Moving House

I consider this a temporary post. Let's roundup the reviews I wrote for Love In The Margins in the first quarter. I'm going to spend the rest of March rebuilding this blog in a new location, exporting content from both blogs over. I expect there will be some issues along the way, but let's start packing the boxes.

The Duke's Wager by Edith Layton

Hush by Karen Robards

Flower In The Desert by Lavendar Parker 

Awakening His Duchess by Katy Madison

Sisters by Reina Telgemeir

Trade Me by Courtney Milan

Nonfiction Roundup

The Fox And The Angel by Danielle Harmon

Bertrice Small's Big Shoes

Fresh Off The Boat

The Book Of Negroes

E1

E2

E3 / 4

E 5

E 6

November / December Review Recap

Reading was not a priority for me at the end of 2014. I wrote a number of short reviews elsewhere but I don't find them helpful from others so I'm not going to bother to link them here.

A Holiday Playlist

The Trouble With Tokens

The Sweetest Thing by Deborah Fletcher Mello

Festive In Death by J.D. Robb

All I Want Is Everything by Daaimah S. Poole

The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior by Megan Frampton

Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement

Big Hero 6

Exploring Transphobia: The Meoskop Edition

I'm transphobic. I'm absolutely fine with genderqueer and non binary, but then my biases kick in. As a strong believer in the examined life I'm not one for hiding the less attractive aspects of my psyche from view. On the whole, however, I don't speak much on the topic. I recognize that the existence of the individual is not the problem, transphobia is. So when @FangirlJeanne showed me Thiago Antonucci's #genero #gender collection I found it very thought provoking. Before I go any further with this post I want to make something extremely clear. I am not speaking for anyone but myself. Nothing I say in this post in any way represents the beliefs of Love In The Margins. This is not an invitation to hate speech. Comments (if any) should remain centered on transphobia and transphobic thinking. Parts of this may be painful to the reader. I invite you to consider that possibility and leave the post unread if necessary.

Antonucci's collection resonated with me. It explores how we use visual cues to classify an individual's gender. By selecting conventionally attractive, primarily light skinned, able and attractive models Antonucci doesn't ask the viewer to do more than the minimum, which may or may not be his intent. When an individual is nude, I have no reaction to conflicting non-verbal signals of gender. Stripped from social presentation, I no longer have a negative reaction to a gender designation that conflicts with one assigned by chromosomes. I have never shared the common transphobic obsession with genitals. If someone is or is not surgically altered is almost irrelevant to me. (I say almost for reasons I will address later.) My personal transphobia appears to arise not from the actual physical body of a person but from their social representation.

Part of my feminism has been rejecting narrow definitions of gender presentation. While I am not able to present as androgynous, I support androgyny, as well as a person self representing anywhere on the continuum from femme to butch that they wish, male or female. As a child of the 60's, I'm from the Free to Be (You And Me) generation, complete with tomboys and glam rock. Watching children's toys divided into "His" and "Hers" has been demoralizing at best. I've seen how gender constraints negatively affect not only myself, but also my children. If asked to participate in the freedom of every individual to visually present themselves in any manner they wish, my support is instant and deep. So why does the pronoun / birth certificate step form an impenetrable hurdle? Transphobia.

As a young girl I read Tanith Lee's Biting The Sun and strongly identified with the protagonist. (Don't believe the link, it's not the first time the novellas have been combined.) The quest to rectify the emptiness of their self results in the protagonist abandoning their culture entirely, recognizing the whole society is toxic. I have never felt misgendered. I am not my body, I am myself. Living an authentic life means wearing the style of clothing I choose to. It means applying or not applying cosmetic enhancements as I find pleasing. It means being able to pursue the interests and professions I desire. I want to have those freedoms and I want everyone else to have them as well. I want long haired men and short haired women and everything in-between. Guyliner, eyeliner, soap and nothing else, all of it works. People should be free to use their birth names, a chosen name, or a combination of both. The self should be represented in whatever manner feels authentic.

A large component of my transphobia is believing that MTF is represented as wearing cosmetics and dresses and nylons and heels and well maintained nails. FTM is suddenly in flannel and growing a beard and weightlifting. If you are these things, then you are this gender. If you are this gender then you are these things. This is a woman. This is a man. I unconditionally reject that. A friend of a friend self identifies as lesbian because her husband identifies as MTF. I find this completely irrational. A person biologically identified as female in a relationship with another person biologically identified as male is heterosexual (or bisexual, of course). I find myself unable to make the leap from self-identification erasing traditional gay identity into it expanding and supporting broader queer identities. Being able to change the gender designation on a birth certificates renders biological gender determination meaningless. Biological gender is not so easily cast aside. Which brings us to the cisgender obsession with surgery.

I oppose most cosmetic surgery. I'm not suggesting we outlaw it. People are free to make medical choices for themselves.  I regret the deaths of individuals like Donda West in the pursuit of personal satisfaction with their body. I feel our narrow standards of beauty and gender presentation contribute to deaths and damages the health many. There are situations where cosmetic surgery is necessary or desirable. There are situations where it's harmful. I see narrow representations of gender as contributing to societal pressures to conform to specific presentation. In the case of gender reassignment, there are additional health risks. Having survived hormone related cancer twice, I can't support life long hormone therapy as appropriate. Having had life extending surgeries that have increased my risk of bone fractures and heart disease while removing my ability to achieve orgasm, I don't support similar elective surgery. My transphobia is also rooted in society profiting from the quest of the individual to actualize their external expression of self through surgical means. Parents offering puberty suppressing medication or pre-puberty surgeries to their children seems as abusive to me as not doing so seems to a non-transphobic person. To support gender reassignment surgery seems like an endorsement of violence. 

