Doubleblind, the third book in Aguirre’s SF-romance series, isn’t going to be my favorite book in the series. In this volume jumper (a special kind of person who can navigate the subspace area that makes deep space travel possible), ex-criminal and formerly broken Sirantha Jax lands on the infamously closed planet Ithiss-Tor, home of bounty hunter-turned-friend, Vel, on a mission to forge an alliance between humans and Ithtorians to save both from the savage cannibal Morgut who are raiding space ports and far planets, leaving occupants dead. With her mother (head of the criminal Syndicate) trying to make sure she fails, and lives depending on Jax’s success, not to mention the Ithtorian repulsion of humans, disaster is not just possible, it’s imminent.

First the good, Aguirre maintains a full cast of characters, each with unique strengths and weaknesses and stories. Jax’s struggle to shuck her selfish, party-girl past comes to odds with the responsibilities and expectations others unfairly put on her creating a tense, conflicted inner dialog as the story moves on. Jax’s personal quest to rebuild the mind of March, once her lover, a psi forced to cut himself off from his emotions to mentally survive a war thrust on him by manipulations of his personal honor, is especially heart breaking.

Aguirre spins a fascinating world in Ithiss-Tor, home world of a bug species that, true to type, communicate as much with body language and scent as with verbalized language. This is truly a reason to pick up this book, as the imagery is complex and solid, not to mention the Ithtorian characters are full developed despite being such a inhuman race.

Aguirre’s rich and descriptive world and characters are as solid as ever in Doubleblind, so already established fans will definitely want to continue with their story.

And, finally the bad. Aguirre, with Doubleblind clearly comes down on the side of romance rather than maintaining a fine split between romance and science fiction as in the previous novels. A large amount of the drama and tension has to do with the personal relationships between the characters. In the end I was left with a feeling that conflicts were tied up too neatly, with very little actually conflict, just emotional strain.

March’s method of recovery is truly interesting, but easier than I expected. Add to that only one true fight scene in the whole book, which Jax largely avoids, and a climax with wired in tension, but no conflict after all is said and done and I was left with a bit of a dissatisfied feeling with this addition to the Jax world.

I badly wanted to see Jax throwing down in some sort of ritual combat to prove her worth to the Ithtorians and earn at least some respect from them instead of primarily suffering emotionally and playing politics. She is such a contrary, stubborn and steel-souled character that all the politics, as Jax herself worries about in the book, neuters her too much for my tastes.

I hope Aguirre finds a place between emotionality and action for the next book. Coupled with the vivid details, fine characterization and inspired writing it makes for excellent writing, which is what I’ve come to expect from this series.

“Moon Sing” by Laramie Dean is a beautiful love story between a wolf and a witch. Acting as a metaphor for being queer in a straight world, even Drew’s pack can’t accept him falling for someone not of the Breed. It doesn’t have much plot outside the romance, but that alone is taken to a haunting, yearning level that’s purely magnificent.

“Wolf Lover” by Michael Itig is a cruder, more raw, sex-centered tale of fetishism and, of course, werewolves. Nige is an impatient, sex-charged gay man with a passion, shall we say, for werewolves. So much so that he lures them to his home and tricks them into shape shifting during sex. But the man he meets at a club for those trolling for werewolf hook ups turns out to be something else altogether. “Wolf Lover”gives readers a more raw look at the psyche of a gay man, but doesn’t feel cliché, preachy or stereotypical in the end.

“Shy Hunter” by Ginn Hale centers on David, scent dog and queer man, and not sure how to balance the two. Until he falls for a man who is being stalked by the monster who attacked David and turned him into a werewolf. This is another excellent tale, with equal parts action, emotion and mystery.

Anel Viz’s “The Stray” is the lightest tale of the book so far, making nearly every canine joke and pun, without being completely cheesy as it tells the story of a couple making a major commitment to each other.

