Book review - Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

You all know I started blogging in Feb. because Janet Reid said you weren't ready to start approaching agents if you didn't have a "web presence." And then she dismissed Facebook friends because you have to be a FB member and be approved to access me...

So I got to work posting *stuff* every day that I thought my friends and family might enjoy in the hopes of building a following.

(Umm... side note, if you're one of those still enjoying my blog and haven't clicked on that little grey "follow" button right down there > > >, please feel free to do so now. I promise you won't get spammed.)

OK, so I'm blogging along, then reality set in. I realized that if I'm going to be a freelance writer for two publications, write books, research agents, and pretend to be a good wife, mother and friend, there was no flippin' way I'd be able to post every day.

So I cut it down to twice a week--Mondays and Thursdays.

Then I noticed something... Unfamiliar faces among my followers. (!) So I scurried over and checked out their blogs and from there I found others. And ultimately, through comments and email exchanges, I "met" other writers who now feel like friends.

It's weird. I told JRM it reminds me of the pioneer days when people could only communicate with letters. But it's also better because now we get to see pictures, read profiles, get daily or weekly (as opposed to monthly or yearly) updates...

So not only have I gotten to know my dear friends and family better, which is wonderful, I'm meeting writers from around the world. Yay--blogging wins!

Problem is now I really do need to get back to WIP before I completely lose the spirit of the book.

But I don't wanna leave! I want to keep reading your comments here and commenting back and then visiting all the blogs I've commented on and going back and re-commenting on the comments made to my comments...

Whoa! Where'd Thursday go?

All this to say, I'm headed into the cave for a few days. Back soon--hopefully with good progress made on even newer brand new novel. (!)

Now for the promised book review + CONTEST!

One of my new blogging buddies recommended Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark side by Beth Fantaskey. And while I said a few posts back that I was feeling a little vamped out, I trusted her recommendation and picked it up.

Here's the cover image. I'm including it because I think it's so pretty. I would have totally picked this up in the store and read the back cover. Bonus: it actually portrays a real scene in the book. (!)

But the back cover blurb isn't really true to the spirit of the book, in my opinion. The main character (Jessica) is well-drawn and has a great arc, and the book has a definite mood that makes it not as high-schooley chicklit as it sounds.

To begin with, the opening scene is of Jessica alone, waiting for the bus when a mysterious fellow appears and calls her Anastasia. She's completely freaked out by it, and by the end of the day her mother's told her she's a long-lost princess (yes, the Romanovs called) and the strange guy now living above her parents' garage is her fiance by an arranged marriage.

It's actually a blood pact, and they're both vampire royalty. The conceit of this tale is that she doesn't fully become a vampire until he bites her, which he almost does a few times. (whee!)

At first, I was a little disappointed by the dialogue. Again, I felt like these were teenagers talking like grad-school students, and I was seriously getting Love at First Bite vibes every time the male lead (Lucius) spoke. But by page 60, that's all completely forgotten. (And he's Romanian royalty, so he gets a pass.)

Once the Jessica-Lucius relationship gets going, it's hard to put the book down. First you have him all insisting she embrace her identity. Then you have him all resolved to protect her by breaking the marriage pact. (She's too sheltered and sweet to rule a bunch of assasination-proned, power-hungry vampires.)

Of course by that time, she's determined that she's gotta be with her sexy vampire future husband. He gives her a toothache.

(That sounds funny, but it works.)

Fantaskey throws in some fun plot twists--for example, a competing female love interest for Lucius--which really heighten the tension, and she gives readers enough insight into the cruelty of Lucius's childhood to prove his point without being off-putting to her target audience.

I also liked the nod to Bram Stoker's Dracula provided by Lucius's letters to his uncle back home, and the ending has an element of ambiguity I think readers will dig.

Other than some very mild language (moms), it's a pretty clean read. So JGTDDS gets an A from me!

If you liked the Twilight books, it's possible you'll like this one even better. I've heard there's an epilogue floating around somewhere in cyberspace... must find that...

Now for the CONTEST!
Post a comment below, and on Tues. a.m. I'll use the random number generator to pick one lucky commentor to WIN either Caleb + Kate OR Perfect Chemistry!* (I reviewed these books in the June 24 post.)

What? You thought I was giving away my copy of JGTDDS?! I said I really liked this book.

RULES:
1-Comments have to be below this post to be counted.
2-Followers of this blog get bonus points, and are more likely to win. So click the little gray bar up there > > > to improve your odds!
3-Comments must be made by Monday, midnight to count. (OK, if you beat me up Tues. a.m., you'll be counted, but I have no idea what time that'll be.)

