B is for (Books About) Blood

For A to Z 2018, my theme is Books About ____. If you’re stopping by from your own A to Z blog, feel free to leave a link. If you need help with how to do that, you can look here.

If you’re someone looking to read a lot of great blogs, here’s the link for the A to Z challenge.

If you’re like me and love horror, eventually, blood is going to show up. Vampires, zombies, murderers… they’re all out for blood. (Well, technically zombies are out for flesh, but it makes blood, so…)

Anna Dressed In Blood, by Kendare Blake (YA horror): This one is so bloody, it’s even in the title. Cas hunts bad ghosts and kills them all the way. When he hears the legend about Anna, he goes looking for her. She kills everyone who walks into her house, but for some reason, doesn’t kill Cas, and he doesn’t want to kill her either. Romance + horror = a fun read.

Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton (fantasy): For me, this is one of the best vampire series of all time (the first 10 or so). Anita Blake’s “day job” is as a necromancer, reanimating the dead to pay the bills. As a side gig, she’s a vampire hunter who knows the dark underbelly of St. Louis and gets way too cozy with the monsters around her. There’s romance, politics, adventure, mystery, along with an interesting and kick-ass main character.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, by Holly Black (YA horror): Tana wakes up from a party to find just about everyone slaughtered by vampires. It’s not supposed to happen because vampires live in Coldtowns, away from everyone, so it should be safe. Only her boyfriend and a strange vampire seem to be around, so she takes them both away before they’re slaughtered by the bad vampires lurking in the basement. I love Holly Black, but this book is my favorite of hers.

Carrie, by Stephen King (horror): It’s an old book, but still one of the best horror novels out there. I loved both the 1976 and 2013 versions of this movie, but the book is still the best. Carrie is an unpopular teen with a crazy mother. When Carrie develops powers, her high school will never be the same.

What are your favorite bloody books?

5 Books I Regret Putting Off

I’ve complained a few (million) times about all the books on my TBR, and how the stack seems never-ending.

Some of them I was excited to read at one time. Others made their way onto the pile because of recommendations from other people or because it was cheap at a library book sale, or because Book of the Month recommended it.

But the book goes on a shelf and doesn’t get read. I pass it over in favor of books I’ve met at the library or something new and interesting.

That’s why I get so aggravated with myself when I realize that I’ve put off reading a book that’s so phenomenal I think everyone should read it. Immediately.

It’s like a little piece of wonderfulness was sitting on my shelf all that time, and I never knew it.

Here are some of the best books I put off reading.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling Yes, seriously. I was told over and over again that I needed to read this book. I only read it to prove everyone wrong, that it wasn’t really the greatest thing since sliced bread. I learned my lesson.
2. Anything by Neil Gaiman I “discovered” Neil Gaiman last year. (Yes, I know. *sigh*) Sometime before 2003, I attended a writer’s conference in Pennsylvania. I wrote up a list of books recommended to me, and then never followed through with a single one of them. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Why do I do this to myself?
3. Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton A friend bought me this book when I was in high school. I didn’t read it. It languished in a box somewhere until I literally bought the exact same book, then realized I’d already owned it for years. Seriously, if you haven’t discovered the wonderfulness of Hamilton’s early (like first 10) Anita Blake books, do yourself a favor.
4. The Mothers, by Brit Bennett I’m not completely done with this book yet, but it’s fantastic so far. I had a stranger stop me as I was reading it and say that she’d just finished it and loved it. That doesn’t happen to me often, so it bodes well.
5. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon I’m almost as ashamed to admit this one as I was to admit Harry Potter. But at least the Harry Potter books I can blame on the arrogance of youth. For this one, I got nothing. I found a scribbled paper from the supervisor I had at my internship, recommending this book to me in 2010! I cheated myself out of 7 years of happiness. Though, to be honest, I don’t remember her warning me that the first 100 pages were slow, so maybe I would have quit it. Maybe everything happens the way it does for a reason.