I don't know what the answer is. I can acknowledge my transphobia. I can continue to explore and have discussions or remain silent where appropriate. I can continue to support the rights of everyone to self express as they are comfortable. I can't, at this time, eradicate my transphobia. I can't reassign the personal meaning of lesbian or gay or male or female outside of their conventional use. I am unlikely to personally identify as cisgendered or adopt neutral pronouns like Ze, Zir and Hir. I can continue to support the right of the individual in front of me to self identify themselves and their gender without conflict from me, an uninvolved third party. I wish we had a different system of gender classification. I wish the societal pressure for narrow expression was eradicated, making the lines between biological imperative and externally applied pressures clearer. I want all of our kids to feel confident in their bodies without fear, without surgical alteration, be it their nose, their breasts, their weight, or their labias. I thank @FanGirlJeanne and Thiago Antonucci for pushing me to continue examination of my transphobia, even as I apologize to those who my words may harm.

tl;dr - I'm totally transphobic but my issues are mine and I try not to make them yours.

An Appreciation of Jacklyn Zeman

While this didn't seem to fit in at LITM I decided it was worth dusting off IMGB to discuss.  I don't have a well thought out point or a major theme but I was really struck by Jacklyn Zeman on General Hospital this week. I've watched Zeman's entire run as Bobbie Spencer, from her student nurse days to her iconic grieving mother, to her current rarely seen grandmother. When Zeman decides to go for it, she's untouchable. If you don't watch General Hospital the backstory you need for this is pretty simple. Well, by soap standards.

Bobbie Spencer is a formerly abused child  with a long lost sister she hated (Patricia) and a currently kidnapped brother she adores (Luke) who is being held in their childhood home by a man who may or may not be their cousin, the long dead Bill Eckert. My money is on the doppelgänger (commonly referred to as Fluke) being Patricia, but whatevs. The point is that in a scene on 1/9/15 Zeman pulled over 30 years of history into an unscripted (at least verbally) moment that was so very emotionally accurate that if I handed out the Emmy's she'd be a lock. 

At the four minute mark of this clip, Bobbie is approaching her childhood home in the company of her grandson, Michael. He's determined to turn the property into a tribute to his own dysfunctional childhood, wiping away the memory of early trauma for both of them. Bobbie is determined to support him but less certain about returning to Elm Street, where almost every wrong turn in her soaptastic life began. Watch from 4:00 to 4:52. 

The way Zeman pauses and looks away indicates that what seems to Michael like a happy memory is actually a nightmarish one, and one she's not inclined to share with her oldest grandchild. There are many reasons Luke would have pulled Bobbie into a tree and many of them involve hiding. The fierce loyalty between Bobbie and Luke is so layered that seeing Bobbie on the Elm Street porch without Luke reinforces to the viewer how isolated Bobbie has become with her brother unknowingly absent. If Zeman's sad pause wasn't directed, her instincts to include it prove she's one of the most under-appreciated lions of the genre working today. 

Here, for perspective, are two other clips dealing with Elm Street. In the first Bobbie is a happily situated career woman exploring an exciting opportunity with (future ex husband) Jake Myers. The Bobbie of this clip is far enough from Elm Street that returning seems possible, a chance to reclaim her past without damaging her future. 

In this clip, Bobbie is a student nurse. Her lost sister Patricia is mentioned around the 4:20 mark and it's clear from Bobbie's reactions that she wants no part of family memories. Later in the 2015 episode I started with, Bobbie revisits the events alluded to in this 1978 clip. This is the strength of storytelling we're losing with the end of daytime dramas, the power of the multi-generational story lines carried forward by the same actors and actresses. Young Bobbie is running from a life of childhood prostitution and an abandoned child (although she doesn't know about the kid yet). She's come back to town to get the life she should have been given by a stable upbringing and a supportive family. For 1978 Bobbie, everything is possible as long as she can keep Elm Street behind her.

October Review Recap

October fell victim to the Halestrom.


One Hit Wonder by Elyssa Patrick

For Love and Liberty by Alyssa Cole, Kate McMurray, Lena Hart and Stacey Agdern

True Spies by Shana Galen

Talk Sweetly To Me by Courtney Milan

September Review Recap

Wow- is October really wrapping up? It's been hard to find reading time lately, as evidenced by the list below...

Lie By Midnight by Amanda Quick

Unexpected Interruptions by Trice Hickman

The Game and the Governess by Kate Noble

When A Stranger Loves Me by Julieanne MacLean

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

No graphic novels, no movies, just a handful of romances. I used to read that much in a weekend! Hopefully things will smooth out sooner rather than later.

August Review Recap

Oh hey, Summer - where'd YOU go?

As promised - a link up of my LITM reviews and my now vaguely insincere pledge to get more read and reviewed really, really (no, really) soon.


Romance: 

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas (technically a September Review but hey.)

The Collector by Nora Roberts

My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas

Three Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James


Graphic Novels:

When I Was A Mall Model by Monica Gallagher


Film:

A Band Called Death

July Reviews Roundup

It's been a reasonably chaotic summer, but I had a few reviews up at Love In the Margins.

