Review: Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Title: Blood Rights

Author: Kristen Painter

Genre: supernatural fiction

Series: House of Comarré #1

Pages: 433 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: October 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely-wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.

Kristen Painter breathes her own version of supernatural life into the genre with Blood Rights, the first in a planned urban fantasy series, and it is lively indeed. With a convoluted culture and three-dimensional, fleshed-out characters this was an interesting twist on the human/vampire relationship shown so often in this (and, really, paranormal romance as well) type of genre. There's a lot to take in and enjoy from Ms. Painter's crafted world of vampire geisha, corporeal ghosts and hidden assassins. Blood Rights is the kind of novel one would plan to read for "just a minute" but actually ends up in the same place but two hundred pages, numerous escapades and hours later. With her kick-ass female protagonist Chrysabelle and tortured male protagonist Mal, I found a lot worth mentioning from this introductory but by means boring first novel. Intensely readable, Blood Rights is definitely in the running for my favorite (adult/non-YA) vampire read of the year.

Moreso even than the characters, the world that the author has so intricately created is impressive and far-reaching. The comarré themselves are a creative addition: closely related to the kine (humans) of the world, but longer-lived, faster, and infinitely more desirable. The signum of the breed is also interesting: it allows for instant identification much like the facial tattoos/uploads of the GENs in the YA dystopia Tankborn. The comarré are always very aware of who/what they are and where they stand in the vampires' view. I found the interactions and dependency between the comarré and the vampires to be vastly interesting. Each side benefits uniquely from the arrangement: the vampire receives increased power/life from the blood of the comar/comarré and the gold-gilded almost-humans receive longevity, increased strength, speed and self-healing capabilities. I liked that it was a give-and-take between the both species; it certainly makes it easier to buy Chrysabelle's more martial nature further on. It's a fairly level balance of power that keep the comarré from being just slaves or indentured servants to the undead nightwalkers (and that's not even mentioning other obvious talents of the comarré. . ). While the vampire half of this symbiotic relationship isn't as revelatory and new as the comarré aspect, Painter does go so far as to imbue her novel with different types of vampires: fringe and noble, each descended from a vastly different source. I do wish clarification about terms/culture of this world had been provided much earlier: it's vexing to try and figure out what "fringe" or "anathema" means in relation to these vampires for 250 pages.

Obviously, Blood Rights has a very complete and complicated, alternate world. Though similar to this modern one we live in, locations like "New Florida" or "Islamic Republic of France" are subtly dropped into conservations, ensuring the reader is aware that 2067 is a very different world. Even the swearing is different, and even theme-appropriate for a vampire book ("son of a priest!" also? just hilarious.) With vampires in a very regimented patriarchal society, organized by Family/talent (I also loved the nods to first purported vampires Vlad Tepes and Erzsébet Bathory inserted into the novel) Elders and Dominus, Painter's social stratification is omnipresent, even among species, not just between them. Not only are vampires and comarré either reinvented or completely created, but many types of fae (wysper, shadeux, others), and other creatures, are present as well. Hidden from humans because of a mysterious "Covenant", Chrysabelle's world has other such nasties as Nothos, or hellhounds created from human and vampire stock. I love the constant touch if originality for Painter's supernatural creations: she even re-imagined shapeshifters as her varcolai. Not much was explained about the varcolai, with only one character belonging to that race, but with three novels to follow in this promising series, I'll trust the information is en route.

Chrysabelle, with her desire for freedom, is likeable though it takes a bit. Her desire for independence is one of the most compelling components of her character: as the saying goes, a gilded cage is still just a cage. As the absolute best of the best for comarré, a Primoris Domus comarré, she is much more than she appears, and more than any vampire bargained for. It's easy to root for Chrysabelle to win out against the bad guys. She's definitely hardcore, and while I fear she may be guilty of the dreaded "Waif Fu" trope, her violent tendencies work well for such a determined character. I wish Chrysabelle had been a little more discrete: secrets seem to fall from her lips anytime someone just asks. It's remarkably easy for Mal to tease the comarré race?species? from her within days of their meeting. I personally thought her story about the signum and what getting a new one means was very revealing about her character: this is a woman that has sought freedom her entire existence, only to be constantly, unjustly denied. I just wish Chrysabelle had dropped her attitude a bit earlier because it seems to go on a bit long once she's within Mal, Doc and Fi's circle. Mal himself is a dark, tortured vampire. As in, twice cursed and therefore gruff, reticent and often quite hard to deal with. Everyone has issues with Mal at some point in the story: Chrysabelle, Maddoc, Fi, Preacher, Dominic. . . I found Mal's double cursed status to be almost a conscience for the soulless anathema (outcast from noble vampires). Unable to take "vino de vena" (another clever twist to the real-world) Mal is different from all the other vamps in the novel, including his unusual relationship and attitude toward the comarré in his care. Mal is always isolated: even as a human he was "anathema", which bodes less than well for his eternal life. I liked Mal more than his female Golgotha-blade-wielding counterpart, and while I still find his and Chrysabelle's relationship to be too tumultuous, it is a believable one to read. It certainly takes a long time to coalesce, and their relationship is never the forefront of the narrative. This is definitely an urban fantasy not a paranormal romance. The focus is clearly upon the action and plot, with any side stories remaining just that.