“New Beginnings” by Cari Z focuses on the only pack that accepts gay wolves in this paranormal world and a bitter curmudgeon of a wolf, Michael, who finds himself attracted to and depended on by their newest rescue. But exile wasn’t enough for Tori’s family. They want him dead and Michael must keep him safe in this action-adventure-romance.

Jerome Stueart’s “Where the Sled Dogs Run” is another lighter tale, focusing less on the romance angle and more on creating a sweet sense of wonder. In this story the werewolves are a group of shamans, immortal, reluctant and shy, who want to reconnect with the world around them rather than hide from it, but they don’t know how. It fits the anthology, but it could have been found in a number of other fantasy-themed magazines just as easily.

“Pavlov’s Dog” by Andi Lee shifts straight back to hardcore erotica, and is nothing but. This tale is all set up, Josh and Caleb have just been approved to start their own pack and decide to celebrate. It’s not bad, there just isn’t much story to it.

Charlie Cochrane’s “Wolves of the West” is the most civilized story of the book, a tale of a pack that meets in an English museum for what is far from a mess of drooling, carnivorous monsters. Here Rory and George, who put the pack together and have run it for quite some time, work to create a haven for both their fellow queers and werewolves and must work to keep certain indiscretions from public light. It’s an amusing, but meaningful addition to the collection’s theme.

“Family Matters” by Moondancer Drake is another example of a solid piece, featuring a lynx and wolf lesbian family and pack, that feels less like a short story and more like an opening to a book. This piece could easily be stretched and expanded, in fact there are fight scenes that are glanced over and while werebadgers, lynxes, Fae and witches are all mentioned they aren’t very fleshed out. Drake is a good writer though, so one can only hope more than this story comes from her world.

In “Wrong Turn” by Stephen Osborne a young gay man finds more than he bargained for when he stops at a bar for directions and a drink and ends up smack in the middle of a werewolf tift. This falling in love story is simple and sweet, with a wrap up that seems to come too soon.

“Leader of the Pack” by Robert Saldarini is a historical werewolf tale, told by flashback, about a pair of men who survived World War II. Being steeped in the time period adds a weight of interest and credibility, but again, the tale’s flaw is its brevity.

“War of the Wolves” by Charles Long is the first to include (by a brief mention) an intersexual character. This tale also takes a more fantasy-angled approach, embedding a strong sense of the surreal into a story of people coming together, not just trying to find their place in the world, but willing to fight for it.

Lucas Johnson’s “Flip City”is a more traditional horror take on werewolves, a cliched take, unfortunately. The first real hiccup in the book the lead is not gay, so much as a borderline rapist and killer. Luckily the speed of this one is stuck on fast forward, burning through the story with little depth.

In “Night Swimming” by RJ Bradshaw, Joseph is indulging in a secret night swim when a wild-living werewolf finds him. They catch scents and Todd, the wild-wolf insists that he can smell that they are meant to be lifemates, and also proposes that they begin their life together by spending half the year in the city and winter helping Todd’s pack in the woods. After some thought Joseph agrees, they hash out the details, and unfortunately that’s all there is to this tale.

“In the Seeonee Hills” by Erica Hildebrand leads with a lesbian who contracted lycanthopy from a lover who got a bit too rough in bed. Claire is new to the paranormal world and caught between two packs who want to use her for ill means. It’s part Romeo & Juliet and part something all it’s own. Like some of the other tales there is room for more expansion, but it doesn’t feel unfinished or sped up for the sake of the short story form.

“A Wolf’s Moon” by Quinn Smythwood is certainly different. But three pages in I had no real clue what was going on or what the characters were hinting at, which left me feeling completely disconnected from the story and the characters. A depressingly weak end to this collection of tales.

Overall, there is a lot of good in Queer Wolf. It manages to represent the scope of urban fantasy, from a queer angle, though it leans heavily toward m/m paranormal romance. I really would have liked to see more f/f or even a transgender or bisexual story or two. From a genre point of view I’d have liked to see more mystery, traditional fantasy and even horror-based tales. But that’s what second volumes are for.