July Recap:


Romance:

The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas
The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan
Seduction's Canvas by K.M. Jackson
Trapped At The Altar by Jane Feather
The Millionaire's Ultimate Catch by Michelle Monkou

Graphic Novels:

Watson And Holmes by Karl Bollers and Rick Leonardi

Uncategorized:

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

Review: The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew

In America it's the 4th of July, which means a fair amount of our readership is out baking in the sun and knocking back bad beer. It seems like as good a time as any to drop an unpopular review. The Shadow Hero is reclaiming an obscure Golden Age hero with the aim of exploring his never revealed origin. In short, it's an American comic book with an Asian-American lead. (File that under Rarer Than Domesticated Unicorns.) Yang and Liew are relentlessly talented. The Shadow Hero is expertly paced. Clever sight gags mix with atmospheric panels to create a constantly moving sense of space. It also tackles racism in a way that tries to be nuanced but feels recycled. The Shadow Hero's origin story is six parts Ancient Chinese Secret and four parts Mommy Issues with a dash of Fated Mate sprinkled across the top.

This graphic novel is tagged for ages 12 to 18. I'm not sure this age range will make the distinctions Yang and Liew demand. When a number of characters tell Hank he hits like a girl, providing girls who can fight doesn't erase the sexism reinforcement. Even the girl herself tells Hank he hits like a girl. She doesn't tell him he hits like a boy or that he hits without full force. (Serving as an exception isn't refuting an ism.) I gave this book to a group of teens in the targeted age range and discussed it with them afterward. None of them picked up that Yang intended three of the female characters to disprove the sexism. Several of the racist conventions being explored and subverted were new to them as well. While this was a group of primarily white teens who may not be exposed to the same racist concepts as others, it made me consider if The Shadow Hero is appropriately targeted. My take on the use of Tongs and secret gambling dens might be different if the book was aimed at an adult readership. 

I was also disappointed that Hank's growth involves completely changing who he is. When we meet him he's a pacifist longing for a simple life of domesticity. Hank greatly admires his father, a man who prefers simple sober living to warfare. His mother dreams of different things, and it is her vision of Hank that prevails, despite her being the distant and less obviously loving parent. Hank strives to keep her attention and in doing so becomes the opposite of who he once wanted to be. The book doesn't leave this for the reader to judge. The text continually reinforces that a pacifist life is for cowards. Everyone successful in The Shadow Hero lives a life of violence or fear. Hank's longing for tranquility is exposed as an unworthy goal.

All of that aside, I still consider The Shadow Hero a must read book. The send up of some superhero conventions are pitch perfect. The characters, aside from the Fated Mate, are individual and fully imagined. Hank's story, as well as those of his parents, is emotionally compelling. His mother's frustrated dreams, arising as much from her own poor choices as from fate, are heartbreaking in their effect on Hank's future. I wish Yang and Lieu had imagined an origin story with less Dragon Ladies and more innovation, but taking The Shadow Hero as a whole it's worth investigating. When I closed the book I didn't feel the need for the story to continue but I was glad I'd experienced it.

*This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Policy Change And June Reviews

I'm reviewing primarily for Love In The Margins. While I still want to review books and media that don't fit the profile of that site, duplicating reviews here is becoming burdensome. If you're reading me one place, you're likely reading me the other.

With this in mind, my new policy will be to link to my LITM content monthly and only have non LITM content featured here.

April / May / June Reviews:

When The Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Dead Extra by Michael Saucedo and Nik Price

Opinion - M / M Author

Between The Devil and Ian Eversea by Julie Anne Long

Beacon Hill (The Series)

Breaking All The Rules by Rhonda McKnight

The Trouble With Heros by Jo Beverley

Island Peril by Jill Sorenson

Claiming The Duchess by Sherry Thomas

All Beautiful Things by Nicki Salcedo

Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran

Lakota Dreaming by Connie Gillam

Opinion - Mad Men

Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

Murdering My Youth by Cady McClain

Opinion - Dudesplaining

Review: Hush by Carey Baldwin

(NOTE: Between writing this review and posting it the author has corrected the Amazon page to reflect that it is a reissued work. However in the weeks between this review posting on LITM and being transferred here, no further changes have been made. What I originally pointed out at Amazon remains the case on her webpage, Kobo, B&N and iTunes. Make of that what you will.)

I DNF'd Carey Baldwin's Hush for reasons that didn't have much to do with the story. One of my absolute hottest buttons is a rewritten work issued without disclosure. When George Lucas takes his fiftieth pass at Star Wars you generally know going in that he's swapped some stuff up. There's an implicit consent involved. While Baldwin has extensively reworked her limited release anthology tale Solomon's Wisdom, there is enough of the prior story left that I went from "This seems weirdly familiar" to "I've read this before". At that point I didn't want to continue. My consent for that experience had not been solicited.

I get that Solomon's Wisdom had a very limited audience. Most readers are not going to hit the same wall. I also understand the choice to market Hush as new material given the additional work put into it. I simply disagree. So, if you've read Solomon's Wisdom and give your consent to checking out Hush, let me know how it goes. (I stopped at the point where her brother-in-law bursts through the door.)

Hush is a romantic suspense dealing lightly with domestic violence. Anna is the girl next door, the quiet librarian with a spine of steel. Charlie is the former soldier turned medic haunted by their shared childhood. A death from the past and a death from the present intertwine, potentially placing Anna and her elder sister in danger. There was a lot I liked about Solomon's Wisdom that I still liked in Hush. While I found both Anna and Charlie to have cases of arrested development, I appreciated their honest communication. Both want to understand how their past created their present. Anna is proactive in her sexuality and her boundaries. Baldwin has a straightforward style that will work for a reader or it won't. I felt the same way about Charlie and Anna halfway through Hush as I did at the end of Solomon's Wisdom. Neither of them became more than pieces on the game board. If they won or lost was less important than turning the page and seeing where they went next.

Hush was supposed to be my second swing at Baldwin's work but I think I'm out. I like her working class settings (even with the advanced degrees) and everyday problems, but she didn't fully capture me with either version of Anna and Charlie's reunion. Baldwin is worth checking out but not an author I'm planning to follow.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: A Girl From Flint by Treasure Hernandez

A Girl From Flint was fascinating in all the wrong ways but ultimately a completely satisfying read. I don't understand Urban Books. While they're shelved in the romance section most of the ones I've read have very few romantic elements. As Ridley said on Twitter "EVERY BOOK YOU LIKE WITH SEX IN IT THAT ENDS WITH THE CHARACTERS TOGETHER ISN'T A ROMANCE NOVEL." A Girl From Flint is absolutely not a romance, although it has a number of elements familiar from Romantic Suspense. Treasure Hernandez has taken that model and used it to construct a morality play. Although Tasha doesn't die, it's certainly a book intent on showing us the wages of sin are death.

It's hard to take Urban Books seriously. Between the slang and the stereotypical portrayal of black life, they read like the worst of white stereotypes. Almost everyone does drugs, even the police. Men pimp or deal dugs, women shake them down for cash unless they're a token hardworking mother left to die on their own. Bar fights are expected, if not required. With all of that said, Treasure Hernandez is compulsively readable. I completely rejected the world she was building but I found myself compelled to read on. Although the book is focused on a women who makes her living as an escort, many romance standards remain. Tasha is a hermetically sealed heroine. Men routinely hand her thousands of dollars merely to be seen with her. She saves herself for a one night stand with her one true love. Later in the book there is another (mostly) consensual sexual encounter but Tasha finds it (and the man) repulsive. This is such a fantasy world that I wanted to just stop and consider it. Tasha learns early that pretending not to be after a man's money is a fast track to having him hand her larger amounts. Men slip fat wads of hundreds into her jacket pockets and buy her designer gowns because she's willing to flatter them. She's a good girl in a world full of gold diggers so they respond generously. Tasha has a pimp she cuts into her take, but again, she doesn't trade sex for the cash. Right. Ok. Let that sit and let's move on.

Another common romantic suspense standard comes late in the book when Tasha is forced to work for the police. The heroine blackmailed into a sting operation is pretty yawn worthy at this point. We all know the hero will have her back and rush in to save the day. They might go on the run, they might not. Corruption will be exposed, names will be cleared and HEA's will fall from the sky like angel tears. Except not. The only person saving anyone is Tasha. She has to make hard choices based on incomplete evidence. Betrayal by those close to her results in... her being betrayed. There's no HEA for Tasha, no white knights and no vindication. The hard working student who had her eyes on an educational prize has been replaced by a street smart hustler with deep knowledge of the game. This is the exact opposite of the standard romance trajectory.

I'll be honest, enjoying A Girl From Flint made me feel really, really racist. Everything is wrong with this portrayal of black life. Somehow Hernandez works enough reality in there to keep the reader going. I grew up surrounded by the drug trade and street hustling. Elements of A Girl From Flint rang very true to my memory even as others made me cringe. (A character gets leg cancer. LEG CANCER. I kid you not. It's totally curable by surgery, no chemo or radiation required. LEG CANCER.) Tasha's relationships hinge primarily on how much cash her dude is putting down. She falls in love because he's the hero. He falls for her because she's "not like the other girls" who are apparently all bitches in addition to being hoes. Everything is wrong with A Girl From Flint and yet it's the only book I managed to finish this week.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou by Jana DeLeon

Archeologists date The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou to 2012 in my TBR stack. I was going on about missing gothic romance and a friend sent me a couple Harlequin Intrigue titles to try. DeLeon was an interesting author. Her mechanics are off but the finished product reads smoothly. I'd suggest this one for the night you just can't settle down but still want to read. The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou is an undemanding read. There is an air of the older gothic with definitely modern touches.  It's soap-tastic in it's you've-got-to-be-kidding-me plot details.

Ginny walked out of the woods sixteen years ago with no memory of who she is or how the school in the center of the Bayou burned down, killing the students inside. Paul is a former cop who has switched to private investigation. He has a personal interest (of course) in the mystery that Ginny has largely put behind her. Paul is woefully undeveloped by DeLeon. I knew roughly who he was but he never became more than a sketched in concept of a lead. For the purposes of the story we don't really need more, yet filling in some of those empty areas would have made for a much richer experience. Of course Ginny and Paul team up to work the puzzle, endangering themselves and those important to them in the process.

The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou is a solidly working class story. Ginny has a job and a side hustle. She and her mother work hard and count costs. Paul has a partner but no special connections or heavily financed back up. The actions they take are believable. When Paul asks Ginny out to dinner in The Big City she reminds him she has an early shift so they stay close to home. Their response to danger is reasonable as well - no one goes on the run, gets whisked to a safe house, or calls in the FBI. While the emotional punch of one plot resolution is pulled by the speed (and sheer chance) of it's resolution, not every question is answered. I appreciated the author's willingness to let a few loose ends lie.