Fess up… what’s the book you most regret putting off reading?

A is for Anita Blake

Hello, and welcome to Blogging A to Z 2017! Thanks for stopping by.

My theme this month is 26 of the Best Characters in Fiction. So let’s get to it, shall we?

I first met Anita Blake when I was a teenager, in the first Laurell K. Hamilton book in this series, Guilty Pleasures. Anita was my first encounter with a female character who was strong in this particular way. She was the best at what she did, and could keep up to the men in her life, yet she was still essentially female.

In so many books, if a woman is (excuse my language) kick ass, then she’s also basically a man in her attitude and her dress. Her femininity is stripped away. Anita Blake wasn’t like that. She was still insecure, looking for love, with nurturing tendencies. But she also wouldn’t hesitate to kill a vampire (or other monster). She didn’t back down if someone tried to intimidate her.

As the series progressed, Anita’s beliefs about vampires began to change, and it was interesting to see the evolution of her belief system in the face of new evidence. I loved that she wasn’t so stuck in what she believed to be right that she couldn’t change.

If you haven’t read it, the first 10 books in the series are wonderful. They’re books I own and re-read occasionally. There are currently 27 books, and I got less enthused about them as time went on. I think I’ve only read through about book 17. As with friends, sometimes as time goes on, you just grow apart. That’s what happened with this series.

It’s nothing personal; it’s just life, right?

I’ll always be grateful for the lessons she taught me, that it’s okay to both be tough and a girl. And to wear your scars with pride.

Any Anita Blake fans out there?

 

Confessions of a Vampire Lover

Look closely and you can see a big spider… Creepy!

I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’ve never read Dracula.  I read Frankenstein, so at least I don’t have to be completely ashamed, but… how did I miss that?

I’m reading It Started with Dracula: The Count, My Mother & Me by Jane Congdon.  It’s a memoir written by a woman who has always been a Dracula fan since she saw her first Dracula movie, starring Christopher Lee.  She explains that she had always wanted to see Romania, but that it took her until her 60s to get there.  Once in Romania, she started resolving some of her childhood issues.

She explains that she had read about travel being a transformative experience, but that she didn’t expect to actually experience any transformation or changes.

I’m not very far into the book, but so far, I’m really enjoying it.  She talks about vampires, and I realized that it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything with a “real” vampire in it.  I think the last one must have been ‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King.

Recent books with vampires have romanticized them, with books like Twilight, the Anita Blake books and The Vampire Diaries.  Vampires just aren’t scary anymore.  They’re sexy and rich, and can be tamed like puppies.  What made Dracula so scary was that he was sexy and evil.  He couldn’t be tamed.  Vampires of yesterday treated humans like food or vermin.

Here’s a list of 55 best vampire books per Goodreads.  I think my next mission is to work through this list.  What’s the best vampire book you’ve ever read?

Two Great Young Adult Novels

I recently read two really good young adult novels.  Cinder (2012) by Marissa Meyer is a must read. It’s a retelling of Cinderella, but in this version, Cinderella is a cyborg. The story stays true to the flavor of the original fairy tale, and I couldn’t put it down.  The only problem with it is that its a 4 part series with the second book (Scarlet) due out this month.  I can’t wait.

Sweep by Cate Tiernan isn’t a new series, though this is my first time reading it.  I’ve had the first book sitting on my shelf for a year or two and was just never motivated to pick it up.  It goes that way with me sometimes.  Well, I recently started it, and read it in one day.  It’s not a long book or a hard read.  Morgan is just an ordinary girl with a beautiful best friend.  When Cal starts at their school, she’s pretty convinced that he’ll never look at her.  He invites her and others to a “party,” where she learns that he’s a witch, and maybe she is too.  This series is 15 books long, and I’m looking forward to starting the next 14.

That’ll have to wait though, since I decided to revisit an old favorite series of mine… the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton…