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Image of Emeralds and Chocolate

Book Review of Image of Emeralds and Chocolate, by K. Murry Johnson

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Images of Emerald and ChocolateI picked up a copy of K. Murry Johnson‘s Images of Emeralds and Chocolate from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
In his breakout novel, K. Murry Johnson combines two never before paired genres: black gay and vampire fiction. Set in Louisiana, Image of Emeralds and Chocolate masterfully explores the past and the present. The novel speaks to all who have ever dreamed of finding romance, and captures the national obsession with vampires. The story follows Eric Peterson, a talented high school senior enrolled in a creative writing course at Loyola University. Insecure and inexperienced, he often daydreams about finding love. His fantasies quickly become reality when a strikingly attractive new student, Marquis LeBlanc, is assigned as his writing partner. But the man of Eric’s dreams is hiding something. Marquis has been severely depressed for a very long time. His therapeutic motive for enrolling in a writing class is abruptly derailed when he unexpectedly falls in love for the second time in his life. If Marquis reveals his secret, will Eric accept him…or even believe him?

Review:
I’m not going to lie. When I grabbed this book to read, I never made it past the cover (Gawd, I love a fit man’s back!) and the first sentence of the blurb. “In his breakout novel, K. Murry Johnson combines two never before paired genres: black gay and vampire fiction.” Yep, that was enough for me. Some racial and sexual diversity in a PNR/UF book? Hell yeah, I’m all for that! A black, gay vampire…*happy sigh.*

My hopes were sky high. I really wanted to love this book. I really wanted to finish it and rush out to recommend it to all my friends. The thing is that I just can’t. I still think it deserves tons of accolades for filling a niche that is in desperate need of attention, but it suffers from what I’ll call first-time-author syndrome.

The writing is very simplistic. It’s of the Eric did this, Eric said that, Eric went here, Eric thought that and THEN (big surprise) Eric felt something else sort. It’s functional. The book is even well edited. But it’s painfully straightforward and almost impossible to immerse yourself in.

I strongly encourage Johnson to keep writing though, because IMO a lot of the detractors of this book are things that will improve with practice. I’m no expert, but the anecdotal evidence of reading hundreds of books a year (many by new, Indie or SP authors) is that the too frequent use of names, stiff dialogue, understanding that some regional dialectic speech is good, while anything past some fuzzy ill-defined line of more is bad, too many unnecessary details and personal histories cluttering a narrative, annoying internal dialogue, anachronistic (if idealised) language, beliefs and behaviours, the unfailing need for a character to be involved in every historical event in recent history, and the ability to let a joke stand on its own, without the need to explain it all eventually smooth themselves out with more experience.

So, I was generally disappointed in the mechanics of the book. I was also disappointed to discover that this is a Young Adult novel (maybe New Adult). Phooey. I wanted some hot, chocolate, vampire sex. Yes, I did. And I just didn’t get it. Instead, I got a trash-talking, teen genius coming to terms with his own sexuality. It wasn’t the book I hoped it would be. Oh well.

It was however very obvious that Johnson put a lot of himself into his story. And I always make an effort to be cognisant of myself as a reader, especially when I’m probably not the intended audience of a text. Because Johnson’s acknowledgements page makes it plain that he is writing for men like himself, not women like me.

I read an interesting blog post recently. It was a bit of a thought exercise about understanding the effects of the fact that much of the  M/M literature being written is targeted to cis-gendered women (female identified straight women) and what this means to LGBTQ readers trying to find books that realistically represent themselves, even in a genre that should be for (not just about) them. This means the issue is fresh in my mind.

Johnson claims to have written this book for young, gay men of colour. That’s the target audience and I’m not an African American gay youth. If I was and was looking desperately for a character, any character, even just one measly character that I could relate to in the PNR/UF genre this would be about as close as I can imagine easily coming. So I have to be careful to not criticise the book for simply not being another M/M book targeted at me—a straight, white woman.

I think it probably accomplishes its goal of contributing some much-needed diversity to the PNR/UF genre. The writing and story just needs to be smoothed out. And I think the public service announcement aspects of it needs to have been dropped.

Turning a novel into a PSA is a personal no-no. This book addresses gay marriage, AIDS exposure among the 15-25 age cohort, the importance of safe sex if abstinence isn’t a realistic option, identifying possible racial discrimination, etc.  These are important issues. However, each is shoehorned into the plot unnaturally. It felt just like what it probably was, an attempt on the author’s part to get the message out to young readers. A fictional novel just isn’t the place.