DeLeon brings in some elements I was concerned would overwhelm the mystery (or be a face palm of a resolution) before setting them aside in favor of a more original explanation for the events in Ginny and Paul's past. The red herrings are appropriately explained with enough foreshadowing for the reader to find the revelations at the end satisfying. While there is a baby in the epilogue it isn't Ginny or Paul's. Overall, a decent read and an author I'll try a second book by.

Spoiler Alert: The questionable element is a nod to the obsession with satanic cults and child abuse that ran rampant a few decades back. I thought DeLeon was going there, but fortunately she only side swiped it. 

*This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: Free Fall by Carolyn Jewel

Pity the poor novella that is meant to hook readers into a series. It's judged not only on it's own merits, but also on it's ability to reduce a complex world into an appetizing bite. One misstep on either side and the reader is ready to bury it. With that in mind, pour one out for Carolyn Jewel's Free Fall. Having a vague impression of liking Carolyn Jewel I picked up Free Fall sometime in 2012. As I only read books that are piping fresh or carefully aged, it sat in the TBR waiting for the right moment. Free Fall packs plenty of story into a decent sized length. (Let me pause to say I appreciate how Jewel tells her readers up front how long the text is. You won't end up buying a 20 page plot summary disguised as a short novel.) Here Be Spoilers, lassies!

We met Lys Fensic (the heroic characters tend to refer to each other primarily by their last names) in the lobby of her building, waiting for a friend to help her escape an abusive relationship. Her co-worker is trying to aid her but his assistance only increases her stress. At this point I was very interested in the paranormal world Jewel created. Fensic demonstrated some quasi-autistic characteristics that I wanted to explore. (Reluctance to make eye contact, sensory overload, aversion to unsolicited contact, struggle to use visual cues to translate emotional contexts). Then her friend shows up. My paranormal problems kicked into high gear and never settled down.

Khunbish is your basic predator hero. (He's supposed to have a line over the u but I can't locate the alt command for that so just go with it or correct me in the comments and I'll add it.) Although he's a computer specialist by trade, Fensic thinks of him as dangerously powerful because he's tall and frequently calm. She builds up fantasies in her mind of him banging girls who wear glitter when he's not beating up random men. Fensic has issues. But maybe not. Khunbish immediately refers to the coworker as "a pussy." This is based on absolutely nothing. A perfectly nice man is trying to assist a coworker with her belongings. Khunbish instantly dismisses him with a slur of questionable taste. Nice. Let me go ahead and root for him right now. Or not. ANYWAY.

I'm briefly given hope that Jewel is going to call Fensic out on her vaguely fetishized reading of Khunbish's character. When Fensic explains that she needs someone like Khunbish he does challenge her on her assumption that he's physically adept and or violent based solely on his size and potentially his Mongolian ethnicity. Both of them hand wave it and move on. Of course Khunbish is violent! He's a demon who could, if he so chose, utterly control her and... (Oh god, really?) There's something about how witches are super sexy hot to demons (who are all male, as presented in this short) and they could enslave them but on the other hand mages (who are all men) can enslave the demons and that's worse than actually dying because... I can't even.

Fensic isn't helpless in the ex-boyfriend showdown. (She's equal in power to the other characters but set up as untutored and therefore exploitable.) They go to get something it turns out they don't need and then it's sexy time. I appreciated how Jewel set up the sexual interaction between the characters as freeing for both of them. Fensic has been held back by the domination of others and the fear of herself. Khunbish has been required to suppress aspects of himself to fit into the normalized human culture. (Vanilla is, of course, used as a dismissive descriptor. Because why not hit most all my peeves?) The concept that honesty enhances their sexuality is well presented and well conceived. Until it's not. (This was my Free Fall reading experience, things were great, then really not great, then kind of great... oh no not great.)

Early in their encounter Fensic asks about condoms. Khunbish explains that demon / human sex is free from disease due to incompatibly. She says that's cool and all, but she doesn't use birth control. He says no problem because in his human form he's sterile. He can only impregnate her if he's in his demon form. Fensic wistfully reveals she's always wanted a baby (because OF COURSE) and even in his demon form it wouldn't matter because she's unable to conceive. WAIT! FULL STOP! If she's unable to conceive why is she asking about condoms in a birth control context? Talk about your mixed messages there, Cookie! Is this a passive aggressive conversation? "Well, I could get PREGNANT!" "No, babe, you can't unless I change" "JOKE IS ON YOU! Even if you change I can't get pregnant, HA!" Of course, she totally CAN get pregnant because his magic demon sperm knows no human infertility. So let's make this hybrid baby and get back to the guys trying to kill us.

Fight scene, drama, ex boyfriend, discover your true powers, blah blah blah. Now we're wrapping things up with another bait and switch moment. Khunbish has been forced to call in the local warlords, who are apparently the main couple of the book series. At the close of the fight, the female half of the partnership asks if they're ok with meeting the male half and they agree. Suddenly it's baby-louge time and they're meeting with the male half several weeks after the female half asked if it was cool to do it now. Fine, ok, something changed, we can go with that. We head over to the mansion where the various demon underlings are hanging out and they're doing fist bumps and hand jives and trash talking and we discover some are Indian, some are not described and here's the big dude and.... oh hell to the no.

