"Shadow of Night" by Deborah Harkness

Since I finished "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness in September 2011, I'd been looking forward to reading the sequel, "Shadow of Night", like a little kid looks forward to Christmas. And then the other day, it arrived in my mailbox and suddenly all my excitement vanished because what if... oh dare I write it... it didn't live up to the expectations set by the first book in what will in time be a trilogy? So I braced myself for disappointment and started reading, almost sure that I would not fall in love. 
How wrong I was (once I again - I never seem to learn) because although the first few pages were a warm-up session where I re-acquainted myself with Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont, I quickly settled back into the story and found as much to love in "Shadow of Night" as I did in "A Discovery of Witches". 

The story starts right where the story in the preceding book left off and if you haven't read that one, this will make little sense, I'm afraid but I will try to avoid spoilers by not explaining too much.  Matthew, a vampire, and Diana, a witch, have come to realise that in order to gain access to the mythical manuscript that might hold the key to the secrets of witches, vampires and daemons, they will have to travel back in time. Using Diana's newfound skills as a timetraveller, they journey back to 1590 where Matthew was a part of a circle around Queen Elizabeth I and friends with all sorts of notables. Even Shakespeare makes an appearance and although this could lead to some cringing, Harkness manages the staging of real historical persons in a paranormal setting much better that most. Kudos to her, I'm actually really impressed. 
The couple, whose love is illegal in the eyes of the Convention governing the Creatures (vampires etc.) are also hoping to find a teacher for Diana in this distant past. Somehow who can decipher her unruly magic and teach her how to harness it. Easier said than done.
Instead of spending a couple of weeks in the past, as originally planned, they end staying for a year or so and during this time, they accomplish an awful lot including traveling from Oxford to London to France and to Prague. I won't go into more detail here - keeping the spoilers at a minimum - it suffices to say that there is drama and romance enough for all in this tale!

Drama and romance is not enough, as we all know, and then it's rather luckily that not only can Harkness make up a great paranormal historical fiction piece, she can also write. And she has the research background and understanding of history that makes this stand out for it authenticity - yes, I said authenticity about a book with vampires in it, deal with it. 
Harkness is an inspiration in that her book is such a piece of quality work. It has obviously taken time and hard labour to produce but it has been worth it for it is splendid. The characters are fascinating and has plenty of psychological depth, the plot is well thought out and gripping and although a few too many historical celebrities have cameos, it is well-written with a mature tone to it that I find lacking in most paranormal stories. 
Summing it up, I'd say it's a triumph for Harkness. Now please go back to writing so we can have the last book in the trilogy. I can't wait!

Ten Things I Love About ... "A Discovery of Witches" - you need to read it!

I often find that the books that I not just enjoyed reading but actually LOVED are the ones that are the most difficult to review. When something is so good, it is just hard to really do it justice and I end up being so worried by my own ability to share the wonderful-ness of a book that I just don't review it. How sad is that?? So now I am going to stop being such a book-coward and will review one of the best books I have read in 2011. "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness. However, as it is such a great book, I am going to go about reviewing it an slightly different way than normally because otherwise I will just end up rambling. They who call it "Twilight" for adults have gotten the wrong end of the stick because this book is so much more than that.

The story is impossible to sum up really but it all begins with American historian Diana Bishop who is doing a stint at University of Oxford as a visiting professor. Diana comes from a long line of witches and her family story goes all the way back to the witch huntings in Salem. However, Diana want nothing to do with all that. She just wants to be a regular historian and she has devoted her life to the academic world. One day the peace is shattered when she comes across a magical book in the Bodleian and unleashes a string of events that she had never thought possible.
Suddenly she is surrounded by magical creatures - witches like herself, vampires and daemons. Especially one vampire, Matthew Clairmont, a gorgeous professor, is constantly following her around and Diana has to find out if he - and the others - are friends or enemies and why they are all going crazy for the magical book.

So here are ten things I love about this book:

1) First of all: Diana Bishop herself. This is a cool chick - best paranormal heroine, I have ever come across. This is not a girl but a real woman, an intelligent woman with a career in academia and an independent spirit. No little-girl-whimpering here, no ma'm. This witch is a kick-ass lady who rows to get energy out of her system and who has been taught to stay well away from vampires. Which brings be to number 2...

