strange and random happenstance

If there's two things that get my geeky blood pumping it's London and urban fantasy. I read a lot of books that fall into either one category or the other but rarely both. But last year when the third Checquy book by Daniel O'Malley was released and I was deep into reading the Lockwood and Co. series by Jonathan Stroud I started to think, hang on, these are both urban fantasy with a paranormal bent all set in London, there's something here, I am living my dream. And of course I take any chance I can to read more books of a similar bent once I find something I love and I picked up the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and the Kate Kane series by Alexis Hall on the recommendation of a friend, and I was like, this isn't just a theme month, this is an epic summer-long journey! This is going to be legendary. I hope you'll join me. Though it is mandatory to sing The Clash on a loop in your head... So get ready for London Calling! And get ready for that song to be stuck in your head for months and months..."London calling to the faraway towns. Now war is declared and battle come down. London calling to the underworld. Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls...."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexis Hall, Ben Aaronovitch, Daniel O'Malley, Jonathan Stroud, Kate Kane, Lockwood & Co., London, London Calling, Paranormal, Rivers of London, Supernatural, The Checquy, The Clash, Theme Month, Urban Fantasy

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
Published by: Inkshares
Publication Date: January 21st, 2020
Format: Kindle, 432 Pages
Rating: ★
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Sam McGarver's career could use a little help. He has gotten nowhere on his new novel, spending hours watching the cursor blink on his computer screen. Sam tells himself, and his agent, that he's concentrating on his teaching and healing from his separation, but really it's because he's rattled by the past and the present making it so that he just can't move forward. In desperation he agrees to a PR stunt for the streaming service WriteWire. The founder, Wainwright, is a billionaire's son who is desperate to make his own mark on the world. He's famous for "events" that he elaborately stages and streams to his millions of viewers worldwide. Yet he longs to be taken seriously and to that end his newest endeavor is a little more pared down yet artistically thematic. He has invited four of the most distinguished horror authors to partake in a roundtable interview on Halloween in the notorious haunted house on kill creek, last owned by the Finch sisters, and immortalized in the book Phantoms of the Prairie: A True Story of Supernatural Terror. Like Sam, the three other authors have their reasons for being there, Sebastian Cole is a legend past his prime and facing irrelevance, Daniel Slaughter is losing ground with his Christian fanbase who used to devour his teen tales of terror that always ended with a morality lesson, and T.C. Moore has been cut as screenwriter from her own book's adaptation, a book ironically called Cutter. They all expect Wainwright to pull some kind of stunt. Yet despite the cutting questions it's all above board and they leave the next morning. What happens next will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

H.P. Lovecraft, R.L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Stephen King get together at a haunted house for a PR stunt. A clever conceit that if hewed to, instead of ending up a gore filled version of Burnt Offerings, would have set a new meta benchmark in haunted house horror. But the promise of the first few chapters, of Sam's lectures being the literary equivalent of Scream, are all but forgotten as you force yourself to just get the book over and done with. All the witty banter and badinage between the four authors is so delightful that every time the book strays from the quartet Thomas's editors should have told him to cut it because anything beyond that grouping is extraneous. I started to think that being run over by a bus wouldn't be that bad a fate because then my part in this story would be over. My main problem was that while the house is the epicenter of the evil Thomas lets the evil wander a little too far afield. The house almost becomes an afterthought while it should be the focal point, the fulcrum on which the whole book hinges. When they literally just left the house halfway through the book I was yelling at them that this isn't how it's supposed to happen. Yet while this is my main problem it is far from my only problem. You can tell this is the first book Thomas has written because it feels at times so amateurish and heavy-handed. Sam's dark secret? The mystery of the third floor bedroom? I knew what was going on the second they were mentioned. And as for the number of horror films and books he just straight up rips off? If he had kept the light, meta approach, this could have been humorous, instead it felt lazy. And as for a professional photographer using an HP PhotoSmart Printer, I'm not even going to go there.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Burnt Offerings, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Haunted House, Kansas, Laurell K Hamilton, Meta, PR Stunt, R.L. Stine, Scream, Stephen King, Supernatural

The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: June 18th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Dorothea Truelove is a wealthy young woman. And wealthy young women need something to occupy themselves. Yes, she could marry, but her father would never approve of the policeman who has stolen her heart so she has turned to charitable works. And while visiting female prison inmates might be considered a normal outlet for someone of her class, her reasoning is more unnatural. She has taken up an interest in phrenology and wants to study the head of a murderer. Which is how she comes across Ruth Butterham at Oakgate Prison. The young seamstress doesn't deny she's a murderer, she just claims that her method of delivery is unintentional and otherworldly. She believes the items she sews are imbued with her emotions and that those emotions go on to kill those who wear her wares. She begs Dorothea to listen so that she will see she isn't insane. Her tale is a dark one. Her mother was from affluence and ran away with her father, a painter. But as time wore on they fell farther and farther down the social ladder. Ruth helped her mother with sewing she took in and it turned out she had an aptitude for it. After her father died they could no longer go on as they were and Ruth was indentured to a Mrs. Metyard. Ruth might have been better off on the streets with her mother the way she is treated by Mrs. Metyard and her daughter. The punishments were brutal and deadly. But Ruth had noticed something. Anyone whose clothes she had worked on had an ill will befall them. Little accidents and injuries. So she started to put her grievances into her labors and then there was a death. One of her classmates from her old life. They believe it was the dye from the fabric, a beautiful arsenic green. But Ruth knows better. Because this wasn't the only death. Dorothea doesn't believe Ruth's story. Besides being beyond the pale, she doesn't have the right shape of skull to be a killer. But then Ruth is forced to do some mending for the prison and illness breaks out. Could she really be telling the truth? Or is this just a poor misguided young girl whose life was stolen by circumstance?

The Poison Thread threads the needle (see what I did there) between the plausible and the supernatural, which is what Laura Purcell specializes in. Having only read The Silent Companions when I picked up this book I was slightly bemused and baffled that it handled the ending in such a similar manner. Through the whole book Purcell never spells it out if there is actually supernatural elements at play until the last few pages where the supernatural is confirmed and the book just ends. So ended The Silent Companions so ended The Poison Thread. I was worried that all her books would end in this kind of cliched manner. It almost feels like a cop out. Because admitting the existence of the supernatural and then not leaving room to explain how after all the why leading up to it makes the book somehow less than. But thankfully she has seemed to grow out of this from my further reading. And the truth is, this abrupt ending doesn't take away from this book the way it did in The Silent Companions. It just is. Or perhaps I was just prepared if it happened again... What set this book apart from other Victorian female prison fare, and yes, there are others, I'm looking at you Affinity, is the craft of Ruth Butterham. Ruth believes she has the supernatural ability to kill with her sewing. That her emotions transfer to the clothes she is working on. I totally buy this. Why you might ask? Well, as a maker, from artwork to theatre productions to clothing, I look at something I've made and I'm travelling into my past. My old work effects me when I see it, emotions, thoughts, what was happening in my life comes back to me, and I have wondered, what if that was visible to others? What if what I put in actually remains and then that would effect someone else? Could they feel the late night struggle on a seam? Could the joy I felt at burning something be tangible to another? That what if is what drives Ruth's belief. And maybe that is why I was fine with the ending, because I bought into the premise. I had wondered about my own work so it would obviously be possible for another artist to feel the same. It's logical, not necessarily supernatural.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Affinity, Arsenic, Artwork, Dorothea Truelove, Going Gothic, Laura Purcell, Maker, Mrs. Metyard, Murder, Phrenology, Prison, Ruth Butterham, Sewing, Supernatural, The Poison Thread, The Silent Companions, Victorian

