Hot Blooded – Anthology Review

Contains novellas by Christine Feehan, Maggie Shayne, Emma Holly, and Angela Knight.

So, a year or three ago, I picked up an anthology called Fantasy, headlined by Feehan. I must confess I was still feeling a bit snobbish about vampire fiction and found it all kind of silly. I don’t think I finished most of the stories.

Times change, my friends, and so does reading taste. I had some leftover reluctance for Hot Blooded, due to the similarity of cover art and two of the same authors as Fantasy… plus, I have to admit, as the month draws to a close, I’m getting kind of burned out on anthologies.

But I was pleasantly surprised. Given that I have surrendered my disbelief on the vampire subject in general, I was in a much more receptive frame of mind for these stories and really enjoyed them. As a whole, each author did a good job of limiting the world-building complexities to just what was needed for the novella. Since I’m not a follower of any of these series, that was definitely a concern.

I mean, I could tell there was a lot going on in the Carpathian universe that I don’t (yet?) know about. Frankly, I think most modern authors who have ditched the whole “going to ground” element of vampire mythology have done the right thing, because I found that fairly offputting, and there were more loose ends hanging than I would accept from a full-length book, but that is sort of the nature of writing a series, I guess. All in all though, it was an engaging story that I was able to read and enjoy with zero external grounding (heh, sorry, groan) in Carpathian lore. For whatever reason, I continue to resist Feehan as an author, but I’m strongly tempted to cherry-pick through her backlist to see if I can find out what goes on with the secondary female characters in this story.

Maggie Shayne had an entry in Wild Thing, which I liked but didn’t love—it was clearly a part of an ongoing series and I had some other issues with it (review pending). What she did right with the Hot Blooded novella, Awaiting Moonrise, was to make it a completely stand-alone story. If it’s part of some other series, I can’t tell. The hero is a loner, the victim of a generations-old voodoo curse, and not part of a pack, pride, clan, patria, gaggle or seraglio of other Others, so there is less of a societal fabric that the reader needs to be oriented on. One nitpick would be the behavior of the hero when she first meets him—he’s a doctor, and behaves improperly. I don’t care if it did make her hot, it pissed me off. (Maybe it works for people with medical fetishes, I don’t know, those gross me out.) Other than that though, Shayne does the insta-heat thing pretty well, a visceral connection between the hero and heroine; there’s a little bit of a bad guy, a little bit of voodoo, and ultimately a happy ending.

Emma Holly… oh my. It’s shaping up to be a love-hate thing with me and her. After loving her historical, and hating the weird alien thing in Hot Spell, I was pleasantly surprised by The Night Owl (nothing to do with actual owls, by the way.) This was everything a romantic novella should be. It is the story of two people falling in lusty, sexy love, and very little more. It is part of Holly’s upyr series, which I snubbed those years ago, and it helps that the vampire lore is fairly standard: they drink blood, they “turn” humans (though their society has restrictions on this to prevent detection), they can’t bear sunlight and hang out in basements during daylight hours. There was some minor villainy, dealt with in a satisfactory way, but overall it’s the story of how Bastien has to take some risks to win Mariann over to the dark side, so to speak. If I have a complaint, I would say that there wasn’t much development of the relationship, per se. We get a good feel for both Mariann and Bastien (a bit later), but not so much why he falls in love with her. That’s just sort of as writ. Though I have to admit, if I (let’s assume, an unmarried version of me) were to experience that kind of mind-blowing sex, I’d probably convert to whatever, too. Just sayin’.

Angela Knight. Hmmm. What can you say about a universe that incorporates human legends through time by making them *actual* Mages, furthermore, a premise that requires the female counterparts to such legends to be fucked into their full potential by said Mages. Yes readers, Mage semen is magically delicious. If some guy chats you up in a bar and promises you immortality in exchange for a weekend in Cabo, he might be an Angela Knight fan. Despite the absolutely preposterous premise, I liked the characters quite a bit; the sex scenes were creative, athletic, funny, and still very very hott, although I did sort of feel like I should have a bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm soundtrack playing in the background.

Hot Spell – Anthology Review

Hot Spell contains stories from Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, Shiloh Walker, and Meljean Brook. Ever since I realized that I was missing some very critical information about Brook’s vampire Colin, I’ve been watching for this one. It’s a couple of years old now, though, so I had to order it from Amazon.

The first entry is from Emma Holly. Remember when I told you that I thought the historical world needed her more than the paranormal world does? Hmmm, I think I was right. This particular story just isn’t up my alley, although the right basics are there. You have a repressed noblewoman, a sexually super-charged “peasant” guy; subtle power exchanges in both directions, lush sensual writing, a decent mini-plot wrapping up with a love-will-conquer-all interracial romance… I dunno. I think the hero just didn’t do it for me. The paranormal, other-world element gives Holly some room to play, and I can see that the layer of creativity kind of juices up the story… but for me, it just didn’t work. I think this is a case where it’s just preference on my part.

Secondly, is my second Breed short story from Lora Leigh. Question for the hard-core fans: do the men all have “eatable lips”? Or is there some kind of streak of cannibalism in the mates they choose? I ask because so far the Leigh heroes are 4 for 4 with eatable lips. Personally I think that’s kind of weird. The first time, I thought, ooo, I kinda like that...By the fourth book I was waiting for it. Which, you know, isn’t right.

Other than that though, I actually liked this little story quite a bit more than the other one, and so far it might be my favorite Lora Leigh. (I’ve read two of the SEALs books and two Breed short stories). The Tarek character was definitely more likeable than Saban but I’m still having a little trouble with the mates-for-life premise.

Blood Kiss from Shiloh Walker cracked me up with the Romeo and Juliet references. Not a subtle lady, Ms Walker, with her Roman Montgomery and Julianna Capiet. The duo bob and weave through the politics of the two powerful but feuding families, and since it's a vampire spin, there's that sort of dying-but-not-really-dying bit, too. This is a romance, so there is a happy ending, and I was a little disappointed that no one had occasion to swear a pox on both their houses, but I suppose it would be boring to follow the formula too closely. Final note: very intrigued by the character of Mikhail. Adding Shiloh Walker to my 2009 authors if for no other reason than I need to read that story.

Review for “Falling for Anthony” coming up separately….

This little collection definitely rates high on the creativity scale, so if you’re looking for something a little different, this could fit the bill. Which for me, also makes it a little hit-or-miss by individual stories. I suspect this is a big YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Have you reviewed Hot Spell on your blog? Feel free to post a link in comments or hit up Mr. Linky in the Antholopalooza intro post.