So, I’m torn. The book wasn’t the hot vampire romance I hoped it would be. In fact, the vampire aspect played very little part in the book at all. It was predominately a coming of age story and a lot more time was spent with Eric and his school, friend, family and band issues than the romance or the vampire aspects. It made me pout. However, for someone who is looking for that type of book and is comfortable with plain, straightforward, unembellished writing this is a good candidate.

Book Review of A Touch of Midnight & Kiss of Midnight, by Lara Adrian

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I grabbed Lara Adrian’s A Touch of Midnight from the Amazon free list and Kiss of Midnight from my local library.

A Touch of MidnightDescription from Goodreads:
Savannah Dupree is halfway across the country from her Louisiana bayou hometown, a freshman studying at Boston University on a full scholarship. But academic excellence is only one of Savannah’s gifts. She possesses something even more remarkable than her quick mind and insatiable curiosity for learning. With a simple touch, Savannah can see an object’s past—a skill that puts her life in danger, when her studies bring her into contact with a centuries-old English sword and the secret hidden within the blade’s history: the vicious murders of twin boys by a group of fanged creatures borne of the worst kind of nightmare.

In all his three hundred years of living as one of the Breed, vampire warrior Gideon never dreamed he’d see the blade again that spilled his young brothers’ lives ages ago on that blood-soaked night in London. Ever since the boys’ deaths, Gideon’s been on a personal quest to rid the world of Rogue vampires, but now he can’t help wondering if the brutal slayings of his only kin was something more sinister—an act perpetrated by an unknown enemy. An enemy who is apparently living in hiding somewhere in Boston. There’s one certain way to prove Gideon’s suspicion, but it will mean using innocent, gifted Savannah to help uncover the full truth—a truth that will shatter everything she knows about herself and the world around her. And with danger closing in from all sides, the passion that ignites between Gideon and Savannah will tempt them to risk their hearts and lives for a love that might just last an eternity…

Review:
Pompous, overwritten, rushed and containing every cheap PNR cliché known to man. However, I think (though I may be giving it too much credit) that since this was published well after the bulk of the other books, it is intended for pre-existing fans of the series, whose well entrenched love of the Breeds would carry the day. Perhaps it has more meaning and resonance for such readers. This is the first of the Midnight Breed books I’ve ever read and I WAS NOT IMPRESSED.

Kiss of Midnight

Description from Goodreads:
He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabrielle Maxwell’s deepest fantasies. But nothing about this night—or this man—is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed—a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.

Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren. A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind—and the unwitting humans existing alongside them—from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.

Here, in the arms of the Breed’s formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all. . . 

Review:
Blerghhhh. Let me just pause to clean up the vomit…ok, moving on. I absolutely, 100% do not understand why people love this series! It’s horrible. I picked this book up from my local library, but prior to reading it I read the freebie prequel A Touch of Midnight. Of it I said, “Pompous, overwritten, rushed and containing every cheap PNR cliché known to man…I WAS NOT IMPRESSED.” This one wasn’t rushed; I’ll give it that. But the rest of that sentence is true. It was also incredibly, I mean INCREDIBLY predictable. 

The dialogue was stiff and overly dramatic. There were numerous large, dull info-dumps. I knew what would happen at every stage of the game. A lot of hated PNR tropes were simply strung together and called a book and the plot was so thin cheesecloth would feel more substantial. 

What’s worse, I hated the characters. Lucan was just a selfish jackass and at no point did I feel he redeemed himself. And Gabrielle was TSTL. I mean, with the exception of the times they were in bed, she spent the whole book being angry, annoyed, or scared of Lucan. So…what exactly did she fall in love with? Then, of course, because she has to throw herself into stupid danger (can’t miss that tripe…excuse me, trope) she decides to leave all safety behind in a huff because she’s mad at Lucan. Dumb. 

Plus, can I just vent a moment on how much I hate how common it is for heroines to doubt their own sanity. It’s just a cultural reaffirmation of the idea that women aren’t as strong in the mental department as men. She’s made to look emotionally and mentally weak so that she needs a strong smart man to make all her decisions for her. Ugh. Gross.

And, and, while on hated tropes…being seduced in her sleep, denies her volition and accountability of her own sexuality. Not to mention, seriously people, no woman would sleep through a man sneaking into her bedroom and performing oral sex on her. The first dip of the mattress would have most women up and screaming in fear, not pleasure. I hate this romantic trope so much.

Yeah, so, so, so, yeah, I have no more words for how much I hated this book.