If you're having trouble commenting, shoot me an email, and I'll troubleshoot w/you. Google likes to make me enter my password twice sometimes when I leave comments. Like I hit "post comment" and then I have to enter my password again and hit "post comment" again. I'm sure this is to guarantee I really mean it.

*Those guys following for whom YA romance sinks your boat, we can work out an alternate prize. I'll email you and we can discuss. I have a set of ginsu knives I'm trying to unload... and the first three Charlaine Harris books... Oh, alright, and if you really want JGTDDS, we can chat. Especially if you're a good friend who lives near my house... ;o)

I'll announce the winner Tues a.m., so have fun, and thanks for playing. I won't be commenting back til after Tuesday so as not to skew the results.

Happy 4th of July!

Smart spider, dumb spider

My yard's practically a jungle. And not just because we've entered the time of year when temperatures reach into the upper 90s and the humidity hovers around 110 percent.

Bugs? We got 'em. Mosquitoes, horse flies, the dreaded yellow fly... But we've also got spiders.

I know, spiders are creepy and nobody likes walking through a web, but when you're up against Mother Nature the way we are around here, you incorporate all the foot soldiers you can get.

This also includes those translucent gekkos and lizards (Ew! and only slightly less ew... but good helpers!)

I was working in a flower bed that was recently demolished to fix a plumbing leak when I noticed two really pretty green spiders with orange stripes on their bellies building webs in different places. I was pretty sure they were harmless banana spiders, so I let them hang out.

One spider set up shop in a corner by the garage door, out of the line of traffic, but still in a primo location for catching flies.

The girls like to look at his web, and I stop them daily from poking it with anything or disturbing his progress.

But there's this other spider who just refuses to learn.

He builds his web right over the door to the garage (inches away from Smart Spider) so I walk through it every a.m. on the way to the recycling bin. Gah!

He then rebuilds across the path to the newspaper box... yick!

Every day Dumb Spider has constructed his web in a prime spot for me to walk through. And can I just say, I take the same route for my little a.m. chores every morning?

Friday, when the girls were away, I stood in the kitchen watching Smart Spider hanging out and thought about how it's coming up on a month now of him being in that same spot.

Then I started thinking about how I've seen this happen with people.

Some people seem to find the right place to be, develop favor with the right people (sometimes for no apparent reason), and are successful.

Others just flounder, annoy the people they need to please, get knocked down, try again--still wrong, and eventually move on to who knows where. They disappear.

Both spiders look exactly the same. So what's the difference?

And check this gorgeous purple clover. A nice lady in Fairhope gave me a piece of it this weekend when I visited her shop.

It looks like a bouquet of butterflies, and I hope it's happy in my bed. They say free flowers grow the best.

Book Reviews - Caleb + Kate & Perfect Chemistry

What is it about the Romeo & Juliet premise that's just so darned appealing to us humans? Is it the forbidden love? The youth? The rapture of first love? The declarations? The defying of the parents?

Maybe I should say "to us female humans" because I know JRM declares R+J to be Shakespeare's weakest work. He much prefers Hamlet.

LTM: Whatever. Make up your mind already!

I actually saw West Side Story before I knew about R+J. I was about six years old, and we were on some beach vacation with friends of my parents. I remember my mom's girlfriend was so excited WSS was going to be on TV. She told me all about it and we were going to watch it together.

I must've been that kind of little kid, because I also remember my aunt being so excited about the two of us watching the Nutcracker on TV together one Christmas when I was around the same age. It was the old Balanchine version with Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, and I think I liked it...

Anyway, I immediately loved WSS--the music, the dancing, the love story... (!) I don't know if I cried at the end then like I do now, but I do remember years later reading R+J and thinking, "Hey! This is just like West Side Story!"

So my reviews of Caleb + Kate by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles might be biased. They're both updated WSS stories, and both do a great job of keeping you going to find out if these kids are going to end up together or if one (or both) will end up ... dead--!

(Maybe THAT'S it...)

I'm pretty safe reviewing these guys together because seriously. They're almost the same book just written for different audiences. Both feature a misunderstood, Aryan female lead who falls for the dark, handsome bad boy.

But there are some differences. The covers might give you a clue:

Reow! Yep, C+K is written for the inspirational market, while PC is not.