Outside of Mal and Chrysabelle, I largely enjoyed this cast of characters. Even the villains are strikingly evil without being too cartoonish. I will say that Tatiana, of the Family Tepes and the main present antagonist for Blood Rights is the most maniacal, megalomaniacal (it's a word) vampiress I've read to date. She somehow manages to be surprisingly well-rounded for a power-hungry bitch, with hidden facets I couldn't have seen coming. Her scenes were often cringe-inducing, especially those with the father of all vampires, varcolai, Nothos: the Castus Sangus. What I like best about Tatiana is that she is never predictable throughout the narrative and she was always riveting to read. Maris, an aunt of Chrysabelle's and a free comarré was a sneak favorite of mine. What I assumed to be a fairly humdrum character defied my expectations and was a fully-rounded and human character with her own unique and compelling  history from before the events of Blood Rights. Painter does an excellent job of slowly teasing out the story of Maris, and her evolution was one of my favorite parts of the novel. 

Most of all, I wish the beginning of the novel was a bit less unclear and confusing. Like I said earlier, I thoroughly enjoy this varied and lifelike world the author has fashioned for her characters to live within, but the first seventy-five or so pages were not easy. There's incredible amounts of action occurring even as the first chapter ends - murders, conspiracies, flight from danger, stabbings - with little to no contextual details. It's a lot to take in before the first understanding the basics of the world, like vocabulary. But if I was initially dismayed by Blood Rights, it didn't last past page 100. By then, the sheer amounts of awesome have started to leak through to the plot and characters and I loved it. Kristen Painter can definitely write a twist - ones I don't even predict. Some plot lines were fairly obvious but others might as well have been a piano dropping out of the sky upon my head (Maris! WTF!).  I thought the time and effort spent on the varcolai (but super attractive) Maddoc was a little wanting. I had the same situation regarding Fi - she's very inscrutable and quite hard to read with her whiplash emotions. I was never sure what her real feelings towards Mal were, though I loved her and Doc.

As I said before and as was once again proved by the ending to Blood Rights, Ms. Painter is not an author I can accurately predict. I did not see that ending coming at all and I am left eager and excited to get book two, Flesh and Blood. With plot twists that are genuinely shocking, an intricate and complete world along with compelling characters, Blood Rights is a hard novel to resist for any urban fantasy/supernatural fiction fan.

Review: Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Title: Next to Love

Author: Ellen Feldman

Genre: general fiction, historical fiction

Series: N/A

Pages: 352 (NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: Nov 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

“War . . . next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination.”—Eric Partridge, British lexicographer, 1914

A story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave, Next to Love follows the lives of three young women and their men during the years of World War II and its aftermath, beginning with the men going off to war and ending a generation later, when their children are on the cusp of their own adulthood.

Set in a small town in Massachusetts, the novel follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations. In the decades that follow, the three friends lose their innocence, struggle to raise their children, and find meaning and love in unexpected places. And as they change, so does America—from a country in which people know their place in the social hierarchy to a world in which feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and technological innovations present new possibilities—and uncertainties. And yet Babe, Millie, and Grace remain bonded by their past, even as their children grow up and away and a new society rises from the ashes of the war.

Next to Love is a powerful novel, thankfully not in an obvious, over done and melodramatic way. No, Next to Love is a novel that manages to be sneakily insidious, grasping hold of your emotions almost before one realizes just how invested they are in the compelling story and just how powerful a writer Ellen Feldman proves herself to be in this WWII novel. I found it to be entirely emotional without being overwrought and constantly compelling. With three strong, though not always likeable, women main characters, author Ellen Feldman creates an enveloping tale of three best friends, dealing with life, love, and loss in one of the most desperate times in modern history. Their long story spans decades and is as complicated and humanly messy as it is poignant to read - with multiple points of view from various characters serving to create a rounded cast of characters with depth and personality.

