The Lot...

Today's entry into the Halloween countdown of scary books is from an author who I will admit up front, is not a favorite of mine.  I admire many things about Stephen King and I love reading his non-fiction, but I have always felt that his horror stuff was much in need of a good editor.  The one major exception to this  would be Salem's Lot.

King's foray into the world of vampires provided me with more than a few sleepless nights when I was a kid.  The idea of this small town in Maine (a foreign world to a Florida kid) cut off from the rest of the world and being overrun with vamps was just terrifying to me. I've re-read King's classic through the years and I still think it holds up pretty well.  In no other book does King use the isolation of a small town to such effect.  Also, his vamps were scary vamps.  I'd read Dracula and a few other vamp books by this point and one of my first childhood crushes was on the wonderful Dark Shadows vamp, Barnabas Collins, but King was the first writer who made vamps less sexy, more evil.

My feelings about this book were only enhanced by the 1979 production of a miniseries based on Salem's Lot.  The series followed the book very closely and thanks to images like this one:

provided me with even more sleepless nights.  Yikes!  Baby vamps!  So freaking scary!  So, if you have some free time this pre-Halloween weekend, and you're looking for something to get you in the proper moods for All Hallows, maybe it is time that you revisit The Lot.

I Love a Big Party...

Lucky me. I spent last week in sometimes sunny California attending the RT Booklovers Convention. For those who aren't familiar with RT Reviews, it was formerly known as Romantic Times magazine. It features tons of reviews of genre fiction and every year they hold a big blow-out for readers, writers, librarians, booksellers, publishers and anyone else who feel like celebrating all the best in genre reading. I've always wanted to attend an RT and this year I couldn't resist the lure of southern California. So how was it? Well, it was fabulous! I really had a great time talking to authors and readers about books. The energy and enthusiasm of the folks attending this conference was absolutely contagious. Everyone wanted to talk about their fave. It helped me to remember why reading is and always has been my favorite thing in the world.

There were great sessions geared to almost any interest from pirates to steampunk. There were plenty of extravagant parties and lovely swag and books galore. If you're a fan of genre fiction, I can't recommend attending next year's conference strongly enough. You'll have a blast!


And here's a quick list of some of my favorites from RT:

Most interesting party favor: Fruit flavored personal lubricant from the lovely folks at Ellora's Cave.

Best panel discussion for aspiring authors:  The Editors panel which featured editors from a zillion publishers telling you exactly what they hope to publish this year.

Favorite author to swill champagne with: Lynsay Sands, hands down. She is bright, warm, and hilariously funny. And the girl knows her way around a glass of Moet!

Favorite party:  The Steampunk Social. Excellent costumes, beautiful little cakes and plenty of squid to stroke. What more can one ask for?

Favorite author to chat about books with: Lauren Willig.  She was as lovely and gracious as one might suspect from reading her charming Pink Carnation series, and she has excellent taste in books! I feel she is the perfect person to join me in my quest to bring back the traditional gothic. What a delight!

Favorite party food:  The corndogs at the Avon Paranormal bash.  Paranormals, corndogs and magaritas! A winning combination.

In celebration of this wonderful experience, I'm going to try a first for this little blog and do a giveaway!  Just leave a comment telling me which author you would most like to meet and I'll do a random drawing next week for a gift bag featuring goodies straight from the RT conference.  This is the perfect time for all you lovely lurkers to take a second and comment.  I'd love to hear from you...

Angels and vampires and hunters, oh my...

After mentioning both here and on FB that I enjoyed my short foray into the paranormal romance world, I was inundated with suggestions for my next paranormal reads. All suggestions were appreciated and I am planning on doing more reading in this sub genre that I had previously avoided like a plague. One name that caught my eye was Nalini Singh. I've heard interesting things about her Psy/changeling series, but had always felt like there was just a bit too much going on in it for my taste. I decided to take a look at her fairly new Guild hunter series, which at this time involves only three titles. The number of beings seemed reasonable, basically archangels, angels, vamps and humans. I can only keep up with so many beings/creatures and still tend to shy away from those books that feature casts of thousands. 

I started and finished this series in a week and overall, I enjoyed it. Singh is a good storyteller. The characters were interesting, if not as well-rounded as those that I loved in Karen Marie Moning's Fever series. The series basically involves the initial meeting and then the development of a relationship between Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux and the lethally beautiful Raphael, Archangel of NY. Singh does a fine job of explaining the rules of her paranormal world.  Archangels are the ultimate power brokers in this series. They are immortal and blessed with control over much of the world. They are served by vampires, who in order to be made and receive immortality, pledge their service to the angels and archangels for a specific term. When vamps go rogue and try to break their contracts, Guild hunters are called in to return them to their masters. Elena Deveraux is a hunter born, meaning she was born with her abilities to track vamps by scent. 

You know, as I type this, I am reminded of why I have always avoided paranormals, there is just too much going on. Sometimes, one finds themselves so involved in trying to keep up with characters and creatures and even worlds, that the story gets lost. That is not the case here. Singh does a fine job of laying the groundwork for this series. Still, it is very much a series and one is well served by starting at the beginning with Angel's Blood. The relationship between Elena and Raphael is the story here and by reading the books in order, you get to enjoy and appreciate how it develops. I should add that this is pretty hot stuff. If you like your higher beings served up with a strong dose of sex, then this series should work for you. I should also point out that by the third book I was feeling  a strong sense of deja vu.The plot seemed familiar and predictable.  According to Singh, she has been contracted to write four books in this series and I think that may be plenty unless she chooses to focus on some of the supporting cast of characters and take the focus off of Elena and Raphael for a bit. So, if you're looking for a paranormal series that is pretty easy to get into, features extremely hot chemistry between the leads and doesn't require graphs and charts, this one might be for you. I didn't love it as much as the Fever series, but I did finish all three titles in a week, so obviously something was working.