Our Grade:
Title: The Rest Falls Away
Author: Colleen Gleason
Publication Info: Signet Eclipse 2007, ISBN: 978-0-451-22007
Genre: Paranormal
This is the first book of a series with a great deal of adventure, intrigue, and battles of the physical and emotional sort. But it is also a paranormal adventure/romance without a clear hero - and with the oft-mentioned Ranger/Morelli sustained-too-long-for-many-readers triangle fresh in my mind, I felt a little hesitant at first to embark on a series where the hero isn’t clear, but that’s a matter of personal preference. Yet, the potential romantic and sexual interests for Victoria are smashingly delicious. One is most likely bad for her but irresistible; another, Maximilian, a well-trained and deadly Venator, is mostly an honorable man with a very haunted past. Then there’s the man who best represents her own innocence in the life she left behind - a Marquess who has his matrimonial sights set on Victoria.
There’s a LOT of plots going on simultaneously: can Victoria maintain her secret from a beau or even a husband? Can she hide what she is from everyone but the very few who know the truth? What about Max, who seems to be attracted to her yet wants as little to do with her as possible? And this other dude? Is Victoria a worthy heiress to the family legacy, and is it worth being that worthy heiress if the family legacy can get her killed? Can the battle they’re fighting be won with such imbalanced numbers?
It’s hard not to compare Victoria to the obvious: there are a few nods to Buffy, particularly in Victoria’s struggle to maintain something of a normal life while following a legacy she’s chosen, a legacy that has also chosen her. There are many layers of internal conflict to be resolved for Victoria, as she’s inherited a strength and ability to do something extraordinary, and shows potential to be one of the most powerful Venators in her family’s history due to the purity of her lineage. That same lineage also guarantees her a socially marvelous season in London shopping for a husband, a process that would be overshadowed and rendered somewhat obsolete by her choice to become a Venator. The balance of social popularity and, well, saving the world affects Victoria’s life at every moment.
Unlike Buffy, she has to willingly and somewhat repeatedly choose to follow that path in order to become a full Venator and receive the amulet that will aid her in protecting and asskicking. She could have opted out with no harm, no foul. So when life gets decidedly sticky for Vicky, she has to blame herself, and can’t start whinging about how unfair it all is. There will be others in generations to follow and she could leave the battle of good and evil up to them.
The power of that choice creates a strong heroine, but one who isn’t infallibly perfect - thank heavens. Victoria makes mistakes, has lapses of judgment, and wants desperately to get to a level of competence such that her great aunt and her fellow Venator Max will stop looking over her shoulder or protecting her from her own inexperience. Victoria is also interesting as a heroine because she is surrounded by exceptionally strong women in her family, from her great aunt, who is proof that eccentricity in old age can be used to conceal just about anything, to a mother who has hidden depths of steel and devotion to her family, even if she makes different choices than Victoria might expect.
Additionally, there is a Big Bad to be dealt with in the novel, and a larger Big Bad looming for the series as a whole, plus the individual battles and attacks facing Victoria on a chapter-by-chapter level. Victoria and Sebastian find themselves battling Lilith, the queen of the vampires, over a book that can call to life a demon army, tipping the world domination scales way to far in the vampires’ favor. The origin of the Big Bad and the Bigger Bad, and of the Gardella family itself, is also tied into both Christian theology and vampire lore, which yields larger implications for all parties, and creates an increased sense of depth for the backstory.
I’m going to put a dollar bet down that this book series will be optioned for film or television in some form, either as a whole or as individual books, because the influence of television series viewing is evident in the plot structure, and the organization of the larger and still larger story arcs. This is not at all a bad thing; it’s simply telling of how storytelling in visual and literary forms can influence one another and will likely continue to do so.
The good parts? Victoria can be frustrating, but her fallibility makes her more accessible as a heroine. If the heroine is a superhero who can throw the reader and all men within arm’s reach through a wall, it becomes harder, I think, to create flaws that won’t damage her as a character yet will make her a more empathic individual. Gleason manages to make Victoria a very noble heroine with understandable flaws. Victoria wants to succeed, and wants to make her great aunt proud, aside from the whole ‘saving the world by staking vampires’ thing. She operates from a place of good intentions both grand and local, so her goofs and slip-ups only make the reader cheer for her more.
I only wish the men had been more developed, though by possibly developing one over the others, Gleason would run the risk of giving away the ultimate ending of who Victoria will choose as her hero. I think with the presence of three potential heroes, each demonstrating character flaws that can urge Victoria to grow stronger emotionally, it’s more than a triangle - not to state the obvious. A triangle of attraction isn’t strong enough structurally to contain the potential entanglements that are certainly imminent for Victoria and her three mysterious men. Each represents a different facet of Victoria’s development, so each is equally important. Still, there’s that part of me who wants to know who the hero will be, so I don’t get all bummed out if I root for the wrong dude.
Above all, the writing is what recommends this book most. Gleason’s writing is sharp and taut, which makes for excellent action sequences, and a plot that travels quickly from the start. The writing strength alone gives me ample reassurance that this potentially plot-heavy series is in the right hands. I’m definitely looking forward to the next installment.
