Felicia Day

My Kindle has smoke coming out of its ears I’ve been reading so much lately.  A 12 hour plane ride to England and back helped me polish off quite a few exciting reads I was itching for!  Most of them lean towards the girl bent, and I promise to delve into more man-friendly literature in the next few months, if only for a personal change of pace.  I read a bunch of great books though, starting with the latest installment in the Raine Benares series The Trouble With Demons!  I think I love this series so much because:

a) It’s written in the tone of all the popular urban-fantasy that are the rage now, but it’s set in a believable, not cheesy “olde fantasy” world.  Not many series pull that off. The magic system is well thought out and the elves aren’t poncey.  Bonus.

b) The writing has an unforced sense of humor which makes the characters very likeable and believable.  I actually laugh out loud sometimes when I read these, not common with me.

c) The plotting always feels like a romp.  The adventures and conflicts the characters fall into remind me of playing a great video game or D&D game. I always feel like I’m present in the action.

c) There is a believable sustained love triangle that has lasted 3 books without the characters hopping all over each other, GASP!  Delicious romantic tension that makes me eager for more!  (I’m rooting for the paladin of course )

BONUS:  Even though I read this on the Kindle, the cover art has improved immensely from the first two (less pink FTW!), so read away!

Next, as a refreshing rinse from all the vampire/fantasy stuff I’ve been reading, I picked up a mystery series with three books (so far) starring Lady Julia Grey. The series has a strong romance plot, but I wouldn’t pigeonhole it only as romance because the mystery is very good and the characters are great, very involving.  I read these in England, and the author clearly loves Jane Austen and Wuthering Heights and Rebecca and I found it very evocative to read them while hearing people with British accents, LOL.  Fortunately for me, I read these again on my Kindle.  Look up at the cover art and you can see why I’m relieved.   Book 1 has a great cover, books 2 and 3 want to make me slit my wrists.  A dismembered man hand and cheap flammable prom lace do NOT help sell these books!  For God’s sake, go back to the original cover art, it’s much more appropriate!  Love the series though, will be looking for more.

Last (but certainly not least, check my GoodReads account for all my latest updated books) I read the third in Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series.  At this point you probably can’t suggest an urban-fantasy/urban-paranormal-romance series I haven’t at least TRIED to read.  If it isn’t on my GoodReads I probably forgot to add it (or wanted to forget it).  Most of these books aren’t that great and seem like Buffy rip offs.  Maybe because I was ON the show, my patience runs thin and if I see another description of a dark tormented vampire who makes a gun-toting, leather-pants-wearing heroine light-headed with desire while she’s kicking his ass…well, I’ll do something bad   but this series definitely is one of my favorite of the genre.  There are vampires and werewolves and werelions, etc, but the world is so well put together and justified, and, more importantly, the characters are believable and have real relationships and care about each other.    The writing is witty and exciting and the series seems to BUILDING to something rather than just being stretched out for sequel after sequel.  Thumbs up in a very crowded genre!

I read about 8 other books on the trip, a few about the Black Plague because…I love the Black Plague, LOL! Now I’m planning to focus on some Sci-Fi now, or some straight mystery for a change of pace.

This is one of the funnest interviews I’ve done. Improv’d!

Oh, Kindle, what have you done to me?  I used to read “respectable” high fantasy, things with castles on the covers, 800 pages long with 5 sequels and lots of swordplay.  Now I use your anonymous leatherette cover to read vampire and demon lady-porn.    Sigh.

Well, I think I may have reached my saturation point with my secret “oiled-up chests” fetish.  I stumbled on a very popular sub-genre of the sub-genre of paranormal romance and may have burned out on it.  It’s what I like to call the “Packs O’ Men” series.

Examples:

Sherrlyn Kenyon’s “Dark Hunter” Series
JD Ward’s “Black Dagger Brotherhood” Series
Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld Series (Best smutty cover art that makes me laugh)
Laura Adrian’s “The Midnight Breed” Series
Natali Singh’s “Psy-Changeling” Series (Worst smutty cover art. Bubblegum fog machine anyone?)
Christine Feehan’s “Carpathian” Series

I think I’m leaving a few series out, but whatever, I’m tired of linking stuff.  Post more examples in the comments if you have them.   Yes, I read at least 2 novels of each of these series, a lot of them more.   All in the past 5 weeks.  Eep!

Why am I listing these together?  They’re all series featuring an immortal, sexy group of dangerous, Alpha men who, one by one, fall like dominoes to a practical, spunky woman who tames his inner beast.  Because, despite ripping people’s faces off for centuries, they’re all REALLY pining for “The One.” How can one tell they’ve met “the one”?  Loin burning on sight, followed by dangerous bad guy antagonist, followed by graphic sex scenes, that’s how!  And then they talk about their feelings together.  And more sex.  And more rescuing of the woman from evil, because these dudes are protective of their ladies like a dog over a pot roast.  Then more sex.  Happy ever after!

Also, the structure for these (and I’m generalizing because there is some variation within the series I’ve mentioned) is that each book is a standalone romance between two characters, but there’s an overall plot from sequel to sequel involving the same world of characters.  You meet some characters in earlier books as secondary characters, only to get THEIR romance later in the series.  Genius way to sell sequels!

