romance and erotica plots with a great heavy grain of salt, most notably those that mix camp and sex for really off-the-wall erotica. And when reading erotica, I am also fully willing to read through scenes that don’t do it for me personally, but may engage some fantasies of other readers, such as watching a spouse do the carpet burn-and-roll with someone else, or catching someone in the act of poopchute lovin’ in a cop car. Whatever. People get their jollies from all manner of sexual content, and most of the time, I’m not judgmental about varying sexual proclivities.
However, this story isn’t erotic. It’s not even sexy. It’s just bad. Despite being categorized as “erotica,” with warnings that the content of the eBook is meant for mature audiences there’s really no erotic content. It’s just… lame. Lame lame lame. There was plenty of room for mixed-partner sex scenes, but Allen describes the sexual interaction in one sentence. There’s no description. At one point, Wilbur decides that he likes what-what-in-the-butt with Homer’s ex-wife Connie, so he grabs some butter, slaps her on the butt with it, and engages in some back door lovin’ on the hood of a car. This is described in fifteen to twenty words, tops. My description here? Longer than the actual scene. Allen has the same problem Wilbur has: “crawl on, stick it in and shoot it off.” This is the first erotica novel I’ve read that has its own case of sexual dysfunction.
Another example of potential erotic content that suffered total melting of the man cannon: during a brawl, Connie gets hurt on her breast, which she shows to the two arresting officers who report to the scene. Medical attention is needed - from both officers! In the squad car! And Connie decides to engage the car’s radio so the boinka-boink in her badonkadonk is broadcast to every listening officer AND every person tuned into the police scanner. It’s like the cop-car-in-the-woods version of having the pool boy visit the cabana. Imagine the sexual comedic potential of writing a scene like that.
What happens?
Connie goes off to the squad car, comes back a few minutes later, and tells Wilbur she turned the CB radio on before they got busy. That’s it. That’s all the reader gets. There’s no show, no tell, and really, no damn point to the whole thing. How is this erotica? It’s not. It’s merely rot.
In the hands of a writer who could craft a sensual or even a raunchy sex scene, the rural ramblings of Wilbur (the story is told in first person, heavy on the rural vernacular) could have resulted in something spicy and sexy, if not at least entertaining. The story itself could have been an erotic romp between bizarre characters, or a journey toward ignominious stardom, or even a lot of backdoor buttered sex, but the plot deflated every time it got close to being something other than tawdry, lame, and altogether stupid.
In short: this book is instant, complete, and total bonerdeath. Stay far, far away.
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Categories: Reviews by Author, A-C •
Reviews by Grade: F •
The Dump
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by Candy • Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 02:17 PM
Our Grade:
Title: Red Hawk's Woman
Author: Karen Kay
Publication Info: Berkley Sensation 2007, ISBN: 0425216039
Genre: Historical: American
To entertain myself while reading this book--because God knows this book was not entertaining, or at least, not intentionally so--I found myself imagining what it’d be like if the various elements of Red Hawk’s Woman were represented by interpetive dancers. I saw it going something like this:
Dramatis Personae:
THE BOOK, represented by a person clad in a dollar-store Indian costume
THE PLOT, represented by a half-baked cake the size of a wading pool
GRAMMAR, represented by a man in a suit
DIALOGUE, represented by a giant ball of twine
MALAPROPISMS, represented by a woman wearing a bright pink spandex leotard covered in sequins and gold puffy paint
Scene:
A darkened stage, with a badly-painted backdrop of mountains and scrub. To the right of the stage is a big tub full of THE PLOT; off to the side is DIALOGUE, an end dangling seductively loose.
THE BOOK leaps out onto the darkened stage, spotlight trained solidly on it. It lets out a loud cry of anguish as it lands badly and breaks its ankle. This, however, does not prevent it from hobbling back on its feet; soon, it is twirling madly, if erratically. Its thrashings inevitably bring it up against GRAMMAR, whom THE BOOK proceeds to grope and molest in the most unseemly manner. MALAPROPISM sees this, and not one to be left out, comes up behind GRAMMAR, bashes him on the head, does the Hustle on his unconscious body and ties him up using some of the twine of DIALOGUE. She then grabs THE BOOK and makes out thoroughly with him. The two of them, lips still firmly locked, proceed to dance again, slowly at first, then going faster and faster, entangling themselves in DIALOGUE in the process, until they trip and fall over the body of GRAMMAR and straight into THE PLOT, where THE BOOK and MALAPROPISMS proceed to swim about, occasionally spuming like whales.