Bernadette "Babe" was the closest I got to favorite character. I wish I could say that I loved and identified closely individually with the women of Next to Love but that is not the case. I was invest and compelled by their stories certainly, but there is a certain distance from all the characters of this story. Like with Babe, I wanted to love Grace and Millie but the removed third person perspective did me no favors with these three determined women. I certainly felt sympathy for each character at differing times (the scene at the pond stands out particularly in memory as very affecting) but I was never truly invested wholly. The present tense is used primarily and used effectively - everything that happens feels immediate and taut with emotions. I also enjoyed the authentic period details skillfully enmeshed into the larger narrative. Ms. Feldman is a smooth writer, with skill for depth and intimacy with resonating themes. I was impressed that the domestic life shown is just as compelling and riveting as the fighting - had it been written in the novel - would have been. This is an author that is remarkably adept, even with transitions in chronology others might stumble over. Ms. Feldman will occasionally flashback to a previous scene but it is always replayed from another perspective, always shedding more light about the plot.

While at first I was slightly bemused by this novel's choice of title, it becomes more appropriate the further one progresses and reads the book. I started thinking about it and I find the title "Next to Love" itself to be very interesting and very indicative of the novel itself, with the benefit of hindsight - the quote is about war and its impact upon people but the word itself is not written on the cover. Similarly, World War Two, the world-shattering event that this novel is based around, is never actually shown upon the page. All the experiences of the men that are known come from letters, secondhand accounts, various PTSDs and long-ago remembrances. All that happens upon the page is an individual character's personal reaction from the war, never a first-hand experience of war, yet it is that selfsame removed war that defines each person and the life they lead, even decades after the fighting ended. I will also say that the men's extended section of letters home was both my favorite part of the entire novel but wholly heartwrenching. Claude in particular stands out as a decent, kind humorous man  - my favorite of the three husbands. I suppose that's one of the elements of Next to Love makes the rest of the novel both so compelling and so sad: this intimate look into the minds of these men before the war illustrates better than anything how damaged they return - or don't.

Next to Love is primarily a book about complex relationships in life. War may take the stage as stirring man's imagination the most, but love is present is more than just marriage. This is a book about relationships between lovers, between friends, between parent and child, between the classes, and even between the races. What is so wonderful about this book is that each of those relationships is shown, for good or bad, by the large and varied cast and ably to boot: from Claude and Babe's struggle for commitment to the eventual distance between the three main ladies as they make different choices to the struggle for equality in a nation that fought for freedom in a far land, each examination into human nature works. Babe herself says something a long the lines of "I love these women but I may not like them right now," showing that though war might capture our species' imagination and be the crux of the novel and these women's entire lives, it is love that continues and endures.

I recommend this to any WWII historical fiction fan, or anyone looking for a true if harsh examination of war, love and friendship. Next to Love was far better than I had assumed and packed a lot of emotional punch - I'm not ashamed my eyes teared up at the end (and maybe one or two other places..) The ending is remarkably well done: totally appropriate, moving, and absolutely heart-breaking at the same time. Next to Love is intimate and engrossing: from D-Day to the Civil Rights moment, this evocative read and these three women will keep you reading.

Review: Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber

Title: Darker Still

Author: Leanna Renee Hieber

Genre: young-adult, supernatural fiction, historical fiction

Series: Magic Most Foul #1

Pages: 330 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: November 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Pride and Prejudice, with a dash of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

New York City, 1882. Seventeen-year-old Natalie Stewart's latest obsession is a painting of the handsome British Lord Denbury. Something in his striking blue eyes calls to her. As his incredibly life-like gaze seems to follow her, Natalie gets the uneasy feeling that details of the painting keep changing...

Jonathan Denbury's soul is trapped in the gilded painting by dark magic while his possessed body commits unspeakable crimes in the city slums. He must lure Natalie into the painting, for only together can they reverse the curse and free his damaged soul.