2) Matthew Clairmont. This guy is in a league of his own when it comes to the dream-man-factor. First of all, he is hot, like sizzling hot. He is also a professor, specialized in genetics. He is French and has a family castle somewhere in a lovely, rural part of La France. He does yoga but not in the girly way - in the I-am-so-much-man-that-I-can-do-this-without-coming-across-like-a-metrosexual kinda way. If you gave me the choice between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Clairmont, I would actually have trouble choosing!

3) The title. "A Discovery of Witches". Just that was enough to make me want to read it.

4) Diana's relationship with food. This is a woman who (like myself) will get really grumpy when she is hungry. No salads or fat free options here, it is a fry up all the way.

5) The bad guys. Harkness does "bad guys" very well, making them mysterious, yet humane and interesting. There are no real black/white personalities but lots of grey areas and it seems like a lot of the evil stems from ambition and greed. I like that - it always frustrates me when an author introduces characters that are just evil without any sort of explaining factor.
The size. This is a long book and I am so very grateful for that because it is so good that I just wanted to keep on reading.

6) The locations. If you have ever dreamt of studying at Oxford or going to stay at a French chateau then this book will definitely reignite those dreams.

7) The value put on family and friends. One of the things that often annoy me with the paranormal romance genre is that family and friends are somewhat "lost" as all focus is on the lovers. Even in aforementioned "Twilight" which has a rather strong cast of friends, they are not really that important. In this book, they are and family plays a really important role as well as the safety net that will always be there. Good strong values.

8) The dry humour. Diana is a girl with a really dry sense of humour and even when the action begins to unfold there is room for observations of the comical. She is one of those girls that you would love to have a cup of tea with while discussing all of the foolish things that humans do.

9) The supernaturals. These are better than in most other paranormals. Often the authors fall in the trap of making everything so strange (like sparkling in sunlight or tattoos randomly appearing??) that it is hard to keep a straight face but in this one, the differences are more in temper and habits which makes it so much easier to accept.

10) The fact this this is the first in a trilogy! I was so worried that this was a stand alone because I want more! Luckily Harkness is already working on the sequel "Shadow of Night" and though I don't like that title as much as I loved "A Discovery of Witches", I am still really looking forwrad to getting my hands on it.

If you are looking for the perfect Christmas holiday read, look no further but to "A Discovery of Witches"

Review: "The Passage"

I am not really sure what made me pick up "The Passage" by Justin Cronin - but to be honest I was probably giving in the to hype and thought I would give it a go just to see... And how here comes the review which is full of SPOILERS. I don't think I would be able to writing anything meaningful about this book if I didn't include SPOILERS so consider yourself warned.

What initially struck me about this book was two things: 1) It's size. It is really long. 2) The cover which I find absolutely beautiful.
Then I opened the book and started reading and those two initial impressions faded into the background.
The story opens a year or two from now and at first we follow several strands. The young mother who has to become a prostitute to be able to provide a meal and a roof for her little daughter Amy. The death row prisoner who gets an offer he can't refuse from an FBI agent who may have a hidden agenda. The FBI agent who is on a mission that he doesn't really understand but who is so emotionally messed up by losing his child that he doesn't care what the mission is about. Until the mission suddenly includes handing over Amy to an unknown fate and his paternal feelings come crashing over him.
This first part of the story, I really enjoyed. I loved the thrill of not knowing what is going on but having that ominous feeling that there is more to the story... The FBI agent Wolgast is a really good character with lots of depth and I really felt for him and looked forward to following his ride through the book - that was not to be however... Because really, this is all about Amy.