Given how many times the Sherlock Holmes canon has been adapted there is surprisingly little out there with regard to the Baker Street Irregulars. There was the series written by Robert Newman which I didn't know was a series until a few years ago and another series written by Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks, and they were used abysmally by Anthony Horowitz in The House of Silk... but other than that, they haven't really been explored. Which is why The Irregulars is such an interesting take on Conan Doyle's work, because I really do mean his whole body of work, not just his casebooks on Holmes. Here we see Sherlock and Watson through the jaded eyes of a gaggle of kids on the street, and to put it mildly, they don't hold the two famous detectives in high esteem, in fact they rather think that Watson is a villain. Supernatural phenomena has been occurring in London and Bea and her gang, Jessie, Bea's gifted younger sister, Billy, a fellow orphan from the workhouse, Spike, and Leo, Prince Victoria's son hiding out from Royal duties, take it upon themselves to figure out what is going on. At first it's more a job, but then it becomes personal. The supernatural aspects are a nice backdrop, because they separate this show from the rest of the Conan Doyle canon, but at the same time tap into that which he firmly believed in, mediums and the ability to talk to the dead. So this is literally Conan Doyle to the max! The series does have a rocky start, the first few episodes seem determined to show that it's "hip" with out of place dubstep music, but thankfully once you get to "Chapter Three: Ipsissimus" the show finally comes together in a country house bottle episode that features Mycroft and a cult that he just happens to be in. This is the show at it's strongest, showing the relationships between the young cast and how much they need each other. In fact, I'd say this is the closest you'll ever get to Sherlock Holmes with heart. I look forward to more of their adventures now that they are somewhat out of the shadow of Sherlock. But they will still have to grapple with his legacy.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Anthony Horowitz, Baker Street Irregulars, Mediums, Queen Victoria, Robert Newman, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Supernatural, Terrance Dicks, The House of Silk, The Irregulars

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
Published by: Grosset and Dunlap
Publication Date: 1930
Format: Hardcover, 180 Pages
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I will fully admit that until recently I was never really on board with Nancy Drew. As a kid I never read her adventures, though I do remember the spinning book rack in my middle school library, the one my mom worked at for many, many years, was larded with Nancy Drew books and I did pick up The Secret of the Old Clock one day and stopped about two pages in. The story just didn't grab me and at that time in my life I was a reluctant reader. I remember Northern Exposure's Nancy Drew parody with Maggie more than the books themselves! So while not being a Nancy Drew fan I still enabled my mom's addiction. She adored the books when little, checking them out from the library as summer reading. So needless to say when they started issuing reproductions of the original books my mom was over the moon. I helped her hunt them down in our local stores. From Borders to The University Bookstore for Kids, we anxiously awaited the new re-releases was scanning the shelves for any other books that might want to come home with us. I now have these reprints and can not wait to read them for the first time as I have become a Nancy Drew addict because of the new CW TV show. I didn't expect it. I only watched it at first because it was paired with Riverdale and was another "dark retelling" but this time the supernatural aspects were real. As time went on Nancy Drew quickly became my favorite show, and Riverdale fell by the wayside, though I did like their own take on "Nancy Drew," AKA Tracy True, this season. The only real regret I have is that my mom never got to see this adaptation and the resurgence in Nancy Drew's popularity. I think she would have been on board.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bookstores, Borders, CW, Library, Nancy Drew, Northern Exposure, Reissues, Riverdale, Summer Reading, Supernatural, The Secret of the Old Clock, Theses Are a Few of My Favorite Things, Tracy True

If last fall, after I'd watched a few episodes of the "dark reboot" of Nancy Drew, you'd tell me it would end up being my favorite adaptation of the year I would have laughed at you. Yes, I admit I'm all about the "dark reboot" having devoured the first season of Riverdale over a harsh weekend in 2017, but a dark Nancy Drew? Sure I was interested, but not sure I'd be hooked. I viewed it as a nice Wednesday night paring with Riverdale. But as Riverdale's quality continued to tank I looked more and more at Nancy Drew to be my Wednesday fix to get me through the rest of the week. Though I do applaud Riverdale for the nice twist of fate in that they were doing their own Hardy Boys tribute with this season's Baxter Brothers. A coincidence? Hell no. Do I care? Not as long as it entertained me. So what changed? What made me push aside an old favorite and choose a mildly diverting show about the residents of Horseshoe Bay, Maine, and the recent high school grads working at The Bayside Claw, a perennially failing restaurant? Much like Perry Mason, this isn't your parent's Nancy Drew, but I think that's why it works. And aside from the fact that it grows on you, I loved that the mysteries they tackled each week made all the characters personally involved. Their history, their backstory, their past relationships, everything tied into the narrative to make this bay side community rife with crime and more importantly the supernatural. The fact that the supernatural is real here still makes me giddy. It's not just hinted at or intimated, ghosts are REAL! And I love me some ghosts and ghouls. What's more, Nancy is being haunted by the ghost of Dead Lucy, the local urban legend which is very much based in truth and very much important to Nancy's backstory. Yet, my favorite character, hand's down, is George's mother, Victoria Fan, played by Liza Lapira. George was Nancy's former nemesis and now boss and George's mother knows everything there is to know about the supernatural. She's usually drunk and hostile because she's trying to shut herself off from the supernatural goings-on, but when she strolls into the Claw, you know it's going to be a kick ass episode. I would watch a show just about her! Until that day I at least have Nancy Drew.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Baxter Brothers, CW, Dark Reboot, Dead Lucy, Ghosts, Hardy Boys, Horseshoe Bay, Liza Lapira, Maine, Nancy Drew, Perry Mason, Riverdale, Supernatural, The Bayside Claw, Urban Legend, Victoria Fan