Don’t get me wrong, some of these I really loved (Natali Singh’s world is really interesting and I like her writing a lot).  But the thing is about these books is that, after a girl gets to star in her book and gets her man, the cast-off heroine takes a total tangental role in the world, whereas their sexy, powerful man usually remains more present in the overall intrigue.  I found the whole idea of “now she’s taken, so she’s not interesting to write about anymore” a little crazy, especially when the whole sub-genre is supposed to be aimed towards women!  I’m generalizing of course, but considering the men hold authority positions in most of these worlds, the little ladies seem to get knocked up and start cooking a lot more than I personally like to read about.

Now, I know the other sub-genre of paranormal romance is “kick ass female with emotional problems gets challenged by a dark, immortal and powerful man who is vexing and then ultimately great in bed and they kick ass together”.  That can get annoying too, but in some of these series, the Carpathian is the WORST at this, the girls are “chosen” and the dudes just wear them down into having sex and being with them for eternity whether she’s into it or not, and in the ones I read in the series, SHE WAS NOT!  Total caveman behavior.  NOT SEXY!

What’s the appeal of the Alpha man in romance novels?  Do ladies really want to be dominated and pampered by men who are brutes on the outside and sappy marshmallows on the inside?  Is it some kind of primitive appeal?  I can definitely say that the tall dark and smoldery keeps me coming back to some of these, but the best books had a lady as equally equipped and clever and powerful as the dude.  Pardon me for not rooting for a heroine who’s too stupid to live.

This post was not a review, it was merely an observation.  I am going to list some of my favorite paranormal fantasy series in the next week or so, but I’d love to hear what people think about these kinds of novel.  I’ve migrated back to my more standard fantasy fare and urban fantasy with more PLOT than romance-y stuff.  Will be reviewing more individually down the line.

You can keep up with what I’m reading in this genre by check out my GoodReads vaginal-fantasy and vaginal-urban-fantasy shelves.  I wanted to distiguish modern-day from tradition fantasy settings.  You can thank me later.

I guess having over 300,000 followers on Twitter can be a good and bad thing.  The bad is I can’t possibly follow or know each and every person who follows me, but the good is that when I get so many insanely smart and wonderful responses to things I tweet.  I would love to RT (ReTweet) them all and share them on my Twitter feed, but sometimes I get so many awesome responses I can’t give credit where credit is due.  So I decided, based on a Twitter I did this morning, to share some of my favorites.  My Twitter:

Seeing lots of snails in LA lately. I know people hate them, especially gardeners, but I don’t. Fairies use the… about 5 hours agSeeing lots of snails in LA lately. I know people hate them, especially gardeners, but I don’t. Fairies use them as mounts after all.

A bit surreal, but hey, I hadn’t had coffee yet.  I got SO MANY responses that can be classified in several ways.

LITERAL:

tashabear @feliciaday Fairies must take the long view in regards to transportation.

Xandarr2112@feliciaday Why is that? Their flight speed is so much faster than their mounts can move.

SAD VIEW:

bernardx@feliciaday I get uber depressed when I see smashed snails. Just looks so sad. They come out during the rain and I wanna yell “run”!!!

caliclia@feliciaday I love snails (because they are mounts for fairies ) but my friend accidentally broke one’s shell as we were getting coffee

Hilarious, I actually found her friend’s response: WrockDinahSaur@feliciaday I would like to mention (as @caliclia‘s friend) that it was an accident and I moved it to safety so it could try and recover!

TOUCHING:

bytheshoreline@feliciaday You just reminded me of when I was little and made a tiny fairy world in my backyard. Can’t remember if there were snails

CJArabia@feliciaday I always pick up snails and move them off the sidewalk so they don’t get stepped on.

tinytigers@feliciaday That is so sweet. I cried as a kid when my mum used to pull weeds in the garden, as that’s where I thought the fairies lived.

VIDEO GAME:

meld82@feliciaday ahhh snails would be a painful starting mount. I imagine they would lvl up fast and move on to dragonflys or butterflies

autographedcat@feliciaday Ok, now I want a giant snail mount in WoW. And it’s all your fault.

EDUCATIONAL:

BlackDan@feliciaday or you could collect the trail and make cough syrup…http://tinyurl.com/cwpszm although in LA you may not get a cold…

SethTaurus@feliciaday Snails are considered incredibly GOOD LUCK in Buddhist Philosophy~They represent Security of the home and are good Karma ^^

taterunino@feliciaday If you want to keep them out of your plants and flowers, string some copper wire around the borders. They dislike the feel of it

Tourach@feliciaday Fairies use corgis as mounts also; one of the best things about the breeds.

SLUG HATRED:

domicileblog@feliciaday I garden and I like snails Now slugs are another story…

steph_sanger@feliciaday Snails I can deal with but not slugs. Yorkshire specialises in brown slugs that look like turds. Only evil goblins ride slugs.

LOL-WORTHY:

MrDave2176@feliciaday Which is why fairies are perpetually the last one to arrive at most parties.

geeksdreamgirl@feliciaday Note to Fairies Using Snail Mounts: Do not drink margaritas with salted glasses while riding. Tequila shots, also right out.

And my Favorite SURREAL:

mansonovic@feliciaday – Hate snails. Their lack of any intensity terrifies me.

Thank you Twitterverse for making my day!  And who said Twitter wasn’t a creative, diverse way to share things