After about 200 pages the plot turns from a mystery thriller about taking responsibility for your actions to a whole different kettle of fish. From one page to the next - and this is where the SPOILER comes - the entire population of America (and possibly of the earth) has been wiped out by an attack of vampire zombies. I kid you not. Vampire zombies... As if the sparkling variety wasn't bad enough, now we have the superpowered, crazy zombie variety as well.
At this point I seriously considered closing the book and leaving it at that but I was in the garden at my parents place and still trying to get back on both feet after my operation so I had nothing else to do.
The story is impossible to really summarize from here but in a few words, this is what happens: A group of about 100 survivors has made a colony in the Californian mountains and there they have lived since the first epidemic. A hundred years have passed and a new world order is prevalent. The story follows a group of these people who set up to get a better understanding of what happen to the world of their forefathers and whether there are other humans out there who have managed to survive. All why they try and understand who the girl Amy is - a strange tween/teen who has suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

I don't know what to say. I am really really not into sci-fi, doomsday, end-of-the-world stories and suddenly I found myself reading one, rather unwillingly. Being honest, I would have put this book down if it wasn't because it is actually rather well-written. Great characters that you really empathize with and that come alive. Great descriptions of a world where all life as we know it has disappeared. Very Stephen King-ish. Will I read the next two books in what is planned to be a trilogy? Well, never say never but I really don't think so.

Read it if: You love Stephen King and think that "28 Days Later" is a great movie. Or if you would read anything featuring a vampire.

Review: "Dead Reckoning"

Welcome back Sookie! OMG I have been waiting for this book forever - or at least since I finished "Dead in the Family". And then the other day, poof it was there in my mailbox, making me so incredibly happy. So after finishing re-reading "Dead in the Family" so that I would be up to speed on all the details, I literally set yesterday aside to read "Dead Reckoning". I started in the gym, reading for an hour while working out. An hour that sped by as I was in such good company!! Then read through breakfast, went into town for a stroll with the boyfriend, came home and settled in to an afternoon and evening of reading.
Today, I will try to review Charlaine Harris's latest Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire book in as SPOILER-FREE a manner as I possibly can.

After the Fairy Wars, Sookie is slowly getting back on her feet and getting her molested body back into shape - with the help of one very very hunky, gorgeous viking vampire. Eric Northman - my new paranormal crush. That vampire is so hot that the pages are almost steaming whenever his name appears. Then in "Dead in the Family", Eric's maker turn up to make trouble in Bon Temps and now that Eric is free of him, Sookie is looking forward to relaxing a bit. As if that would ever happen...
Sookie has new housemates, sharing the old Stackhouse farmhouse with Cousin Claude and Great-uncle Dermot, two ancient fae relatives and keeping vampire-boyfriend from feeding on fairy-housemates is like an extra job next to her job as a waitress at Merlotte's. At Merlotte's things are difficult, since the shifters and weres have come out, Sam is losing customers and Sookie has to worry about her job, her cousin Hunter, who is also a telepath, and about the range of enemies she has and who would all prefer her dead. As in really dead, not vampire-dead.
Meanwhile Eric is acting stranger and stranger and Pam seems to be plotting with him behind Sookie's back. Throw into the mix: 1) Bill Compton 2) Sandra Pelt 3) Vampire Victor and Sookie's fae relatives, there is no such thing as a calm moment for our heroine.

Read this book if: You have read the other True Blood books and - like me - is mad in love with Sookie (and in lust with Eric...)

Worst simpering females in fiction

We all know them, the simpering, inane, worthless, boring females in fiction that character-I-love-to-hate, are supposedly heriones but who are really just bloody useless. I was reminded of them when I reat this article about pathetic female film charaters in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/08/pathetic-female-film-characters

So now I am in the mood for my own personal collection of fictions's females-I-love-to-hate:

Bella Swann from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
She just had to be on the list didn't she? I mean really, she does seem to be the most opinionless, fantasy lacking female character I have seen around for a long time. Her main hobby involves going Jacob? Edward? Jacob? Edward? and she seems incapable of making friends that are not really her boyfriends' friends. Sorry people but Bella is an awful role model for modern females.

Mrs. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Never marry a woman purely for her beauty - beauty fades with age but folly and silliness are character traits that don't fade as easily as looks... As Mr. Bennett had to realise in Pride and Prejudice. Yes, Lydia is bad but at least her youth is somewhat an excuse, Mrs. Bennett is just as bad and has no real excuses. Hated her for being so close to ruining Jane's and Elizabeth's lives but loved her for the drama and humour she brought to the book.