The big dude is a sandy haired boy next door type who is deceptively un-powerful in his physical presentation. My paranormal problems are having a five alarm fire in my head as he lays down the law for Fensic and Khunbish. Mr. Big Dude condescendingly tells Khunbish to "use his words" (no kidding) to figure out his relationship with Fensic because they can't be together unless both of them swear loyalty (or not) to Mr. Big Dude's gang. If they swear loyalty there is money and safety in it for them as long as they comply with whatever Mr. Big Dude desires. If they don't then they are "a problem" for him and might end up getting killed or something. Furthermore, while their fealty is of their own free will, once sworn any failure of loyalty could result in their death. Khunbish is fine with this because apparently demons are totally used to being in gangs. They kind of like it. He's been a free agent for so long because... some kind of reason... but he knew it probably couldn't last with all the turf wars heating up. Fensic agrees because love and pregnant and all, and because she isn't sure how to control herself without Mr. Big Dude's group teaching her. Mr. Big Dude welcomes them and the baby into his gang. And. The. Baby. AND THE BABY. Wow.

Your experience with Free Fall will depend completely on if we have the same paranomal problems. If I'd been able to set aside my aversion to ethnic based personality traits and alpha hole heroes pretending to be beta and street gang culture as paranormal normality, I'd probably have given Free Fall a pretty high rating. Because I wasn't I ended up with a C read. I still like Jewel, but I think I'll stick to her historical stories instead.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: Hot Under The Collar by Jackie Barbosa

Hot Under The Collar was purchased in 2012 and then promptly placed in the TBR pile where it languished until recently. When Courtney Milan suggested we all review Jackie Barbosa's work as a show of support, I had already begun reading it. (The problem I have with Jackie Barbosa is that I love her voice but I've lost interest in erotic fiction. When we're out of bed, she's one of my favorite authors. When we hit the sheets she's just as skilled but I'm wandering off.) With all of those caveats and disclaimers in place, I really enjoyed Hot Under The Collar.

Barbosa avoids a number of pitfalls in her fairly conventional setup of reluctant Vicar and former Courtesan. The first, of course, is that the pairing is completely expected. Vicars never seem to fall for young women of deep faith and enduring piety. The second is that Artemisia, the courtesan in question, is not unknown to Walter, our vicar. Before his injury in the military Walter was an underfunded pleasure seeker who admired Artemisia from afar. There was a danger that she would be something he earned, the nice guy rewarded with the dream girl. Barbosa does a good job of having them earn each other. Artemisia is lonely, yes, but she's not desperate. Walter is not obsessed with her because of her former status but because he enjoys her as she is then and now.

Hot Under The Collar presents two facts about Artemisia and Walter early then leaves them alone. Walter's injury is manageable. He's not impeded in his life nor obsessed with it. There's no detailed scar kissing scene or wallowing in man pain. He got shot, it sucked, he moved on. For Artemisia's part she was ruined and subsequently is infertile. These are facts in her life, not tragic flaws. Walter explains he cares about neither and he means it. She doesn't run and hide from who she is or from his acceptance of it. The objections and obstacles to their relationship are appropriate and appropriately dealt with. I understood the reason for one late arrival's introduction but he wasn't needed. Walter's discovery that true faith adds to lives instead of diminishing them worked without it.

If Barbosa ever decides to write a full length standard Regency I'm completely in.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: The Unexpected Wedding Guest by Aimee Carson

No. No. No. No. No. No. Just No and more no. This is my second Aimee Carson book. Earlier this week I read (and loved) The Wedding Dress Diaries, which is a prequel to The Unexpected Wedding Guest. Everything I liked about the prequel is completely absent from the first volume of the series. No one... There's no... I just.... ARGH!

Spoiler Alert: I didn't like it.

Reese is the younger (and pampered) sister of the hero from The Wedding Dress Diaries. None of that matters. Although the prequel sets up the relationship between Reese and her brother as something to explore, it's brushed completely aside. As well, the supposed lifelong friendship of Reese and the heroine from the first book becomes irrelevant. Reese has real friends, the girls she went to college with. You know these are her real friends because they show up in the final pages of the book to populate the sequels. For most of the book Reese is either completely on her own or watching a man walk away from her.

Mason is the unexpected guest and Reese's ex-husband. His therapist (he's a war vet with a brain injury) has suggested he contact Reese for closure. It's completely logical that Mason would choose to show up unannounced three days before Reese's wedding. Of course none of the staff at the mansion she's rented for the event would challenge him as he walks right into the bedroom where her fitting is being held. Of course her future sister in law and lifelong friend would pick up her sewing kit and promptly skedaddle. Why wouldn't any of this happen? It makes total sense!

That's not fair. It makes more sense than most of the rest of the book. Reese has allegedly hired a mansion with a full staff. None of them appear, get names or do a single thing. Reese and Mason are left completely alone. Deliveries must be received by one of them, guests must be greeted by one of them, changes to the menu, decorations or favors must be hand completed by one of them. It's like Reese rented an empty house and has no friends or family. Look, that's not how rich people do things. I know rich people. I've worked for rich people. I've been rich people. There is absolutely no way a pampered rich person isn't going to have half a dozen people waiting to hop when they crook a languid finger. Just... no.

Reese's fiancé shows up, sees Mason and promptly calls off the wedding. He sees Reese as a useless doll. (Again, why is she throwing the wedding effectively by herself?) Reese lets Mason stay so they can discuss where their relationship went wrong while she sifts through the wreckage of her current one. Reese blames herself for the end of her engagement, even though her fiancé is a complete tool about it. Mason blames Reese of the end of their marriage, which means Reese eventually does too, even though Mason is a complete tool about it. Reese seems to spend all of her time chasing after tools that just want to slip in her box and then abandon her. We're supposed to feel sorry for Mason because he's a war hero and he's not rich and he has a brain injury. I didn't.