Darker Still was a lot of fun for me to read, from beginning to end. Witty, charming and full of magic most foul, this is a young-adult foray into the supernatural that succeeds on many levels. Charming, real, fleshed out characters commingle with an intriguing plotline and an original hook to make for a read that is nearly impossible to set down. This is a novel to be devoured in as few sittings as possible; I raced through every chapter, eager for more. Though clearly an homage to famous works and characters (The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the best comparisons, and I honestly don't think the Pride and Prejudice comparison is warranted at all), Ms. Hieber's Darker Still can stand firmly on its own two feet as a charming and clever novel with oodles of promise for the same in its incumbent sequels.

Set with the backdrop of alluring 1880's New York City, Darker Still is the vehicle of Natalie Stewart. Natalie is known as an "unfortunate" of the times, known better today as a mute. This middle-class ball of spunk is an auburn-haired and smart young woman: headstrong but not foolhardy. She's just as a young-woman of the times should be: scheming, determined and dramatic. I had a lot of fun with Natalie, though obvious from the "mute" label, she is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill protagonist. Natalie possesses a hidden steel to her character that I hadn't expected and thoroughly enjoyed. She's also pretty handy with a weapon, and I love a main character that can defend herself ably, without degenerating into the unbelievable "Waif Fu" of Vin in Mistborn, or Lisbeth Salander. I also enjoyed that the novel itself was written as a personal recollection of Miss Stewart's. As a mute, it was a subtle reminder of how limited the narrator's communications were: only Natalie's thoughts are shown and examined. It was a nice period-appropriate touch, with contributions from letters/notes/etc. pertinent to the case added in for extra clarity, reference or emphasis. What also helps the atmosphere of Miss Stewart's first-person tale are the mixed-in touches of period-appropriate terms ("histrionic ward" "not all the lamps were on in my attic") to keep the reader firmly in the mindset of gentler, more refined time in history.

Jonathan Whitby, Lord Denbury, the man caught inside the painting, takes longer than Natalie to coalesce into a three-dimensional character (I made a pun! Go me!) Jonathon is also an interesting character because, as hinted both by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray in the synopsis blurb, there are two Denbury's operating upon the pages of Darker Still: the one imprisoned (the "soul" of the man if you will), and the one corporeal and mobile (the body, possessed by another).  The "demon Denbury" is dark, murderous and quite adept at ratcheting up the tension of the novel. But for all his dark allure, it is the painting of the man that catches the attention of the reader, not his evil counterpart wreaking murder and misery through New York. I loved Denbury: from the outset of his appearance in the novel, he is charming and tormented, caring and compassionate. I quite honestly loved Denbury with Natalie: theirs is a relationship that brings out the best in the other, while managing to be completely cute and age-appropriate.

I for one totally bought into the odd but charming romance between the painting and the mute teenager. Natalie, like Lord Denbury inside his painted prison, has sat and watched her life be decided for her, with no input or decision-making power in her own hands.Once she makes the decision to help Denbury, a real change is present in the character - Natalie breaks free of her own self-induced apathy and takes charge for the first time. I do think "love" may have been introduced premature as part of their relationship's natural arc, but they two grow into it and I accepted their commitment before too long. (This was probably helped by my largely fangirl favorable impression of Jonathon himself...) I liked the more background characters of the novel as well, but though they suffered from a slight lack of personalization. Evelyn Northe is an intelligent, wily older society lady of New York and I wish more had been provided for her character: she seems to pop up when most needed and recede to the background until a drastic measure must be taken. Mrs. Northe's niece Margaret has the same issue, except that she's trotted out to cause possessive and romantic issues about the painting and later, Denbury himself. I wish these two ladies had more flair of their own, and were less dependent on Natalie to carry the novel.

Darker Still's magic was also creative and interesting. Incorporating many and vaired themes and items from various cultures across the world, the forces of Darker Still are seemingly quite powerful - and often awful in nature. From the nasty Crenfall (which is a name reminiscent of Dracula's Renfield, no?) to Mrs. Northe herself, the reader is never sure who possess what powers and the intentions for them. I liked the varied and intermingled aspects of the curse/spell/power that imprisoned Denbury particularly: the severing of the soul from the body is a visceral and cringe-inducing act, illustrating the cutthroat nature of the supernatural in Ms. Hieber's alternate history. In addition to the magic most foul, the writing and style of the novel itself do much to present a dark, mysteriously magical facade. "The plot has thickened and how. Lives, sanities, and the very fabric of reality remain on the line..." is just one of many possible examples of Natalie's harried and excited style of narration.