I picked up C+K in Sam's one day because I'd been wanting to read more in the inspirational genre. It was part of my research in handling certain scenes, etc. I saw "updated R+J" and thought OK expecting it to be a very tame reimagining. And to a certain extent it was.

I did not expect characters to smoke, discuss drug use, drink, have tattoos, have chemistry... (!) I give it up. It's a well-written, believeable story that kept me engaged for an afternoon. It's very (very) romantic. The setting is the Pacific northwest, a private academy, wealthy kids. Caleb is the new "scholarship" student from Hawaii who's all smoldering.

I won't give too much away, but Coloma develops the romance very well. I felt like the characters were believeable and her resolution was solid and worked. There were a few times I felt like her dialogue was off. (LTM: "Do kids really say that?") But otherwise, good book--def. worth a read!  (B+)

As for PC, I expected it to be a lot racier than it actually was. There's plenty of language, mild violence, alcohol and drug use (moms), so it's Rated R. But there's more longing and angst than I expected--not a lot of sex scenes like I anticipated. It's more WSS in that the racism element is very pronounced. But there's still the family disapproval--Alex is a gang member, after all.

The conflicts felt real, and Elkeles didn't shy away from the character she'd created in Alex. He's forced to deal with being in a gang, so there's definite suspense there. Again, there were just a few times I didn't believe the characters would say/do some of the things they did, but those moments were easily overlooked. PC is another hard to put down page-turner. (B+)

On a technical note, I liked how both books went back and forth between the female lead and the male lead in telling the story. When the two (finally) get together, it heightens the impact because you're not having to wonder (through a sole, first-person narrator) how the other person's feeling.

Typically these books are written from the female perspective, so the device allowed the author to have their boys act like boys. (I.e., not spill their guts.)

In my experience, unless they're gay, guys don't deliver monologues about their deep, romantic longings. They just don't. The alternating-narrators trick overcame that problem nicely.

So yay! Now get out there and have a great, reading weekend!

Neighborly inspiration

I had a lot of *stuff* on my mind Saturday, and I decided the best thing to do was to run down to the Gulf, flop out on the sand, close my eyes and just listen to the pounding surf.

The little ladies could run and play in the water, and I'd watch them, breathing in and out until it was all better...

(insert swearword)

So I threw on my running gear and took off around the neighborhood instead.

There's a eucalyptus tree in one of the yards here, and it is the most amazing sight. I'm totally nearsighted, and at times my lenses get out of place throwing everything into a Monet-style relief. Saturday the tree seemed to grow in a haze of bluish-silver but as I got closer, I could make out the round leaves.

I think eucalyptus is the coolest tree--it's so strange and alien-looking, and I want one in my yard so bad.

Two doors down is this incredibly annoying little black and white dog that chases me, teeth bared, barking like the house is on fire the whole way from that driveway to the end of the cul-de-sac and back to eucalyptus yard.

Little over a year ago, an old man shot a dog in our neighborhood. He claimed it was chasing him and threatening to bite him, and it was a big stink--so big it made the paper.

I read the story one morning after it happened. The rage and sorrow of the young couple who owned the dog and claimed it would never hurt anyone, the defensiveness and embarrassment of the old man who insisted the dog chased him into his yard and wouldn't let him leave his house, the neighbors who explained they didn't let their sons go near that yard because the dog had bit one of them...

Of course, being a writer, I was in all their heads imagining their emotions and mental dialogues.

Two days later when firehouse dog chased me (again), I thought of that story.

LTM: Go away little dog before somebody shoots you.
FD: Bark! Bark! Bark! snarl snarl... Bark! Bark!
LTM: Find a happy place, find a happy place.

Now, a year later, I'm friends with FD's owner. I like her very much but I'm still not sure how I feel about her owning such a pest. I try not to judge pet owners by their pets, but it's so hard...

Continuing on Saturday, I passed a house where an elderly gentleman once squirted me with his garden hose as I jogged past. I jumped and then giggled the rest of my run.

Later that winter (jogging again) I saw an ambulance at his house and watched as they rolled him out on a gurney and took him away. I never knew his name, but his house is for sale now.

As I rounded the last curve and headed back to the house, I thought of the Gulf again, and again I felt the ongoing helplessness at the oil that's filling her body and threatening to kill her and everything in her.

I thought of all the times I ran down to the shore to sit and listen, letting the breeze blow on my face until all the stress was gone. Then, when it got too hot, I'd jump into the salty water and splash around with the kids.

Where will I go to release the stress and find inspiration now?