...what, you want an actual summary? And maybe some analysis? What the fuck? You think this is some kind of review site or something?
Bah. Fine. You win. Here’s the review proper:
The book kicks off with an old archaeologist geezer handing off a quartz artifact to a not-so-old archaeologist colleague and telling him that the quartz artifacts are actually the Sweet Savage Thunderer’s children, and that after you collect all four--GOTTA COLLECT THEM ALL, like prehistoric Pokemon--and give them to a living member of the Lost Tribe of Indians, it’ll end their curse.
Curse? What curse? Ah, see, ages and ages ago, a tribe of Indians killed the children of a supernatural being known as the Thunderer. Thunder dude’s pissed, so he kills a buncha tribe members in retaliation, and then curses the rest of them to live in everlasting fog. The Creator, however, takes pity on the schmucks and gives them a chance to redeem themselves: every generation (which, according to the book, is about 50 years--goddamn, that’s a big generation), champions are picked from the teenage boys of the unimaginatively-monickered Lost Tribe to head out into the world to save the tribe’s infanticidal asses. Something about forgiving enemies. Forgive my vagueness and my eagerness to get this over with, because I think my brain started melting down around page 5 of this book, and the damage proceeded apace with every excruciating paragraph.
After telling this story in one long, atrocious infodump, the old geezer, he bites it, and we move on to the plotline proper. So, years later, Not-so-old archaeologist geezer dude is excavating a site in Montana with his family in tow, including his beautiful, precocious pre-pubescent red-haired daughter named Effie.
What? Come on. It’s an Indian romance. Of COURSE the heroine is going to be white, and of COURSE she’s going to have red hair. The slightly rebellious may write a blonde heroine, and the really, really crazy might have a brunette or even a half-breed heroine, but I’m pretty sure that if you try to go beyond the bounds and write a historical romance between, say, two Native American characters or (SHOCK! HORROR!) a black person and a Native American, the Indian Romance Mob will send Tony out to break your kneecaps (or possibly to throw you into the trunk of his Caddy) and remind you of your place.
Aaaanyway. So Effie overhears her father talking about these mysterious quartz figures, and this is yet MORE infodumping and set-up, because Meanwhile, In a Parallel Dimension, One Infinitely Foggier Than Ours…
...a kid named Red Hawk is picked to be the Lost Tribe’s champion when all the other boys are unavailable for one damn reason or another. And he somehow wanders into Our Dimension, and stumbles across Effie taking a swim, and there’s some hilarious and utterly brain-damaged musing on Red Hawk’s part over whether Effie is some sort of magical sea creature because he can’t see her legs (she’s wearing pantaloons and she’s up to her waist in water, ya dipshit) and also some stumbling over OMG Effie is half-naked, but of course she has nothing to be ashamed of, she’s a child and of course so’s Red Hawk (and really, did that have to be noted in any way, shape or form?), and they frolic together like children do, and lo, it was magical, and they exchange little tchotchkes at the end of their frolic, and then before they part, little Effie says--I shit you not:
“I don’t know why I should say this to you,” she said, “for I know that you cannot understand me--and perhaps that is why I feel I must say this--but I think I have fallen in love with you.”
OK, Christ, hurrying on with the plot now, because summarizing this is seriously starting to sap my will to live...so yadda yadda yadda, years pass, Effie becomes a budding young archaeologist in her own right and is tasked with heading an expedition to find the rest of the figurines, and along the way some very literal Dei ex Machinae (Dei ex Aqua, actually), show up and push Red Hawk in the right direction so he becomes her guide, and they instantly fall in love, and some bad guys try to foil them (you know who they are instantly because they’re the people who inspire doubt in Red Hawk), more bla bla bla, the quartz figurines are eventually found via the machinations of even more gods and spirit guides (is that a spoiler? Do I even care?), and voila, Sweet Savage Thunderer has his kidlings back, the social ramifications of Effie marrying Red Hawk are not so much glossed over as packed, struggling, into a gunny sack then drowned like unwanted kittens, and ba-bam, Happily Ever After.