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: January 11th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 486 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Myfanwy Thomas is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret organization called The Checquy. She's hardworking, discrete, and unflappable, but she has a looming concern. Due to the nature of her job and the type of people and creatures she meets she has learned that she will lose her memory. Permanently. She doesn't know how, she doesn't know when, but she knows that soon she will be vulnerable. Therefore she does what she is best at; she plans. She figures out how to tell the you she will become everything she needs to know in order to survive. Therefore on a rainy night when Myfanwy Thomas is surrounded by corpses in a London park the you that she was saves her and helps her to uncover exactly what is going on in The Checquy.

I'd remembered hearing about this book years ago but didn't pick it up until I was reminded of it's existence by the looming Starz television adaptation. What astounds me is this book is exactly up my alley but no one had ever recommended it to me. My guess is that it's kind of hard to quantify. Would you say it's a supernatural version of The Avengers? Kind of, and of course I'm meaning the Steed and Peel version. Is it an otherworldly James Bond? Again, kind of... But the way I'm describing it to my friends as I hold it in front of them proselytizing is that it's as if The Initiative in season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't lame and was British with a giant great wallop of snark. Now if I had been told that back in 2012 I would have picked up this book way sooner. So thank you to the TV show that shouldn't really be called The Rook because it keeps almost nothing from the book aside from names for getting me to read a book that I enjoyed so much.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Amnesia, British, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daniel O'Malley, James Bond, London, MyFanwy Thomas, Starz, Supernatural, The Avengers, The Checquy, The Initiative, The Rook

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1962
Format: Hardcover, 235 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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None of the villagers go to Hill House. No one will hear you scream, in the dark, in the night. Dr. Montague views the house as the ideal location for his research of supernatural phenomena. The house's history coupled with the right participants should yield him the results he's looking for. Yet he only heard back from a few people selected as the perfect candidates for his summer long program, for sensitivity combined with previous supernatural encounters. In the end he gets the shy and awkward Eleanor who has spent much of her life caring for her recently deceased mother. She doesn't even remember the incident for which Dr. Montague recruited her she just views Hill House as her first real adventure and a way to get out from under the stifling life she's living on a cot at her sister's. Theo was chosen because of her apparent psychic abilities. Then there's Luke. Luke is the heir to Hill House. He doesn't have abilities or haunting experiences, he just needs to get out of his troubling patterns and his grandmother thinks locking him away at Hill House as a guarantee against Dr. Montague's lease is a lovely idea.

After each of the participants successfully battle their way past the suspicious caretaker, Mr. Dudley, and get explained the rigorous rules as regards the meals and cleaning up by his wife the group settles in. It does not take long for weird knocks to happen at doors in the night as well as severe temperature drops. The doors don't like to remain open, if this is Mrs. Dudley, or the house, they can't figure it out even with the aid of large doorstops. Very shortly they instigate a rule that no one is to wander alone, especially at night. Yet what is actually happening, if they where to write it down as per Dr. Montague's research guidelines, they wouldn't or couldn't be able to put it into words. Strange writings, noises, voices, drafts, and above all four very different personalities clashing, not counting the possible personalities of the house's former occupants. Is any of this real? Or are they hallucinating? Or should they all leave the house as fast as they can and never look back?

The Haunting of Hill House is the standard to which modern ghost stories are held. Even Stephen King has been known on more than one occasion to extol the virtues of this book. When I first read this book I couldn't help wondering why. But as more time passed I realized The Haunting of Hill House had left an impression on me and that I had perhaps judged it based on what I thought it should be versus what it was. Going back to the book I was once again drawn into Jackson's writing. She is able to depict places and characters so well that you feel you are inhabiting them. I also was able to pinpoint my dissatisfaction from my first reading. It's the ending. While I'm fine with open ended ambiguity it's that it was rushed. The book has a very languorous pace from Eleanor's daydreaming drive to Hill House through the daily routine the four occupants adapt, living like they are on holiday. And then Doctor Montague's wife arrives. This is when the story falls apart and just rushes headlong like Nell through the halls of the house until she goes straight into a tree. While this could have been Jackson's plan, having Mrs. Montague be the final push to Nell's death, instead it just feels like Jackson used Mrs. Montague to end the story in an abrupt if timely fashion.