Spoiler: Despite Mason having severe short term memory issues they never appear to cause him difficulty. His brain inury is simplified to Gets Headaches and Forgot Your Name. His impotence is cured by exposure to Reese, so he never mentions it. His PTSD is hand waved away and his utter failure to communicate like an adult is excused as pride. Mason is an emotionally abusive jerk Reese will be running after and begging for answers from the rest of her life. So he's a war hero. So what? Oh yea, it also opens with body policing. 

Reese muddles through with the least amount of support possible from everyone in her life. She's treated like a child by just about everyone. When her inexperience leads her into possible danger, her suddenly present staff runs to find a man to take control instead of just speaking to her clearly. Reese is stuck between apologizing, self blaming, and meeting the needs of others throughout the book. Fail Whale, meet The Unexpected Wedding Guest.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet

Beautiful Darkness is a French comic book. (Wait, come back.) I implore you to read it. I understand if graphic novels don't work for you, I absolutely do. This isn't a manga or something you have to read in a specialized manner, It's a straightforward American-style comic book. Give it a try. I want to review this without spoiling any of the reveals in Beautiful Darkness. The story unfolds so elegantly that to disrupt the pacing would diminish the experience. Just put your library request in and come back later. Or keep reading.  (But buying it works too.)

Spoiler Alert: After a young girl dies suddenly in the forest the fairy tale creatures find themselves lost and disoriented in the woods. Aurora, being purest of heart, takes charge of the necessities of food and shelter while her prince forms an exploration team.

Vehlmann and Kerascoet (Kerascoet needs an umlaut on the e, but the alt text commands I know are being rejected by Wordpress. forgive me Kerascoet.) have created an absolute masterpiece. (Dascher's translations are smooth and natural.) It's been quite a while since I read a graphic novel that stayed with me for the rest of the week. Beautiful Darkness is deceptively straightforward, even light. It's a fairy tale in the most traditional sense of the word. Romance and quiet horror play out side by side in Beautiful Darkness while the reader considers the moral choices made within. There's a princess, of course (Aurora) and a prince or two. There are talking animals and girls lost in a forest and quests to overcome. 

Beautiful Darkness is like stepping into a vintage Disney piece. The deceptively simple artwork reminded me of the late 1950's with a bit of Harriet Burns and Mary Blair mixed in. Aurora is separated from her prince by a natural disaster. The book follows her through a traditional fairy tale journey of self discovery as she seeks personal and romantic fulfillment. Like most fairy tale heroines, Aurora asks nothing for herself, she is focused on providing good for others. I don't think it's a coincidence that Aurora shares her name with Disney's Sleeping Beauty. There are enough woodland creatures to satisfy even Walt's mouse fetish. Not everyone in Beautiful Darkness gets their happy ending. It's the trip, not the destination.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: The Wedding Dress Diaries by Aimee Carson

The Wedding Dress Diaries is a short prequel to Aimee Carson's Wedding Season series. It's been free at most e-book sites for several months but is also bundled in some versions of Secrets & Saris. As a sales tool, it's effective.

Amber Davis is a wedding shop owner and the best friend of the bride. Parker Robinson is the bride's estranged brother and Amber's childhood crush. When Parker shows up to refuse his sister's wedding invitation, Amber decides to change his mind. While I like the Little Girl Grown Up trope it felt unlikely that Parker wouldn't recognize Amber at all. He's a cop, and therefore fairly observant. I went with it.

Parker is estranged from his family with cause. Amber's knowledge of those causes is difficult for Parker to accept. He's reinvented himself and shaken off the insecurities from his upbringing. In the process he's also become closed and cynical. Parker's not interested in long term relationships, and the bridal shop owning best friend of his little sister has long term all over it. He's right about that, but Amber's been waiting half her life for a chance at Parker Robinson. She's not about to let him get away again. Here I had a bit of an issue.

Spoiler: Parker tells her a one night stand is all she gets. Amber agrees. Minutes later she's leaning on him about HEA and how he needs to open up. I hate when one character is honest about their intentions and the other character completely ignores them in favor of magical thinking. The genre generally rewards this, but it frustrates me.

After an unexpected round of Who's Got The Handcuffs, Parker and Amber head into the sunset. A gender flip could have made this exceptional. Amber's insistence that Parker spend time with his most toxic family member really bothered me. (Emotional abuse is no easier on adult children.) The Wedding Dress Diaries still won me over but I really hope Patrick doesn't buy into Amber's happy family fantasy in the long run.

* This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Revisiting Wonder Woman

While I no longer buy anything but Tiny Titans I used to be an avid fan of the DC Comics line. I subscribed to 20 or 30 titles a month (sometimes more) though the 80's and 90's and read extensively in the back issues of the decades prior. DC has gone to great lengths to throw my business away, so I'm raising my kids to be Marvel fans. There's still a tiny corner of my heart that desperately wants a Wonder Woman movie. Walking out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier I wondered why. Marvel is doing so much to be inclusive. What is there about Wonder Woman, a character I never followed as avidly as the JLA or Batman, that still tugs at me? Was it all based in Linda Carter's television series? (If that's the case why is my dream casting Lupita Nyong'o?) I decided to go back to the beginning - Wonder Woman's second appearance in DC Comics, Sensation Volume 1.