If I could pick one major thing from the embarrassment of riches that is raised by the question “So what’s wrong with this book, really?” it’d have to be how it manages to make the wrong step at just about every turn. It is quite uncanny. To start with, it uses malapropisms with unparalleled panache; besides the old man’s shaking subsisting, Effie goes to have a tête-a-tête with the river. But that’s not the worst of it. Worse than the malapropisms is the way the book is facile in all the wrong places (the relationship between Effie and Red Hawk and its ramifications; the motivation for the villain; the sufferings undergone by the Lost Tribe; the deep-seated anger Red Hawk feels towards the Thunder God for slaying his parents--I could go on) and convoluted in places where simplicity would’ve served (the weird explanations offered as to what archaeology is--is this book aimed at first-graders? COME ON; inexplicable character touches like Red Hawk’s klutziness; dragging in the extraneous gods into the plot).
And to add insult to injury, things happen in strange, disconnected fits and starts. The characters will be puttering along, and OH LOOK, the villain sub-plot will meander its way into the narrative, only to drift away again; and look, Effie’s feeling doubts about playing Bury the Meat Hatchet with Red Hawk, except not really, la dee da; and OOOH hey, we’re supposed to look for artifacts, that’s right, let’s give some half-assed details about an archaeological dig, hur dee hur; ooh, lookit, Red Hawk’s communing with the earth, isn’t that speshul? Etc.
So yeah. This book is terrible. So very, very awful on just about every level. I started dog-earing pages every time I encountered something egregiously, horribly bad, and I kid you not, about 3/4 of the pages are dog-eared. The poor book can barely stay shut. But you know what?
Still not as bad as cassie Edwards. There’s a line, you see, the Edwards line; other books may approach that asymptote, but none may touch it. There’s no mathematical function that would allow any book to cross the Edwards Line. Which is why I had to create a whole new grade category for this book, i.e., F+. To give it a D- implied that it still kind of sort of maybe passed, but it doesn’t. It fails. On just about every level, it fails. It just doesn’t fail on quite the same catastrophically painful level as an Edwards novel does, largely because this book, while not exactly elegantly-written--or even, y’know, coherent--doesn’t quite feature Edwards’ trademark random ellipses and exclamation points, and really, those are what push the excruciating experience of poor prose that one critical half-notch to “completely unbearable.”
And if there’s one good thing I can say about this book, that would be it. It’s horrible, but it’s still no Cassie Edwards. Damn with faint praise, indeed.
by SB Sarah • Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 07:29 AM
Our Grade:
Title: Savage Moon
Author: Cassie Edwards
Publication Info: Dorchester 2002, ISBN: 0843949635
Genre: Historical: Other
Browser compatibility issues? GROWL!
Below is the text from the review of Cassie Edwards’ Savage Moon, with the comments in italics and not Javascript-enabled. So if you can’t read the entry with the Java comments, please enjoy below.
“Misshi, you are in such deep thought. What were you thinking about, little sister, that made you smile so sweetly?”
No way dude. Do not ask what her thoughts were. I cannot handle an incest subplot. It’s only page 6.
“You, big brother, you.”
She reached over and placed a hand on his knee.
“Maybe I’d best not ask what your thoughts were, but you were smiling, weren’t you?”
For the record: I was not smiling
“It tears at my heart to know that such a man has my sister.” He would hunt down Chief Bear and kill the savage himself. If… she...was still alive!
Note: ellipses are for em...pha...sis....
...
“Son, your tepee awaits you. Foods that you kill will cook over the flames of the fires. I have taught you not only how to be a strong leader with the right morals, but I have also taken the time to teach you the art of cooking, since you and your braves will not have mothers, or daughters, or even cousins to cook for you.”
Heaven forbid he not have the right morals, or that the reader not be informed of them through wooden dialogue! And clearly his mother’s other Indian name: JuliaFuckingChild.
When she saw the lifeless body...she knew the one lying there was her husband. Signing with relief, for she did love the man no matter the havoc he wreaked everywhere he went, she fell to her knees.
Of course she loves him. He kills people in fits of rage and she has had to send her only child away for his own safety. How can you not love a man like that?
He was devoted to his small group.... And with a woman by his side, giving him the nourishment of her love, could he not be twice the leader he was said to be today?
Sounds like Soaring Hawk is really just tired of cooking for himself.
My heart is heavy. I cannot put everyone in danger only because the boy in me wants to go to my mother.
What a weenus
...
Misshi signed happily. She had adapted well to life with these kind Shoshone. She had even dyed her hair black with the stalks of a root called we-sha-sha so that she could look like an Indian. She was so very fond of her life as an Indian maiden that she was averse to the idea of going back to live in the white world.