Another reason I was initially dissatisfied was that there really isn't a plot per se. The book goes for impressions over tangibility. Any time anything vaguely spooky happens it's just glossed over or made light of when day breaks. The big scene where Theo and Nell are running from something, that's it, they ran, cut to the next morning where it will never be mentioned again. Yet over time this lack of substance works it's way into you building suspense and paranoia. This book is a slow burn, you might not feel the effects for a long time. Jackson is literally playing with our minds and the more you're willing to go back to the text the more the story works. A cumulative horror that becomes a compulsion that gripes you every fall. Because of all the things that Jackson doesn't say and doesn't spell out this allows The Haunting of Hill House to be interpreted a thousand different ways. Even the ending can be debated. As Nell slams her car into the tree so that she can forever stay at Hill House we aren't even certain of her death. All that we know is she longed for death, either because she was already suicidal or because she was driven there by supernatural means. Nell is the key here, because it's through her we are told the story and this might just be the biggest corker of an unreliable narrator ever.

Nell is interesting, but you can't really get a read on her. You know what it's like to be inside her mind, but it quickly becomes clear that this won't help you figure out what's happening, you just have to give in and let go. Her mind jumps and contradicts and doesn't make any kind of sense. Yet she is a sympathetic character. You're not sure if she's crazy but you become complicit in Nell's actions during the drive to Hill House. As she travels to her destination she sees glimpses of houses in different towns and wonders, what would her life be like there? What would happen if she decided this town was her final destination and it was her new home? Who hasn't while out walking or driving looked at a house or through an illuminated window at night and wondered what would their life be like if that was their house. Who would they be in a different setting? And that's how we become one with Nell. Whatever happens from that moment forward, whatever fantasy she spins about her and Theodora, whatever she see or hears, we are fully invested. We give in and let go with her and love the ride aboard the crazy train.

In fact, this analysis of Nell leads into the idea that Nell is in fact the haunting... but as I've said before you can interpret this book so many different ways that I find saying Nell is the haunting is wrong. I don't think the encounters the four occupants of Hill House come up against are manifestations of Nell. I think the house is it's own entity. It isn't just a building, it's a home, with personality, and once you have personality it is one quick step to being a person, a character in your own right. Therefore I fully believe that the house is haunted and it's not Nell. Well, it's not Nell at first. Because I think Nell is sensitive and is tuned into the house and as time goes on they are becoming one, which would be why she'd kill herself to never leave it. This is very obvious once Mrs. Montague arrives. Before this time the banging on the doors and the noises were unnatural phenomena that the house was creating, but once the good doctor's wife arrives Nell is the one banging on the doors. I think this is because the house is now using her for what it had to do by itself before. Nell has become an extension of the house and therefore helps with the haunting. It's no wonder she doesn't want to leave when this is the only place she's ever felt welcome.

In fact going back to this book I've realized that there's only one real problem with the different interpretations, and that's the lesbianism. I'm not against this at all and think that Nell and Theodora would make a lovely couple and they balance each other so well, what I see as problematic is Jackson's vehement denials that The Haunting of Hill House has anything to do with sex and in particular lesbianism. She didn't see sex as entering into her story at all. But so much of her story goes against what she later stated. Theodora is obviously a woman of the world while Nell is the virginal character who just doesn't understand, an innocent nature that the house can corrupt. Yet there's a connection between them long before there's a connection between Nell and the house. Also the fact that Jackson never comes out and says that Theodora's partner whom she left behind is male or female, though female is strongly implied, then why write this? Why have this omission if you didn't want the book to be read this way? If she was so against this interpretation just a few clarifications could have solved it. But then she wanted to leave her readers mystified and perhaps, despite her denials, this was just another mystery she enjoyed dangling in front of her audience. She was a master manipulator after all.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Eleanor, Ghosts, Going Gothic, Haunting, Lesbian, Possession, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Supernatural, The Haunting of Hill House