Erin and Shaunee aka The Twins from The House of Night series by Kristin and P.C. Cast
These two annoyed me from the very beginning and it only got worse. Honestly, they don't seem to be capable of thinking a single thought that is not about boys or shopping. They are supposed to be the main protagonist's close friends and allies - really they are just a waste of space.

Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic seris by Sophie Kinsella.
This character makes me want to vomit as she stumbles through life and a large variety of shops wielding her collection of credit card as if they were weapons. Her professional success is based solely on luck and that fact that she manages to find a boyfriend baffles me as her egoistic and spoiled behaviour is really rather repelling.



If you want to feel free to post your own rant about pathetic female characters and link to it here :-)

What is it about vamps?

Saturday night I went out for dinner with a girlfriend and after having discussed the big questions in life (i.e. why are men so different from women and what are we going to do when we grow up), we went for drinks at a popular bar. While we were sipping a happy mix of passion fruit, vodka and somthing else delicious, we ran into a friend of mine and his friends.




Somehow - as one drink turned into two turned into three - we stumbled into a conversation about... vampire fiction. For us YA lovers here in blogoland that is not so special - I mean we have all taken part in Edward vs. Jacob/Peeta vs. Gale discussions at some point - but for professional men in their mid-thirties with good careers to be discussing the merits of Eric Northman vs. Bill Compton... It was so surreal!

Apparently even men like these are susceptible to the charms of the True Blood series and yes, they had actually seen the Twilight movies though they were not keen on admitting it. However, they were not afraid of admitting their love of True Bloood and miss southern belle Sookie Stackhouse.

I saw that Harvard (yes the Harvard University) was offering an online course in vampire fiction - it is a genre that has suddenly been revived and also changed quite a bit. In the classic vampire fiction - Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's vampire world - the vamps are definitely not the good guys. Even in Buffy, the vampires are pretty awful.

Then True Blood, Twilight and House of Night comes along and now the vampire seem to be plauged by a lot of conscience and only feed from willing humans - or even go vegetarian. Quite a change. However, it seems to have made vampire fiction much more palatable that they vamps have become tamed, de-fanged, bloodless.
So people, I ask you: what is it about vampires that is so fascinating? Why do you read vampire fiction?

Review: "Betrayed", "Chosen", "Untamed"

Sometimes when I have encountered the same book often enough, I end up reading it just to have done it. Because when I keep seeing it again and again, I keep wondering what I am missing out on... Something good? Something great? Or something boring? I guess I suffer from book curiosity - I have to know what is inside the book, on those pages.
So after having seen the House of Night series by Kristin and P.C. Cast just about a hundred times, I though "Okay, I will give it a go then...". And as so often when reading a book that is part of a series, I really hate having to not read the entire series. I have already review "Marked", the first in the series, and here I will write about "Betrayed", "Chosen" and "Untamed" - number two, three and four in the series.

To be honest, I have read these quite fast after each other and I the plotlines have blurred quite a bit - I can't remember what happens in which books. A lot happens though! There is a lot of action in these books!! I won't go into details with the plot and I will try to avoid spoilers. Too much happens for me to sum it up anyway...
And that is actually one of the complaints I have about these books. Too much happen in too little time. It seems unbelievable to me that after being at House of Night for two months, Zoey has managed to go through three almost-boyfriends, made a best-friend-for-life-and-beyond, made a frenemy for life and managed to become the established leader of the student society. I mean, she does have to sleep as well even though she is a vampyre. I am not saying it is impossible but I am saying that I would have found it more believable had this taken place over the course of a year... Also Zoey doesn't really mature in the books, she is quite stagnant when you think about what she goes through and I wish that she would mature more and reflect more on all that she experiences.