Looking for the backstory of how she adapted to this new life? This is all you get
“It seems that fate today has arranged that you and my adopted daughter should finally meet. Perhaps it is the will of the spirits. I am not one to argue with fate.”
Fate, huh? Chief Stepfather clearly studied his Greek and Roman mythology in Indian chief school.
...
“My son is too astute to take such bait.... He is a man who prays and whose prayers are answered. In his prayers he sees his mother well and strong.”
Part of those morals she taught, huh? Christian rhetoric towards prayer? In my prayers I see myself with no recollection that this book exists.
...
He had to see to Chief Bear’s demise. Of late he had discovered he had a talent for singing. He couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to perform before an audience in St. Louis’s beautiful opera house.
See? I was not kidding. Opera + Lisp = Subtle reference to gayness and therefore teh evil.
...
He was sure she had feelings for him, and that knowledge made his loins ache with need of her. He wanted her with him always!
When a man you have never met before realizes his loins ache with need of you...now THAT is Impulse. Or VD.
“Soaring Hawk, is it not time for your blankets to be warmed by a woman’s body? Does not Misshi stir your loins?”
That would be her stepfather talking. At this scene I crossed my legs and felt ill.
She gasped, embarrassed by Washakie’s openness in speaking about Soaring Hawk’s loins!
I did not want to know about his loins, either, but no one asked me.
But nearby, glittering evil green eyes watched them from high above, soon to make a beautiful moon become suddenly...savage.
Did you miss that? The moon is...savage? Like the title of the book? Yeah? You got that? Ok then.
Because life was harsh here in Wyoming land.
It is pretty fucking awful here in Jersey land because I am still reading this goddam piece of shite book.
...
“Do you truly think I can learn how to ride a horse again?”
“You will ride, you will feel the freedom of riding, and you will feel the joy it brings to your heart.”
Yeah. Subtle, there, Mr. Hawk. Also, would the concept of a heart properly belong in Shoshone vernacular?
“When I wish to be alone with my prayers, I come to this secret place. One day, though, it will be discovered by whites.”
‘You mean like the one next to you? You want to offend the girl who stirs your loins?
“It is so beautiful,” Misshi sighed.
Never mind. She is too stupid to be offended.
A blaze of urgency filled her as his tongue continued to pleasure her in a way she would have thought forbidden. But the wild exuberant passion it created within her made her uncaring of society’s rules.
What society? Does Native American society forbid oral sex? Or was she thinking of Regency society?
“Nei-com-man-pe-ein, I love you, woman,” Soaring Hawk said huskily, then crushed her lips with a heated kiss and ground his body into hers until they both moaned.
Probably because it hurt. Ow.
...
“Those responsible for this kill might be close enough to grab you.”
“Then go and I will go with you; I shall keep my eyes closed.”
Can I keep my eyes closed, too? For the rest of the book?
...
He knew that this night would not pass without their coming together as lovers!
Chiefs who speak in exclamation points are probably lousy in bed, though.
In Shoshone and Bannock the North Star is called Wa-se-a-ure-chah-pe, and then there is Ursa Major which his also called the Seven Stars and The Wagon. It makes its revolution around the polar star, pointing toward it. This is the secret of how my people travel by night when there is no moon.”
Time to show off a small amount of research!’
“I love the Milky Way.” I love how it is called moch-pa-achon-ka-hoo, the backbone of the sky.”
This is one hell of a Wiki article she read.
“We also believe the Aurora Borealis is a cloud of fire.”
At least, we believe it because the internet says we do.
Nothing had stopped Chief Bear’s hate until that bullet entered the base of his skull and rendered him almost a vegetable.
Yes. Native Americans totally used that phrase to describe catatonic people.
Misshi turned toward White Snow Feather. She tried to ignore the resentment in the depths of the woman’s eyes.
“White Snow Feather, I can never forget what Chief Bear did to my family, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive him, but if Soaring Hawk can bargain for his release, I will not interfere.”
Just that quickly, the antagonism White Snow Feather had felt for Misshi was gone.
You mean your conflict with your mother in law is not solved this easily?’
His father wasn’t even aware when Soaring Hawk could no longer hold back his tears and took Chief Bear into his arms. “Oh, Father, is it I. It is Soaring Hawk who has come to take you home to Mother.”