My few complaints include the rather rushed ending to a finely drawn out story. I adored the connecting threads of religion, power and magic, but felt that they were thrown too hastily together for a tidy, easy conclusion. Still, I enjoyed Darker Still enough that though I read a free ARC from the publishers, I still want my very own copy to have and love. (Who could resist that cover, anyway?) I look eagerly forward to the continued escapades of Natalie and Jonathan and hope the sequels meet the high bar set by the series impressive and lively introduction. This novel, in the most simple terms, is just fun, enjoyable and completely individual. Pick it up when you spy a copy, you won't regret the purchase.

Blog Watch Wednesday!

Review's I've Posted:

On A Dark Wing by Jordan Dane - 2.5/5 stars - supernatural fiction

The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams - 3/5 stars - fantasy

The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees - 4/5 stars - steampunk, science fiction, fantasy, young-adult, dystopa

Fun Stuff:

Is Thor a feminist movie? This was really quite a brilliant read and theory. I would have to acknowledge I am swayed by her arguments.

Here are Twitter's top ten #hastags for 2011. My favorite? #tigerblood. I'm just flummoxed that "#winning" didn't make. My contributions alone should have rocketed it up the charts ;)

Also be sure to check out Flavorwire's Most Surprising Twitter Trends of 2011. 

Also a fun list of 10 Inventions from Movies We Wish Were Real. I'm not so sure the world is so keen to inflict Flubber upon it once more...

New Tumblr of the Week: Ugly Renaissance Babies. 

The world's creepiest snowman. I love winter! 

An artist's interpretation of Manchester, England after an apocalyptic event. The artist, James Chadderton, does really excellent and well-done work, inspired by movies such as 28 Days Later, The Road, Children of Men.

London tourist dungeon ends up with real skeleton. It's just like a Bones episode.

Do you agree with this list of TV's Most Memorable Pets? Where's Radar from M*A*S*H?! But Rowdy from Scrubs pulls a mentions so I will let it slide.. . . 

.....which of course leads to the "Rowdy, NO" video from Scrubs.

You know you want to rewatch and rehash the 30 Freakiest Ads of 2011. I personally thought the Toyota "People person" one to be the weirdest.

9 clips from the new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows have been released. I'm pretty stoked to see Downey and Law's bromance reignite with witty banter and explosions.

Disney princesses turned into modern-day magazine cover models.

How to pretty much ensure that one date won't turn into anything more than embarrassment.

Review: On A Dark Wing by Jordan Dane

Title: On A Dark Wing

Author: Jordan Dane

Genre: young-adult, supernatural fiction

Series: N/A

Pages: 384 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: expected late December 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 2.5/5

The choices I had made led to the moment when fate took over. I would learn a lesson I wasn't prepared for. And Death would be my willing teacher.

 Five years ago, Abbey Chandler cheated Death. She survived a horrific car accident, but her "lucky" break came at the expense of her mother's life and changed everything. After she crossed paths with Death—by taking the hand of an ethereal boy made of clouds and sky—she would never be normal again.
Now she's the target of Death's ravens and an innocent boy's life is on the line. When Nate Holden—Abbey's secret crush—starts to climb Alaska's Denali, the Angel of Death stalks him because of her.

And Abbey finds out the hard way that Death never forgets.

On A Dark Wing is obviously eye-catching and interesting novel, just judging by looks alone: from the vaguely foreboding tone of the title itself to the scattered murder of ravens across the letters of the title, and the ominious, "Death never forgets. . . " ominously taglined in front of the Grim Reaper, this is a hard to miss title. It's a readable book that veers from normal to supernatural to creepy thriller almost: one thing that can be honestly said about On A Dark Wing is that it is never predictable. This is the story of a girl named Abbey, yes like Abbey Road of Beatles fame, her obsessive crush, her mom, a paralyzed but lovable hacker and Death. Yes, Death with a capital "D" - the Man himself appears and is the crux around which the rest of the book - and characters - must revolve.

Abbey is from Palmer, Alaska. It's immediately clear that miss Chandler is fairly damaged goods: her guilt and issues over her mom's death is immediate and obvious from the get-go. I had to shave off rating points for such a heavy-handed introduction: I like when the author eases the problems in so it's not overwhelming every page. She's also constantly around death: her dad runs a crematorium so death and dying are more personal and familiar to Abbey than most people. By page thirty, Abbey has begun obsessively regaling the reader with her obsession with a boy named Nate. From the way Abbey talks and acts, it's obvious her feelings veer into stalker territory: she plans openly, without any kind of embarrassment, to radio-eavesspydrop on a trip of Nate's that he doesn't even know she knows he is going on, not to mention the tiny fact that Nate has no idea who Abbey is. It's fairly uncomfortable to read Abbey waxing lyrical over a guy who literally couldn't pick her out of a line-up. I mean saving, "Nate, give me strength" when in a bad situation? Just.. what? Who does that? I certainly wanted to like Abbey - I definitely came closer the closer to the end that I got in the book and she grows up quite a bit- but her stalker tendencies, coupled with her piss-poor treatment of her father made it nearly impossible for much of the novel. 