The back of this book bills it as a zany, thrilling mystery wherein our heroine, the quirky Dr. Amanda Bell Brown must find the cause for the death of a disgraced playboy evangelist’s baby. I received a copy by request through the LibraryThing Early Readers Program (where it was not disclosed that it was Christian fiction) and I requested it because fiction with minority leads is something I’m actively trying to include more of here at BookLove.

Unfortunately, I simply could not get into this book.

The story opens with a long, lamenting conversation between Bell and her BFF/kinda of love interest (except she’s married) which covers a lot of what happened in the first two books in the series and what happened between books. As a first time reader I was left with absolutely no clue what was going on, other than Bell, in an effort to make up with Rocky (the BFF who apparently put her marriage in danger before abandoning her, and who repeatedly teases her and calls her “babe” constantly) agrees to go visit a disgraced evangelist trying to make a comeback.

The second chapter opens with Bell and Rocky arriving at the location where the evangelist is filming his sermon. Bell is promptly assaulted by an old religious woman who calls Bell a hussy for being there with her pastor, and forcibly exorcises her, claiming a demon of interracial adultery is dwelling inside of her. Rocky, the charming BFF that he is, sits in his VIP seat and is amused by the antics, doing nothing at all to help.

After the sermon Rocky gets Bell backstage to meet the evangelist, Ezekiel Thunder. It’s there that Bell meets Little Zeke Thunder, Big Thunder’s 2 year old son. Bell is smitten, but launches into heartache over her own inability to have children, save for the fact that she’s been nauseated a lot lately. But she can’t have kids, she reassures herself, because she had a period since her husband left her and she has endometriosis, not to mention she has a tumor. With the subtly of a brick to the face, this “I can’t be pregnant despite obvious weight gain, morning sickness and soreness” becomes a repetitive source of angst. When Bell finally moves past the topic secondary characters constantly bring it up, accusing her of being pregnant, kicking off the whole response again.

In chapters three and four Bell insists she isn’t pregnant, then is threatened by the same person who assaulted her in the previous chapter, blatantly and maliciously manipulated by Thunder, again while her BFF Rocky just stands to the side, or defends Thunder.

It is never really explained why Rocky wants her to meet this clearly malicious, manipulative preacher. There’s eventually something about Rocky wanting her to find God again, but that should never excuse the sort of behavior Bell has been subjected to.

In chapter five Bell finally does something that made me like her, she self soothes with a peppy new haircut. But when she returns to work she discovers her parking lot filled with the vehicles of all her closest, except her husband. Despite being forewarned Bell walks into the intervention. What is traditionally a last ditch effort to get a person with substance abuse to realize the extent of their actions is bastardized in this chapter as Bell’s nearest and dearest claim the intervention is because she’s fat, because her husband (who left her) is heart broken without her and she should go back to him, and because she is clearly pregnant and too old to be so (Bell is 35). The conversation is excessively scattered and even deviates into one of Bell’s friends claiming it’s not always all about Bell, except one would assume that an intervention IS about the person being confronted.

I stopped when I read the following interaction:

“If Jazz (Bell’s husband) is the one who left me, and he’s the one who is drinking excessively, why didn’t you do the intervention with him?”

“Because all of this is your fault,” my mother said.

If I hadn’t been at a doctor’s appointment I would have flung the book across the room. I did try to skip ahead in the book to see if it picked up, only to land on a scene where a doctor tells Bell and her husband, Jazz that Bell has a grapefruit-sized tumor, several grape=sized tumors and is also pregnant with twins.

The artificial drama is staggering in this book and completely distracts from the mystery Deadly Charm is advertised as containing. There is no time or build up to allow for readers to grow attached to Bell and having every character treating her like utter crap doesn’t make her sympathetic. Furthermore the pregnancy side plot is a huge problem. The medical problems (pregnant, with tumors) reads as more unbelievable, and unneeded drama, there’s never a question in the reader’s mind whether Bell is pregnant or not, and the utter insensitivity that everyone else in the book shows for Bell’s reproductive problems is pretty insulting.