What a weenus.
...
“This is our special night. My woman, I have not even played my flute of love for you.”
NO NO NO. DO NOT PLAY YOUR FLUTE OF LOVE.
He was proud of her knowledge of the Shoshone way of healing. She knew so much, no Shaman was required to ensure Soaring Hawk’s health.
She is a regular powerhouse of healing, yet she is dumb as tree bark.
“See the dried material on the very tips of the sharpened stone arrowhead?” Soaring Hawk said, pointing toward it. “The points of these arrowheads have been dipped into a mixture of pulverized ants and the spleen of an animal that has been allowed to decay in the direct rays of the sun,” Soaring Hawk said grimly. “This rotten mixture combined with rattlesnake venom is the deadliest of weapons.”
Hey! It is CSI: Shoshone!
Misshi fell to her knees. “Finding these scalps and these arrows proves that my brother has been killing whites and making it look like the work of Indians.”
Or merely that he likes to kill people and keep souvenirs under his floorboards. Nice aroma. Hides the crazy person smell.
...
“During council, I had a premonition you weren’t safe.”
Nah. Really they were about to form a task force and he ran out of there before they appointed him to it.
“Big brother, who was the true savage! You were, Dale, you were.”
Yeah. You were. In case you missed all the scalping earlier, gentle reader. In ironic twist: white brother = savage.
“These flowers will help erase the ugliness I just went through.”
Where are my fucking flowers that can erase the ugliness I went through!? SOMEONE GET THOSE HEALING MEMORY ERASING FLOWERS ON THE PORCH - STAT!
by SB Sarah • Saturday, June 09, 2007 at 07:00 PM
Our Grade:
Title: Savage Moon
Author: Cassie Edwards
Publication Info: Dorchester 2002, ISBN: 0843949635
Genre: Historical: Other
It’s awful. it’s just awful.
Does that sum it up enough? No? You want me to relive the story details for you, to put my brain through the egg beater one more time? I’m already mour stupidur for having read this stinker of a book. But fine.
About two or three weeks ago, anonymous packages started showing up on my porch every few days. Inside each one was a Cassie Edwards novel. Due to this absurdly generous person, I am now the proud owner of Savage Moon, Savage Hope and a few other savage titles that I’m not even going to get up out of this chair to go verify. There are five Savages currently living in my bookshelf. I have them isolated. No telling what contagion they might pass on to the other books.
I mentioned the arrival of these packages of poop in book form to Candy, who, if it were possible to do so over IM, snickered and professed innocence to any idea that Cassie Edwards might need to find a home on my poor bookshelf. Despite the fact that each book bears a sales tag from Powell’s, which last I checked was in OREGON, the same state as presently houses CANDY (and also LILITH so do not THINK you are off the hook, ma’am), I have no concrete proof as to who set me up the bomb.
Then Candy, evil wench that she is, publicly challenged me to a duel of sorts: read a horrid book, write a review. I, of course, was conveniently gifted with a shit buffet of Edwards oeuvre, so why shouldn’t I put myself through the agony of reading one of these savage monstrosities?
Trouble was, I had to pick one. So I picked Savage Moon since the title was funny enough that perhaps laughing at it could give me a small soothing balm of comfort while I poisoned my brain. Alas, the Moon did little to help me. Thus book sucked donkey balls. There isn’t an F low enough to throw at it. I might have to modify our grading schedule and give it a Z except that the poor letter Z did nothing to deserve being permanently stuck on a Cassie Edwards novel.
Let me give you a brief plot summary: Misshi Bradley, who is really named Mitzi but her older brother has a monster of a lisp and can’t say her name so Misshi she is, thereby damning me to think of Misha Baryshnikov, is on a wagon at age 10 heading west. Her parents are dead, her siblings are dead, and the only family member left is her older brother, Dale. As expected, their wagon train is attacked by a renegade band of Shoshone Indians, lead by Chief Bear, who grabs Misshi with her wild red hair, throws her over his saddle, and rides away. Dale manages to get off one shot, which lodges in Chief Bear’s head, completely scrambling his brains, though he does manage to hold onto a squirming 10 year old tossed across his saddle.
Misshi is brought to Chief Bear’s camp but makes her escape in the fuss the others make over Chief Bear’s incapacitated state. Moments before Chief Bear and his comatose self are brought into the camp, however, Chief Bear’s wife helps their only son, Soaring Hawk, escape to form a camp of his own, because he does not approve of his fathers renegade ways. Trust me, he doesn’t approve. He says it about six time in one page.
