Archive for Vampire Books
Best Fantasy Books: Blood Rock by Anthony Francis
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Title: Blood Rock
Author: Anthony Francis
Release: July 2011
Pages: 298
Genre: Urban Vampire
Dakota Frost is a skindancer- meaning she is someone who can make her magical tattoos dance out of her body to act and protect her. It is a handy ability to have in the Atlanta that she inhabits, filled with vampires, werekin of all kinds and so much more. She needs it sometimes just to stay alive and in this second installment in the series we find she has to get pretty creative with those magical tattoos. I jumped into this book without reading the first in the series and had no trouble but I have to admit that now I want to go back and read the first one. His world is just that good.
Dakota is one tough cookie, she can do all kinds of martial arts and kills when she has to without much regret. But I love the fact that we also see the soft side to her when she decides to adopt a little weretiger that is a foundling. The love between the two is obvious and Anthony Francis handles this part of the story with such grace that it makes the character all the more fascinating. When you add in that Atlanta seems to be having problems with magical graffiti that is killing vampires, that Dakota’s relationship with the law in the form of the local police seems to be getting rocky despite her family history of both a Dad and Uncle on the force and she is finding herself dating a vampire – well life is complicated for this gal.
The scenes of her and vampire Calaphase on a date are like nothing I have ever read. Her protective instincts when little Cinnamon is threatened are amazing. But the best scenes by far are when she needs to pull out those tattoos to protect either herself or someone else. Anthony Frances is careful to make his explanations seem within the realm of possibility without going into so much detail we lose the thread of the story. It is just plain intelligent writing of a carefully thought-out world with a dynamic and intelligent woman at the center it.
How she manages to find out who and what exactly is creating these deadly living pieces of graffiti – so like her own tattoos and yet so much more deadly – and why they are killing the vampires of Atlanta is just one part of a great story that will have you sitting up late at night to just read a little further. I know that is what I did, and couldn’t stop reading even if it was 3AM. The story telling in Blood Rock is addictive and the characters are all fascinating.
Best Fantasy Novel: The Vampire King
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Title: The Vampire King
Author: Heather Killough-Walden
Release: February 5, 2012
Genre: Urban Vampire
It begins in pain. Pain and horror. Evie has never known such pain before, but she knows she will endure it. Soon, soon he will find her and this will end. That she must believe. For her delivery from this pain will be either when he finds her, the Vampire King, or when she dies. But the story doesn’t end there, it is only the beginning, for we soon find ourselves going back three weeks, to a tale of magic and power, of struggles for the right to rule and of the dark side of a world that coexists with our human one.
Evie is a writer, she writes vampire novels and she loves what she does. So it is surprising that one day a man walks into a coffee shop, and her life, that is a walking breathing version of the vampires she portrays in her novels. The difference is, he really is a vampire. Roman isn’t just any vampire, he is the Vampire King and every inch of him proclaims it. And he is destined to find her and claim her for his own.
There is just one thing that stand in their way, a warlock that vows to do whatever he can to prevent Roman from coming to his full power and glory. This is one warlock that will stop at nothing, not even Evie’s death, to prevent Roman from uniting with the one woman he is meant to find. Roman may be ruthless at times, but he will not risk Evie’s death at the evil ones hands. And that is precisely what he is gambling on.
With nothing less than a god that is a King of gods and a witch that has outlived most others to partake in the battle, we soon know that Evie is more than the simple human we and she thinks herself to be. Where this will lead and how it will be resolved is a tale that twists and turns with a cast of fantastic characters, rich landscapes and more mystery than anyone could ever hope to unravel with ease. The beginning of a rich new series, The Vampire King will entice you into a world of magic and mystery, with plenty of room for lust, love and romance as well.
Coming to Terms with Genre Labels
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I love to read all kinds of books, but primarily those “all kinds of books” do often tend to fall into the genre category, just different genres. Science Fiction was my first love, and still is one of my favorite reads and fantasy has become such a huge section of my shelves that it has pretty taken over one of my rooms (yes- I said rooms) of books.
But genre isn’t much respected outside of the halls of our own little sub-culture, even today with all the hoopla about fantasy and science fiction in films and all. Fangirl Unleashed, one of my favorite writers about genre, did a great bit about genre, especially fantasy and SyFy in one of my favorite blogs, unleashthefanboy.
I agree with so much of what she says – that it has always been in fantasy and science fiction that many women found a calling because it is in those genre fiction areas that women have been the most welcome. Even in a “boys club” like mystery, women writers have flourished and women characters have had the opportunity to be more than just eye candy.
Today’s fantasy, with the focus being now on vampires and their relatives like werewolves and faeries, have still done remarkably well in portraying women as characters of substance. Take our own in-house heroine, Sookie Stackhouse. Now there is a gal that does not wait for “the boys” to take care of her fighting or righting of wrongs. She rolls up her sleeves and demands to take care of it herself. And yet, without losing any of the nurturing female side to her, the side that cradles Erik or Bill when they are hurt or finds a solution to someone’s pain. Sookie is the kind of gal we all want to be.
So even if you have problems selling someone on a book because it has vampires in it, there is still always the fact that most of these books have great female characters in them. Yes, strong men and we all love that in the stories, and even vulnerable men who allow women into their lives. But in the end, for me at least, it is the fact that for all element of escape that so much fantasy can have, what really works for me is the real world values of women who take care of things, and men who appreciate that they do.