Other than Abbey, there is of course, Nate himself. I felt no real connection with Nate as an individual character, nor is it apparent for a while why we are supposed to care about a random boy going on a trip for the first few chapters. Nate is far too generic, too perfect for me to really buy into: I want a flawed man over a too-good-to-be-true archetype any day. His plot-line, though I liked how it intersected with Abbey's eventually, just failed to garner my interest from the start.  Even his scenes on Denali failed to catch my eye - they were too bland and encompassing to create much emotion. I was much more interested in the paralyzed, funny and smart Tanner Lange than Nate. He is a much more flawed, real character than Nate, and carried the pages he appeared upon. Even when I found his cooperation with Abbey's stalker plans to be bemusing, I liked him immensely. He doesn't rag on Abbey for substituting food for love, he doesn't constantly rehash her guilt over her mother, he's just a best friend: supportive, loving, kind, there when he is needed the most.

The random shifts in POV, from Abbey's personal and most often-used first person to the third-person omniscient for any other (Nate, Jackie, Tanner, Bob) were very very annoying. I'd have prefered it all be first person: Abbey, Nate, Tanner, everyone, or all third person. It's disconcerting and just weird to be in a characters head one minute and passive observer for another the next. I also felt that some POVs visited, like those of Jackie, were needless filler instead of advancing the plot further.  I would've taken more action/adventure and less insight if that was the trade-off there. It's also worth noting for me, an admitted over-hyphenator and enthusiastic parenthesis user, that Miss Dane uses ellipses a lot . . in her writing. . . for stress. I can understand the urge: it's a useful tool to convey stress and importance or hesitance, but it was way way overdone.

Using Death as a character seems like a fairly risky gamble for a writer. It's hard to create empathy and sympathy for such a feared and unknown and unknowable force, but like Markus Zusak's triumphamt The Book Thief, (admittedly to a much, much lesser extent) On A Dark Wing makes its Death.. human, if not exactly humane. Touched by Abbey's tragic past, this world's version of Death seeks to experience more: love, loss, life, death, happiness. I'll leave it to you to see if/how he does, but other than his relative humanity, I was intrigued by Jordan Dane's version of death, dying and what happens after. While I can't say this incarnation of Death has been my favorite in literature (Terr Pratchett's DEATH will win that contest hands down, any/every time), he/it is understandable, even inspiring sympathy and pity from me. I felt he dragged on a bit too much into the ending, but Death pulled off the feat of coming across as more than just the Grim Reaper of legend.

I wish I could hand On a Dark Wing a higher rating than a mere 2.5 out 5 stars but numerous problems with the novel overwhelm the good. Some elements are handled quite well (Death himself, his personal wants, his individual mythology) while others lacked authenticity (the whole Nate-stalking fiasco) and yet others felt unfulfilled (Abbey and her father). I wasn't a fan of the climax/resolution of the book at all: for all the drama and the tears, it seems both too easy and too simple. It's at least an interesting read, and one that is surprisingly creepy and dark for young-adult novel, but I'm not sure if this is an author I'll keep reading in the future.

Review: The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees

Title: The Demi-Monde: Winter

Author: Rod Rees

Genre: dystopia, science fiction, steampunk, fantasy, historical fiction

Series: The Demi-Monde Saga #1

Pages: 424 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: expected December 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

The Demi-Monde is the most advanced simulation ever devised. Thirty million people ruled by history’s cruellest tyrants, locked in eternal civil conflict. The intention: to create the closest thing to Hell, and prepare soldiers for the nightmarish environment of war.
But something has gone badly wrong. Reinhard Heydrich – or at least a simulacrum resembling the Nazi monster – has kidnapped the President’s daughter from the Real-World and concealed her within the Demi-Monde, making it impossible for the program to be switched off. This achieved, he has cut off all contact with reality.
It falls to Ella Thomas, a young jazz singer, to infiltrate Heydrich’s virtual domain and rescue the missing girl. But once inside she will discover that everything in the Demi-Monde is not as it seems, and that the Real-World may be in more danger than everyone outside realises.