Ten years later, when Misshi is conveniently 18 years of age, the book reveals that she’s been miraculously adopted by a neighboring Shoshone tribe and made the adopted daughter of the chief. How this was accomplished, no one knows, least of all me because the book didn’t tell me, but Misshi is a happy, dimwitted dipshit of a heroine in the Edwards mold, and has dyed her hair black with some random but powerful weed so she can blend in better with the other Shoshone.
Her adopted father turns out to be something of a mentor to Soaring Hawk, who is now a chief in his own right, and his little band of not-so-renegade-but-yet-renegade dudes has grown and remained safe and happy in their secret location. Soaring Hawk meets Misshi, their respective nether parts burst in to flame, and the obstacles they have to overcome to find their happy ending revolve around the fact that she’s white with red hair. Misshi realizes her appearance as a Shoshone is only skin deep, and she must struggle to find emotional and cultural balance between her old life, her yearning to be reunited with her brother, and her new potential life as a chief’s white wife, even IF the other members of his group accept her.
HA! I’m kidding. Honest appraisal of cultural difference? You are barking up the wrong shit tree. Not here, my friend. The obstacles facing Misshi and Soarking Hawk’s happiness stem from her brother Dale’s having gone batshit crazy while serving in the military. Vowing revenge for the kidnapping of his sister, he dresses as an Indian and attacks Indian camps and wagon trains, scalping and killing everyone in site, and saving the scalps as tribute to his lost sister. As soon as he finds Chief Bear, whom he doesn’t know has had his chiefly brains turned into a cerebral scramble, he plans on quitting his life of bloody crime and going off to St. Louis to be an opera singer.
No really. I’m not making that up.
Since I had to go through the experience of not only reading this tripe but reading it PUBLIC where people on the bus could SEE that I was reading this tripe, I figured, what better way to share my journey through the Cassie circle of hell than to excerpt my very favorite parts of the book and footnote them with my reaction. Hold your mouse over the hypertext and a small window should appear. Let me know if it doesn’t work in your browser.
Journey with me now. But take some Pepto first.
"Misshi, you are in such deep thought. What were you thinking about, little sister, that made you smile so sweetly?"
"You, big brother, you."
She reached over and placed a hand on his knee.
"Maybe I'd best not ask
what your thoughts were, but you were smiling, weren't
you?"
"It tears at my heart to know that such a man has my sister." He would hunt down Chief Bear and kill the savage himself. If... she...was still alive!
...
"Son, your tepee awaits you. Foods that you kill will cook over the flames of the fires. I have taught you not only how to be a strong leader with the right morals, but I have also taken the time to teach you the art of cooking, since you and your braves will not have mothers, or daughters, or even cousins to cook for you."
When she saw the lifeless body...she knew the one lying there was her husband. Signing with relief, for she did love the man no matter the havoc he wreaked everywhere he went, she fell to her knees.
He was devoted to his small group.... And with a woman by his side, giving him the nourishment of her love, could he not be twice the leader he was said to be today?
My heart is heavy. I cannot put everyone in danger only because the boy in me wants to go to my mother.
...
Misshi signed happily. She had adapted well to life with these kind Shoshone. She had even dyed her hair black with the stalks of a root called we-sha-sha so that she could look like an Indian. She was so very fond of her life as an Indian maiden that she was averse to the idea of going back to live in the white world.
"It seems that fate today has arranged that you and my adopted daughter should finally meet. Perhaps it is the will of the spirits. I am not one to argue with fate."
...
"My son is too astute to take such bait.... He is a man who prays and whose prayers are answered. In his prayers he sees his mother well and strong."
...
He had to see to Chief Bear's demise. Of late he had discovered he had a talent for singing. He couldn't help wondering how it would feel to perform before an audience in St. Louis's beautiful opera house.
...
He was sure she had feelings for him, and that knowledge made his loins ache with need of her. He wanted her with him always!
"Soaring Hawk, is it not time for your blankets to be warmed by a woman's body? Does not Misshi stir your loins?"
She gasped, embarrassed by Washakie's openness in speaking about Soaring Hawk's loins!
But nearby, glittering evil green eyes watched them from high above, soon to make a beautiful moon become suddenly...savage.
Because life was harsh here in Wyoming land.
...