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris
Published by: Ace Hardcover
Publication Date: May 6th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Manfred Bernardo is continuing his grandmother's calling, eking out a living with his psychic powers. Though eking isn't quite what he's doing, he's actually doing pretty darn well. He just needed the perfect place to work where no one would ask too many questions and he could be left alone to do his job. Manfred thought he had found that place in Midnight, Texas. In fairness to the town, everyone does kept their secrets to themselves, but there's also a camaraderie among these outcasts. Shared meals at the diner, sitting back and enjoying a drink in the shade, together yet separate. While they strive to keep the outside world at bay a murder just might bring about the wrong kind of attention to this sleepy dried-up western town. Though it's nothing the inhabitants can't handle.

Despite coming to Charlaine Harris through her Sookie Stackhouse books, thank you Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine, it's her mysteries that I love above all others. They seem fresher and more vibrant instead of re-hashing the same old vampire tropes in new and slightly entertaining fashion. The Harper Connelly books in particular are quite possibly one of my favorite mystery quartet out there. This all led me to be excited about Charlaine's new "Midnight, Texas" series. Not only was she going back to her mystery roots, but one of my favorite characters from Harper's world, Manfred Bernardo, would be our conduit into this sleepy town. The book had theoretically everything going for it. Or at least everything going for it to appease me... but the execution left something to be desired.

My main gripe is what I will call paranormal versus supernatural. Yes, technically these words are interchangeable, but to me they aren't. Paranormal to me is phenomena like extrasensory perception, psychic powers, and ghosts, in other words, things that I believe might actually have happened in our world today. Paranormal is out of the ordinary, but still, well, plausible. As for supernatural, I view this as more creature based, ie, aliens, werewolves, and vampires. Supernatural is far less likely to be real. I will point out I'm not discounting it either as possible, just that it's less likely then paranormal. I know people will disagree with my classifications, but this is how I see it. The world Charlaine created with Sookie was supernatural, the world she created with Harper was paranormal, and now the twain shall meet. Sigh.

See I liked that Harper's worldbuilding was plausible to me. I believe in ghosts and weird psychic powers so Harper's ability to see the last minutes of the deceased, call it possible in my world. A little out of the ordinary, but it could happen. Sookie's world, well, now that's all about all the different creatures that either want to kill you or sleep with you, sometimes both. By having Manfred cross over to this new book series I was hoping to have a more grounded urban fantasy book along the lines of Harper with the mystery and intrigue and then in walks a vampire. No! By bringing in the vampire Charlaine just merged all her books into one big fat world which means that Harper's world now has vampires too and to that I strongly object. Yes I like the fantastical, but sometimes I need plausibility. So me and that vampire... well, he just took away all hopes I had for this book.

And maybe I should be grateful to that vampire because, well, he lowered my expectations, besides pissing me off. Oh how he pisses me off. Yep, two months later and that vampire is still the bane of this book. The truth at the heart of Midnight Crossroad is that not much happens and what does happen is so predictable you wonder why you're still reading the book after a while. I mean seriously, if you didn't catch who the the killer was within two seconds and just spent the rest of the book waiting for the reveal to come with a whimper not a bang, then we have some issues you and I. Yet I don't know if this lack of forward momentum and predictability was on purpose or not. Charlaine had a lot of new characters to introduce to us and we had to familiarize ourselves to this new world.

So perhaps the lack of plot was a way to ease us into this bizarre little town, the Texas version of Cicely, Alaska, where everyone knows your name but will keep quiet about your past and never ask any questions. Or Haven, because seriously, it's very Haven like. Sometimes you just need to have the author waiting for you in the corner of your room there to answer questions when you finish. Charlaine, did you plot it this slowly on purpose? Just nod yes or no so I don't need to remove the gag. Yet, despite it all, or in spite of it all I'm still kind of looking forward to the next volume. I know more what to expect. That vampire's appearance won't throw me, and as for the few werewolves and other creatures in town, well, I'm ready for them too. It might not have been what I thought it was or what I was even looking for but there's a part of me still looking forward to returning to this town. I don't know if this makes me a masochist, we'll just have to see what the next volume brings.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charlaine Harris, Harper Connelly, Haven, Manfred, Midnight Crossroad, Midnight Texas, Northern Exposure, Paranormal, Sookie Stackhouse, Supernatural, Vampires