It’s a bad combination of writing flaws, so Deadly Charm ends up in the DNF pile.

]]> http://www.michelelee.net/booklove/2009/08/deadly-charm-by-claudia-mair-burney/feed/ 0 http://www.michelelee.net/booklove/2009/05/the-convent-of-the-pure-by-sara-m-harvey/ http://www.michelelee.net/booklove/2009/05/the-convent-of-the-pure-by-sara-m-harvey/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 17:55:32 +0000 Michele Lee http://www.michelelee.net/booklove/?p=763

Click to buy

Trade Paperback: 9780981639093, $13.95

“I am Portia Gyony,” she repeated, and the world bent slightly around the edges.

What would it be like to witness a battle between celestial beings? Sort of like The Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey. Portia is a demon hunter and a Nephilim, a descendant of human and angel. Still mourning the death of her lover Imogen, yet protected by the ghost of Imogen, Portia is trying to complete her training to become a full member of the Gyony (demon hunter Nephilim as opposed to magic user or necromancer Nephilim) community.

Instead she is pulled into a plot to over throw the Primacy, the ruling council of the Nephilim, by a dark-hearted sect of necromancers, one of which helped her keep Imogen at her side after her tragic death. Portia isn’t just a tool in the necromancer plot, she is the plot, one of the rare “Pure Bloods”, a direct child of an angel and human.

The Convent of the Pure is a fast paced dark fantasy with steampunk elements. The world is rich and enticing, the only real flaw is it’s short length. The world really could support a full length book, if not a series as Portia and Imogen are engaging, their romance a sweet up point against the dark tenseness of the world setting. Portia is strong without being snarky or bitchy. There’s no stress over her ability to “hang with the boys”, no real issue of gender roles at all, which is refreshing. The action is large scale and satisfying without being too easy or overwhelming.

Overall The Convent of the Pure is an excellent, enjoyable tale sure to appeal to readers of dark fantasy, urban fantasy and even paranormal romance.

Below are the full details for both service-members interested in signing up and civilians interested in donating books.

WHAT IT IS:

Books For Troops is a program that supplies books free of charge to the men and women serving in the United States military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. The program has been honored by many, including the 509th Logistics Fuels Flight Squadron based at Whiteman A.F.B. in Missouri. It went on hiatus while my wife and I had a baby. Now it is back.

HOW IT WORKS:

If you are currently serving in the Armed Forces, and would either like free books to read, or would like free books to distribute to your fellow servicemen and women, send an email to briankeene at live.com. Please put ‘Books For Troops’ in the subject line. In the body of the email, include your rank, first and last name, and a valid military address (APO, FPO, etc.).

Please Note: You must have a valid military address to qualify. No civilian addresses will be accepted without prior approval. We apologize for that, but it is the only way to screen out fraudulent applications from non-service members.

After that, you will receive a shipment of free books approximately every two months. There is absolutely no charge for this. You do not need to return the books. All we ask is that you enjoy them, and pass them on to fellow service-members when you are done, or donate them to your base or ship library.

HOW NON-MILITARY PERSONNEL CAN HELP:

If you are an author or publisher that would like to donate books to the program, please send them to Books For Troops, c/o Brian Keene PO Box 281, Craley, PA 17312. We ask that books be in good condition. Please do not send books with missing or yellowed pages, stripped covers, photocopies, etc. Any subject is acceptable, but we especially encourage genre fiction (horror, fantasy, science-fiction, western, historical, crime, mystery, thriller, romance, and men’s adventure). We will also accept donations of stamps to help out with shipping costs.

Books For Troops is not a charitable organization (it is run by a lone author and his overworked assistant). Because we are not a charitable organization, your donation should not be considered tax deductible. Also because of this, we cannot accept cash donations, checks, or money orders.

Please email briankeene at live.com with any questions.

*I’m adding this as a page on my blog and will be donating review copies that I recieve and have read (as my income allows me to afford postage for).