"Do you truly think I can learn how to ride a horse again?"
"You will ride, you will feel the freedom of riding, and you will feel the joy it brings to your heart."
"When I wish to be alone with my prayers, I come to this secret place. One day, though, it will be discovered by whites."
"It is so beautiful," Misshi sighed.
A blaze of urgency filled her as his tongue continued to pleasure her in a way she would have thought forbidden. But the wild exuberant passion it created within her made her uncaring of society's rules.
"Nei-com-man-pe-ein, I love you, woman," Soaring Hawk said huskily, then crushed her lips with a heated kiss and ground his body into hers until they both moaned.
...
"Those responsible for this kill might be close enough to grab you."
"Then go and I will go with you; I shall keep my eyes closed."
...
He knew that this night would not pass without their coming together as lovers!
In Shoshone and Bannock the North Star is called Wa-se-a-ure-chah-pe, and then there is Ursa Major which his also called the Seven Stars and The Wagon. It makes its revolution around the polar star, pointing toward it. This is the secret of how my people travel by night when there is no moon."
"I love the Milky Way." I love how it is called moch-pa-achon-ka-hoo, the backbone of the sky."
"We also believe the Aurora Borealis is a cloud of fire."
Nothing had stopped Chief Bear's hate until that bullet entered the base of his skull and rendered him almost a vegetable.
Misshi turned toward White Snow Feather. She tried to ignore the resentment in the depths of the woman's eyes.
"White Snow Feather, I can never forget what Chief Bear did to my family, and I'm not sure I can ever forgive him, but if Soaring Hawk can bargain for his release, I will not interfere."
Just that quickly, the antagonism White Snow Feather had felt for Misshi was gone.
His father wasn't even aware when Soaring Hawk could no longer hold back his tears and took Chief Bear into his arms. "Oh, Father, is it I. It is Soaring Hawk who has come to take you home to Mother."
...
"This is our special night. My woman, I have not even played my flute of love for you."
He was proud of her knowledge of the Shoshone way of healing. She knew so much, no Shaman was required to ensure Soaring Hawk's health.
"See the dried material on the very tips of the sharpened stone arrowhead?" Soaring Hawk said, pointing toward it. "The points of these arrowheads have been dipped into a mixture of pulverized ants and the spleen of an animal that has been allowed to decay in the direct rays of the sun," Soaring Hawk said grimly. "This rotten mixture combined with rattlesnake venom is the deadliest of weapons."
Misshi fell to her knees. "Finding these scalps and these arrows proves that my brother has been killing whites and making it look like the work of Indians."
...
"During council, I had a premonition you weren't safe."
"Big brother, who was the true savage! You were, Dale, you were."
"These flowers will help erase the ugliness I just went through."
So there you have it: brain poison, Cassie Edwards style. I have to seriously question WHY this shit is continually published? I know the short answer is that many someones, somewhere out there, is buying this shit. But holy crap in a cover, why? How is it that this superficial, tawdry, poorly-written drivel passes as some sort of tribute to Native American culture? You know the crying Indian commercial from the 70's? He's not crying because he paddled through chemical waste and litter. He's crying because he just finished a Cassie Edwards novel that bastardized his culture into trite homilies and meaningless drivel.
Seriously, the presence of books like this on the market pisses me off. I take it personally that people are writing, marketing, and selling this crap because it is so utterly and completely terrible, it's culturally offensive, it's poorly written, and it's so very much the reason why romance novels have such a bad reputation. It's insulting to Native Americans, and it's insulting to me. F this book, literally.
by SB Sarah • Monday, May 14, 2007 at 06:19 PM
Our Grade:
Title: Take Me
Author: Lucy Monroe
Publication Info: Berkley Sensation 2006, ISBN: 0425212211
Genre: Historical: European
Candy sent me this book in a box full of other books with the warning, “I’m sending you this because you have to read it. I can’t.”
If Candy can’t bring herself to read it, I’m in such deep trouble.
And yup, this book pretty much irritated the shit out of me right from the get-go.
Calantha, Duchess of Clairborne is the reclusive and quiet widow of what had to have been a right bastard of a husband. She was monstrously abused on an emotional and physical level by her late dickhead of a Duke, and he effectively isolated her from everyone who might have helped or befriended her.