If you're a modern Wonder Woman fan, this is long before she became Superman's love interest, a pairing I have always had problems with. Back in the beginning Wonder Woman had no concern over being more powerful than her man. Diana focuses on Steve as the first man she's seen in her hundreds of years of eternal life. She's fascinated by him and falls in love. But Diana doesn't give up her immortality just for a boy. Yes, she's intrigued by him (and pressures her mother to allow access) but she doesn't leave the island for passion alone. The island is threatened by the global conflicts that will become WW2. The goddess instructs one of them to escort the fallen pilot back to the world to serve her there. Diana volunteers for the suicide mission. Her mother, obviously, says no.

Check Out His Fedora!

 Diana disguises herself to compete in a physical challenge designed to find the most physically adept of the Amazons. These women have not lived lives of lazy indulgence. For hundreds of years the daughters of Aphrodite have challenged themselves to continually improve. They strive to run faster, aim truer and defend themselves confidently. When Diana's deception is revealed her mother's reaction is not one of anger but of pride. Of course Diana is the most qualified, and of course she should be the one chosen to protect her people. Her mother presents Diana with her uniform and Diana pilots her invisible plane back to America.

Steve is badly injured so she leaves him in the hospital and explores her new world. She dress shops, she scandalizes the town by the scanty nature of her costume, she encounters (and defeats) low level criminals. In so doing, Diana comes to the attention of a P.T. Barnum type who offers her a job playing "Bracelets and Bullets" on the stage. Diana confidently accepts. She has time to kill so why not earn the currency of this nation? It is Wonder Woman's complete assurance that strikes me about this early appearance. She lacks the self doubt of other super heroes. Diana expediently assesses her options and selects the best routes open to her. She's a problem solver who refuses to be intimidated or exploited, even by people above her in power (her mother) or experience (her employer). When offered more money, Diana declines. She is driven by her personal goals, not fortune. When her manager attempts to cheat her she apprehends him and regains her pay.

Street Harassment Stays In Style

It's not only Diana's confidence that reminds me why Wonder Woman endures as an icon despite the mishandling of her copyright owner. It is the unequal power dynamic between her and Steve. In this first appearance Steve has nothing but respect for her abilities. When he sees her perform physical feats outside of his own he's not threatened. He laughs when she returns to rescue him and acknowledges her superiority.

The book closes with a reiteration of her femme identity and an establishment of the dual life that will carry her through the next several volumes but the bones of Wonder Woman are laid. Diana is an intelligent soldier impervious to the opinions of others. She is living her life without apology or explanation. If DC is interested in doing justice to the original conception of Wonder Woman then Lupita is exactly right for the role.

Review: Fall Guy For Murder by Johnny Craig

Johnny Craig is one of those artists we'd call mid list if he was an author. Prolific, talented, a cult favorite, but unable to adapt to a new publishing house. Tales From The Crypt, the Crypt-keeper, if you're a child of the 80's you may not recognize these horror icons as originating in the comic aisle. EC Comics was a casualty of the CCA but back in the day it was up there beside Marvel and DC and a host of other companies as a major player for your Saturday dime. Craig was one of their best artists, but he was also one of their slowest and least adaptable. When the horror line folded he wasn't suited to cross over into superhero work. With the 1950's on the rise, I hope work like Craig's gets a second life. Fantagraphics is doing their part by issuing a number of EC collections based on specific artists instead of specific titles or years.

Fall Guy For Murder and Other Stories is focused on Johnny Craig. Artistically, Craig was a very precise artist. His characters are ugly-pretty in the popular noir fashion of the day. As collected in Fall Guy they are predominately white, which was typical of the books as well. Craig's women have sharply angled faces with slashing brows and nipped waists. They're angry gold diggers looking out for themselves, taking the steps necessary to get what they want. His men are a series of failed Don Drapers, tired of the nagging, unable to meet the demands placed on them. Domestic violence is part and parcel of the murder plots. And yet. Craig's women are also sympathetic. They're placed in worlds they may have little control over and they lash out because of those limitations. Many of them are deeply loved by the men they are exploiting. Some of them reciprocate.

Craig generally worked on his own scripts and adaptations, giving his work an unusually cohesive feel. While his tales of vampires and schemers are fairly predictable to a modern reader, they are ruthlessly logical. Craig foreshadows his reveals with precision and care. He thought about his panels, the placement of objects or people. He thought about his twists, how they worked with their set up and the emotional payouts they contained. Even when the story reads as tediously familiar the art draws the viewer in. His work still pulls you into rooting for his poor doomed underdogs.

While Fall Guy For Murder focuses primarily on white characters there was a very interesting piece set in Haiti. I'd like to see if Craig had more non-white characters in his horror because what looks on the surface like a typical colonization story turns into something far more interesting. I'd like to think it's by design, but the few pages of the tale don't support a wide reading of his intent. The early depiction of the childlike Haitian people so eager to please their "B'wana-Steve" is typical of the period. They speak in childlike and imperfect english. They beat their drums and dance in joy while the white people marry. Their joy is in serving the white man as completely as they can and yet... In the end, he is betrayed. In itself, this isn't so interesting. The black servant shown as duplicitous is typical. Even the method of betrayal fit established stereotypes. What gives me pause and made me wish for more to examine was the reasoning behind the betrayal. The Haitians give "B'wana-Steve" exactly what he claimed to want. They don't inform him of the horrific repercussions of his desire, they only fulfill it. His word is his bond. Even his death won't free him of his fate as they solidify his punishment into an eternal sentence. They deliver him into hell with a joyful heart. I think Craig offered this revenge fantasy deliberately, and I'd like to think it brought a moment of pause to the young readers who encountered it.