Ambitious is the word best used to describe this melange of various genres, alternate realities, and mishmash of famous, reviled persons from across history.  Rod Rees has indeed created something very unique and quite wonderfully different with The Demi-Monde: Winter. As the first published part in a four-book saga about an alternate reality populated with "Dupes" or a cyber duplicate, of such nasties and reprobates as Henry VIII, Robespierre, Lucrezia Borgia, Shaka Zulu, Aleister Crowley and the main villain Reinhard Heydrich, engineer of the Nazi's "Final Solution", I have to admit this series is off to one hell of a start. This is a novel that will suck you in completely, as if you were a visitor to the Demi-Monde itself; it will envelop you wholly in its individual amount of awesome and flair.

The Demi-Monde, put most simply, is an immersive alternate reality created by the United States Army to better train its soldiers without actual harm (an 'Asymmetric Warfare Environment' or AWE), but still with plenty of threat. As a heuristic (aka self-teaching) program, The Demi-Monde is constantly evolving, changing system and at least TWO of the five will always, always be at war with one another. With five sectors (The Rookeries, The Coven, Rodina, Quartier Chaud, and NoirVille), each radically, racially and religiously opposed to the others, it is a place of constant war and pain. It's a delightfully steampunkian locale, with technology equivalent to the 1870's in our (real) world. With 30 million Dupes NowLive, created from actual human DNA, this is a populous, dangerous and utterly alien world. And with Dupes considered basically the same as real humans, with no real difference between them, these horrible people are doppelgangers/reincarnations of the most vile people to walk the earth. Another twist added onto the constant fractious nature of the sectors is the reliance on blood throughout the Demi-Monde. Without it, a Demi-Mondian won't last two weeks, so supply and deman dictate life. Yes, this is a cyber-reality full of Dupes that are vampires, though not in the paranomal-type way: the Dupes simply can't survive without the Red Gold. With such a scarce supply of real blood within the AWE, this is another element is used to keep the sectors constantly at the point of war/invasion. The blood supply for this world could even be seen as an allegory for the real world's attitude regarding oil.

You can't fault Rees for being inconsistent or not planning out in minute detail every aspect of this historical fiction/fantasy/steampunk/science fiction-ish-esque story. There's varying cultures, conflicting political parties, isolationist religions. . . any stressor involved in real life, real world strife has been thought of an represented in Rees' hell of a world. From the steampunk flair of "mutoscopes", "steam-limos", the ubiquitous gas-lights, the required mention of "aether", this was a genre that worked well for a recreated subreality/world, coupled with the additional touches from sci-fi and fantasy.  I do wish I had a better visual representation of the sectors, The Hub, Terror Incognita, etc. for the maps provided in the digital arc left a lot to be desired with their tiny type and indistinct markings. I never really got a picture in my head of the world itself, and better maps would remedy such an easy fix. While the constant influx of information and data just on the Demi-Monde itself, it can get a bit old but it's also so interesting. I fully admit to googling random side characters mentioned by others just to see who they were (are?), and just what they did to merit a doppelganger in a cyber-reality populated with humanity's worst vermin.

I loved the Demi-Monde and all the possibilites it brought for Rod Rees' story but I didn't love all about this tome of a novel. New, invented terms and acronyms are constantly tossed at the reader, from the first page. While it's usually quite easy to figure out the modern-equivalent of what the Demi-Mondians are saying/doing, it's disruptive in the initial part of the novel. Another aspect of the style itself I grew VERY wear of: the random capitializations. Rees will also often subvert a word or saying from the Real World for his Demi-Monde and the results are like this: LessBienism (lesbianism), RaTionalist, nuJus (new Jews), woeMen, etc. Between that and the overdone acronyms (TRUE, ABBA, PINC, AWE) it hampered the story. What started out as a clever but subversive homage to the messed up real world became a schtick to mask a non-advancing plot. It was a bit, "Here, look at all these clever observations I've made and incorporated! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain stagnating characters and plotlines."  The story itself is told is a very direct and almost simple style, switching from the lives of Ella, rebel Trixie, Trixie's father Dashwood and (my personal favorite character) a Russian colonel named Vanka Maykov.