Once Broken

Book Review of Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles, #1), by H. Anne Henry

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Once Broken

I picked up a copy of H. Anne Henry‘s Once Broke from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Demon hunter Remington ‘Remi’ Hart likes to think she’s seen a thing or two. That’s what happens when you live in a town like Dove Creek, where the supernatural world abounds and the townsfolk are willfully ignorant of it. But when the Triple Six show up — flesh and blood human beings with powerful, superhuman abilities — Remi and the rest of her allies, the Amasai, are thrown for a loop. Old and new enemies alike come at them head on, forcing the Amasai to recognize that they are outnumbered and outgunned. Before Dove Creek is overrun, they have to find a way to solve the mystery of the new dark power and quell its source. 

During all of this, Remi is still coming to grips with the death of her husband three years ago, dealing with her barely understood feelings for the werewolf who saved her life, and flirting with the smoking hot cowboy of the Amasai who is currently pursuing her. Remi will set her personal feelings aside, though, when the bodies start piling up and her own family is threatened. What started out as a quest for vengeance soon becomes a fight for survival.

Review:   **spoilerish**
A dud, this one never really went off for me. It has plenty of good reviews, so maybe it’s just me. But I couldn’t connect with any of the characters (and there were so darned many of them, most of whom played little role), didn’t find myself invested in the outcome of the mystery, and floated unconcerned through the fight and sex scenes. (The fight scenes resolve themselves effortlessly, especially the last one, and the sex scenes are so cluttered with detail I never noticed the main event.) Nothing made much of an impression on me except for a few annoyances.

First off, the book is written in the first person. I loathe first person narratives. Now, this would have just been a matter of personal preference if I left this comment at ‘I dislike the style the author chose.’ But the primary problem here is that the main character doesn’t have enough of a personality to pull off the first person POV.

She’s emotionally distant, has no notable quirks, isn’t funny, or sarcastic, or unusually acerbic, etc. There is nothing to make her narrative pop. As a result, it all just comes across as exceedingly flat. And when we’re talking demon battles, sex with hotties, sleazy vampires, slimy witches, and broody werewolves the one word I should not be able to use is flat. But it really, really is. 

On top of that, no one has any emotional depth. Seriously, at one point a character see’s his father kill himself while possessed by a demon (having just learned that all the paranormals exist) and he doesn’t even say, “oh,” let alone OMG, Holly Shit, butt fucker, shut the hell up and get outta damn town—no freakout for him. It’s literally  just a perfectly calm, “thanks for saving my bacon.” 

Now, to be fair, I think the author tried to give the characters some je ne sais quoi when she chose to make them all so obviously Texan. And I don’t usually mind if a character has a regional accent. It does give a book character. However, and this is a big however, it can’t be too overdone or it just becomes a distractions. Here, in this book, almost everyone has a Texan accent. I couldn’t stop tripping over the apostrophies, baby girls, darlin’s, lil’ ladies, etc. The whole book was chocked full of passages like this:

“Don’tchya dare move, girly.” The gruff voice of the farmer came from behind me. “I done called the sheriff. Saw ye parkin’ in m’ bar ditch . . . Sick ‘n’ damn tired of you kids makin’ mischief ‘round here.”

Granted, not all of it is quite that uninterpretable (What’s a bar ditch, anyhow?), but it’s still too much. Far, far, far too much. If everyone’s to have the speech pattern, just tell me they do, write normally and let me imagine it. 

This was only exacerbated by the fact that a couple characters seemed incapable of using normal contractions (one was very old and one an immigrant, so maybe this was purposeful). They felt very stiff and names were used at the beginning of dialogue too often to feel natural. 

All of that was then cluttered further with a myriad of unnecessary details. Every outfit (down to the colour of nail polish sometimes), every shot in a game of pool, meals, what was passed when driving down the road (again), etc was listed ad infinitum. It was endless. 

Last there was the romance. Remi literally went from mourning her husband one moment to kissing a man in the next, only to then take up with another man a few pages later. I don’t mind bed hopping, but it all went from 0-60 in seconds.

Does anyone else talk to their kindle? I literally looked at my little rectangular BFF and said, “Where did that come from?” Out of nowhere, that’s where and it ended just as fast, with just as little warning. No time and nothing to make me care one-way or the other about the relationship, which made the fact that for a little while the book just degenerated into a series of sex scenes all that much more annoying. 

Now, the book isn’t meritless. The idea is an interesting one. There is a little spiritualism at the end that I image some readers will really connect with. It was fairly well edited and the mechanical aspect of the writing is pretty good. I just think the whole thing needed to be a little more fleshed out so that it didn’t read like a laundry list.