Jared, Viscount Ravenswood (and how is THAT for typical “Animal + Item found in Nature” aristocratic title?) is asked by his childhood friend Mary to bring Mary’s daughter to Calantha. After making this bizarre request, Mary dies. Jared would rather cut off several key parts of his anatomy than deal with Calantha, because Calantha’s late husband was responsible for Mary’s daughter. He raped Mary while she was a servant in his household. Jared assumes that Calantha knew of the assault and did nothing to help Mary. And of course, doesn’t every hero in an annoying romance leap wide valleys of misconception in a single bound?
But don’t stop there with the assumptions. Society as a whole, and thus in the beginning Calantha as well, all assume that Mary’s daughter is Jared’s child, since, well, the child does call him “Papa.” Easy misunderstanding to create. And he does nothing to correct the situation, and allows people to ostracize him, and potentially the young girl, because of the rumor. He’s definitely putting that on his “Father of the Year” application form.
You can see where this is going: hero beset by over-developed sense of honor and duty brings exceptionally precocious and saccharine child to heroine, assuming she is a monstrous person and of course His Dick cannot deny His Attraction to The Harlot Slut Bitch Queen of Evil. Abused, socially reticent heroine tries to balance fear of men with Overwhelming and Weeping (and you know where the weeping is going on, don’t you? I thought so) Attraction for the hero, who assumes the worst of her. And since her self-esteem is about yay-big, she pretty much accepts his derision as her due.
As far as the plot goes, the tension was mostly angst and pathos that wasn’t well sustained through the novel. Jared gets over his misconceptions rather quickly and marries Calantha, despite her many protests that she can’t marry again, oh noes, oh noes! The antagonist to their relationship is not as mysterious as one might think, and once Jared and Calantha marry, which happens smack in the middle of the novel, the plot of the novel rests on the villain’s attempts to ruin or kill Calantha, and the happy couple’s attempts to discover who the villain is. Sadly, there’s a lack of potential enemies in the ancillary characters, so picking out the culprit was rather easy work.
But what really made this book the pleasurable wall banging experience that it was were some howler moments too good not to share. Here are the items that made me stop reading this book in the middle. Spoilers Ahoy.
1. Writing such as the following:
The duchess was as responsible… for Mary’s desperate predicament. Jared could not forget that, no matter how bloody innocent she seemed.
No matter how much he wanted her.
Just hit me over the head with it. That same sentiment is expressed repeatedly. Just in case you forget. Calantha = scheming whore who caused the death of Mary, and Jared is angry about that, except that he also wants to bone Calantha into the middle of next week. Such a predicament.
2. At one point, Calantha debates with herself furiously because she is jealous that Hannah, the little girl, is Jared’s daughter by adoption: “The child that should have been Calantha’s.”
This is so fucked up on so many levels I don’t know where to start. Calantha just learned that her late husband raped Mary, begetting Hannah and prompting Mary to run away from their household to the safety of Jared’s estate. And Calantha has spent many, many pages wringing her hands and attempting to preserve her icy reserve and detachment because the abuse of that late husband has left her unable to trust men, or people in general.
So thus Calantha weeps that Hannah should have been hers… instead of the bastard daughter of her late husband, who raped his defenseless employee. Never mind that her husband HELLO RAPED YOUR SERVANT but the child that resulted from that assault, that child should have been Calantha’s.
Oh holy shit. This woman is batshit.
3. Precocious child alert! Seriously, nauseating child who I felt sorry for, as she’d been orphaned, but had a hard time tolerating when she says stuff like the following passage:
“Papa said that you are going to be my mama, and he is my papa. I want a mama again, but I still love my first mama. Papa said that was all right.”
3.5 And what precocious child would be complete without a Virgin Widow?! Calantha? Untouched? Like, duh. And guess why? Her late rapist husband said she was too frigid. Funny how wood can be frigid.
4. But oh, Lord have mercy, then there’s my very favorite part of this book. Blissfully for me, it came early on, and it was so funny I had to bite my lips to keep from howling out loud on the bus:
Calantha watched the huge man cross the small ballroom toward her with both anticipation and dread. His black and white evening clothes clung alarmingly to his well-muscled, oversized body.
His clothes clung...alarmingly? What the almighty hell? His shirt is screeching at him?
I asked Candy, and she and I immediately identified the need for a terror alert level associated with just how alarmingly the hero’s clothing might be clinging. It really is a pubic, I mean public service, should you, the reader, be unaware of the danger of a hero’s alarmingly clinging clothing. Think of the children.
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