Ella herself is a bit of an issue for me. As part of "Operation Offbeat" to rescue Norma, the President's daughter somehow caught within the AWE, I wanted to like her. I wanted to enjoy her dark humor, sarcasm and muse into her obviously troubled personal history. It's just hard to feel a genuine rapport with this woman, for me personally. I also thought her intelligence fluctuated strangely: she says she is the top of her class, best SATs, but doesn't know basic world knowledge? She meets Colonel Ivan Ivanovich and doesn't realize he's a Russian? It was random, and weird. I didn't really "get" any of the females of this novel: Norma and Trixie also fall short of my favorites list As for Ella, I  definitely liked that she wasn't a general, cliched white female - she's a tough, smart African American young-woman, who is supposed to be the top of her class. Too much of Ella's plot and actions revolved around every Dupe man in the Demi-Monde finding her abnormally, irresistibly attractive, so much so that they are distracted from, say, torturing her. I'm sorry, but especially with white supremacists doing the torturing, the villains are not going to be conveniently distracted by a nice ankle, or a muscled thigh. I also got SO SICK of hearing her own incredulity at using expletives. I stopped counting the instances after the fourth one, but that needs to go, QUICK. The only time I really enjoyed Ella was in her scenes with the amusing Colonel Maykov... and that's more to do with the fake psychic than the Shade PsyChick. 

As for Trixie Dashwood, former Lady of the royal regime, now enmeshed within the Demi-Mondians white supremacist version of the Third Reich (the ForthRight as it's called) she's constantly in danger. Trixie is a hard-headed and hard-hearted young-woman. Between her, Ella and Norma three different types of woman are portrayed (seductress/rescuer, wimp/whiner/rescuee, cold/closed off) and I didn't love a single one. Trixie is just too much: too much anger, too much selfishness, too much action and no thought. Ella, by far comes the closest, but in this world of EXTREME character arcs, she remains far from a favorite. SPOILER AHEAD STOP NOW! Ella's development from "jad" singer to rescuer to Messiah? Really? I can't say I predicted that at all, but that's a risky and inventive move to take for a (female) character. END SPOILER. I can buy Trixie's revolutionary bent, but her abrupt and entirely unreal switch from proto-RaTionalist Lady to Commander of a militia? In days? With Trixie "[knowing] exactly what had to be done" for an entire military camp? I. Do. Not. Think. So. I call shenanigans, Mr. Rees. That is too far-fetched for a steampunk alternate reality inside a computer with murderous villains from across the ages. But even there, Trixie's evolution does not stop. Slight spoiler ahead: her eventual (and honestly, quite disheartening), bloodthirsty command turns her into something murderous and terrible, something not very far from the SS themselves. Rees does a subtle but effective job of pointing out that fighting fire with fire will sometimes turn you into what you fight. I had to admit that besides a certain charming, scheming Russkie named Maykov, it was the side, bit-players that I enjoyed the most: Louffie, Roza (LOVED HER), Dabrowski. I also quite liked Trixie's sneaky but smart father, the former Baron Dashwood and wished he'd had a bit more time to operate on the page/within the Demi-Monde itself. He sadly was the most underutilized of all the players.

The Demi-Monde: Winter is a lot of book. With plotlines that seem to tie together seamlessly and lead to a satisfying and thoroughly original read, I can't not recommend this novel. One of those rare books where antagonists both outnumber and outclass their counterparts, this was one I both didn't want to finish while simultaneously wishing I had the sequel, The Demi-Monde: Spring, in my hands as soon as I closed the cover, metaphorically speaking. Yes, there are a lot of uncomfortable themes about race, religion, politics, women - but they're all handled with aplomb and finesse and I wasn't off-put by them. The ending doled out some much-needed information, while offering unforeseen complications, a few answers and a burning desire to read the second as soon as humanly possible.

Planned Reads for December 2011!

It's the last month of the year and I am so excited to start my second year of blogging. I've learned so much since April -- book twitter! BEA! NetGalley! -- and I can't wait to see what it will be like with a full year of blogging under my belt. I have some definite goals:


In 2012, I will:
possibly rename this(lol)
post at least 200 times in the year
have an author interview
get to 150 GFC followers
get my NetGalley ratio up
look into attending BEA in the future!

I feel like I've really found my online niche. It's so refreshing to find people who love the same kind of things -- book twitter is especially great for this. I wouldn't have found as many great friends and books without it.

That said, I hope to round out my last of the year reads with:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder
Fracture by Megan Miranda
And The Demi Monde by Rod Rees!

Anything I'm missing?!