There are a lot of good things about the books as well. First of all good and evil is not all black and white as in some paranormal romances and at times it is quite difficult to suss out who are the goodies and who are the baddies. And I love that! Another thing that is really great is that Zoey does lots of stupid, teenage things - especially where boys are concerned! I love that. Speaking vampire-lingo she is definitely more Sookie than Bella which is so great!
I celebrate cool chicks in paranormal fiction and though there are lots of things about the House of Night series that I find trivial and unoriginal and down-right annoying (the magic would be so cool if it was more cherokee and a little less witchy), I generally like the series. It is entertaining and I have a bit of a crush on Aphrodite for being such a wonderful b-tch.
To give you an idea of exactly how entertaining these books are: they keep me going for ten extra minutes on the bike in the gym!

Review: "Marked" - Another brand of vampires

Since reading Twilight a couple of years ago, I have gone for a bit of exploration down the paranormal and paranormal romance road. As you all know there is a lot of different themes and topics in the genre but vampires seem to be the paranormals featured most often - I guess they have been around in YA fiction and YA culture for years in different forms - like Buffy the Vampire Slayer who was a big hit when I was a teen.
Having seen "Marked" by Kristin and P.C. Cast featured on a lot of blogs and paranormal fiction sites, I decided to give it a go. To be honest after my recent disappointment with "Need", I was a bit hesitant but as they say you need to get back up on the horse, so I did and I actually quite liked the book.
The vampires in "Marked" are different - bascially vampirism is a recognised part of normal society as it is a phenomenon that hits some teenagers. They become marked which means that they have to go to the boarding school The House of Night to become apprentice vampires, fledglings, and if they survive until adulthood they will become real vampires. Zoey Redbird is a normal girl until the day she gets marked and has a strange experience where she meets Nyx the Vampire Goddess. She has to go to the House of Night where she very very fast makes enemies with one of the leading girls, Aphrodite, and friends with a gang of fledglings who introduce her to the life as an almost-vampire.

I enojoyed the book. In the beginning the very very teenagey dialogue and the use of slang annoyed me - I generally don't like that too much - but I got used to it and as the plot unfolded it didn't really matter. The vampire world in the House of Night series is a sort of cross between "normal" vampire lore and witchcraft. There is a lot of magic and spells - and not of the cute Harry Potter kind, something all together darker. I don't particularly like witchcraft in YA novels, for some reason I find it a bit 90s. However, apart from that this was an enjoyable read. Zoey is cool and I loved her grandmother, an Indian wise woman, and her roommate who has real charm and personality. Not to mention the boy in her gang whose parents are alright with him being a vampire but very uncomfortable with his homosexuality. That had me laughing. I wish that more time had been spent on the (bad) relationship between Zoey and her mother as there are a lot of tension there that could have been really interesting. However, as this is a series maybe it will follow in one of the later books. For now, I am looking forward to reading the sequel - and to see what happens with Zoey and Aphrodite, the ultimate cheerleader-vampire!

Review: "The Radleys" - Yet another set of abstaining vamps...

Right. So are you also one of those people who are somewhat tired of sparkling, extremely handsome vampires with poetic tendencies who abstain human blood? Then please join the group, I think we are quite a number by now. "The Radleys" is another book about vampires - this time written by Matt Haig and in quite a different tone than say "Twilight".

The Radleys are a family of four abstaining vampires living in a quiet Yorkshire village trying to blend in. Which they do quite well thanks to Dad's work as a doctor (anyone say Carlisle?!), mum's watercolours and the two kids Rowan and Clara - who do not know that they are vamps. However, the facade begins to crumble when Clara decides to go vegan, which makes her very very ill and means that one day, she can no longer control the instinct for blood lurking beneath the surface. Cue the police, cue investigations, cue Uncle Will. The family's black sheep, wild Uncle Will gets called to the scene to help out the Radleys. However, instead of helping out, he turns out to make havoc of an already messy situation. Clara is taking to her new vamp identity, Rowan is not so sure but is more worried about his crush on girl-next-door Eve and mum and dad are fighting a crumbling marriage.

Summing it up: this is a book that fuses surburbia and vampires with a pinch of humour and lots of twists. I actually enjoyed this book. The chapters are very short which suit the plot very well and adds to the quality of the writing. It was a very quick read and very shallow - no room for thought there, no reflections - but it was a breath of fresh air in a genre that I often find repetitive. All in all a good read if you want something light and fun with vampires.

Ps. I am loving the book cover!! What do you think?