Also lately, around the romance blogs, historical and contemporary romance/erotic romance with bodice-ripper elements have been ridiculed, maybe rightly, maybe not. But in a romance reading public that’s taking to male/male romance and BDSM romance, this abhorrence of the longest-running sexual fantasy in romance is bewildering to me. Women have their fantasies. Some of them involve the forced seduction. Is it PC? Absolutely not. Is it valid? Yes.

Genre romance has always thrived on the power imbalance between the male and female, but this has its caveats, and the caveats make up the majority of the fantasy:

1. The heroine is always clearly superior to any male in her milieu except for the hero, who is the only male strong enough to conquer her.

2. The heroine is always isolated from female companionship for many reasons, one of which is that she is superior to all other females and thus, the object of female derision/jealousy. If there is a female, she takes on a mentor/sister/mother/fairy godmother persona.

3. She’s already attracted to him and he gets her off.

4. The “asshole alpha”’s transformation into acceptable mate material depends on whether his eventual groveling is equivalent to his previous assholishness.

5. He better damn well grovel and do it right.

6. At the end of the book, the reader knows that while the heroine can go on and live without the hero, the hero cannot live without the heroine. He always winds up more dependent on the heroine’s love and presence than she is on his, turning the power imbalance 180 degrees.

7. It’s all about the groveling.

Other than the innumerable authors who write the six Harlequin Presents novels every month, I can’t really name any contemporary romance authors who write the “asshole alpha” except, perhaps Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and boy does she write good groveling, viz. Kiss an Angel, which is one of only five romances on my DIK list (and the only contemporary).

Lately, Anna Campbell and others have come back with the bodice ripper, but again, they write historical and I don’t think it does anybody any good to pretend that some of these characters are a century or two more enlightened than the people around them at the time.

The power imbalances in my own book have been pointed out to me with startling clarity, and I’ve been chewing on this for days, not because I disagree in the case of Knox and Justice (an homage to the Harlequin Presents line of books I cut my teeth on and my best crack at writing an anti-hero), but because I do disagree in the cases of Giselle and Bryce, and Sebastian and Eilis. I’m not going to go into why because that entails spoilers.

What ultimately brings me to write this post, though, is because lately, despite my professed ambivalence (possibly distaste) for paranormal romance and urban fantasy, I’ve been reading a few books (that I liked!) that have led me to a conclusion:

The asshole alpha still lives and breathes, as assholish as he ever was. The bodice ripper hasn’t gone away. The forced seduction hasn’t lost its appeal.

It’s morphed.

Into demons, werebeasts, vampires, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and things that go bump in the night. In many, many cases it’s further disguised as the (overused) “one true mate and nature has given us no choice” device.

Only now, because it’s dressed up in con clothes and otherworldly window decoration, it’s perfectly acceptable. Except . . . some of us don’t care for the window dressing.

I also made a statement a while back that a lot of Mormon authors write our basic tenets and philosophies and beliefs and religious history in science fiction and fantasy, where it’s almost or fully unrecognizable to non Mormons. I said that I thought it was cowardly. I was told by one author that his first instinct was to write science fiction/fantasy and that the incorporation of our doctrine, traditions, and culture was secondary. I believe that—for that author. I don’t believe it across the board.

Why does this happen? Perhaps because suddenly, one person’s fantasy/message is another person’s call to battle?

I don’t write that way. I can’t wrap the bodice ripper up in paranormal and urban fantasy paper and put a shibari bow on it because that doesn’t appeal to me, although the sex probably will. I can’t put a pretty dress on what is, to many readers, an ugly philosophy/belief system in science fiction and fantasy because that doesn’t appeal to me, although the philosophy will.

This is why I like erotica, because, by its very nature and reader expectations, it’s bald. It’s honest. It’s also why I did actually appreciate The Actor and the Housewife for one thing: It put our culture and beliefs and jargon out in the open honestly, naturally, with no apology or preaching.

I want it straight and I write it that way. I call it what it is because that appeals to me, the honesty of it, the setting of human-as-animal in a contemporary world where our baser wants and needs are not only taboo, but ignored as if they don’t exist. And likewise, where our spirituality/religious beliefs offend a whole lot of people, and short shrift is given to the struggle between the natural (human) man and the enlightened (human) one, who attempts to control himself and sometimes simply doesn’t.

I have no issue with control, losing it, struggling with it, conquering the natural man. After all, that’s why we’re here, right? To vanquish the natural man?

But I’m interested in the process.

And the groveling.

I don’t expect a non genre romance reader to get this, so the objections I’ve received have only made me think about the genre, think about why women read romance, the vast subgenres of romance, and why some women despise genre romance altogether.

Whatever universal truths are revealed in fiction, no matter how they’re portrayed, I don’t give a shit about vampires or demons trying to overcome their natures to be moral creatures because vampires and demons don’t exist.

I don’t give a shit about a being (possibly alien) who drives a spaceship for a living (or who has some fantastical adventure) who’s going through some vague spiritual struggle that Mormons can drill down to the most minute nuance, and might kinda look like Mormonism to anybody with a passing familiarity, because I can’t relate to that.

I can relate to asshole people whose feet are planted on earth, who don’t have regular contact with the boogeyman or aliens, who have no magic or fae blood, no superpowers, who strive and fall and fail and lose themselves in their baser natures, who want something better for themselves but may not know how to get it, who make bad choices and know it even while they’re doing it, who depend on other people or a religion or a deity or a philosophy to help “fix” them.

We all need fixed in one way or another, and there is always a power imbalance in a relationship. It shifts and it changes and it morphs and it takes time to level out as much as it’s ever going to. It’s a neverending process, and sometimes it seems like being on a hamster wheel.

How do I know this?

’Cause I’m an asshole and I strive and I fall and I fail and I lose myself in my baser nature, trying, always striving, for enlightenment. And because I need my husband to “fix” me, and I daresay he needs me to “fix” him, too.

And we both have to grovel.

But please, can we stop pretending the forced seduction romance, and the inherent power imbalance the male has over the female is gone? It’s not. It never will be. We like it too much, and, as a fantasy, it’s no less valid than the up-and-coming PC fantasies of male/male romance or BDSM romance in all its incarnations.

It’s just been driven into the closet.

So I’m looking through my stats and come upon the search phrase, “is there a correlation between mormons and vampires.”

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Just like every other organized religion on the planet. And those who submit and bare their necks to the teeth do so willingly. Or not. Maybe. Kinda sorta.

Faith—any faith, one that takes into account the possibility of a higher being—requires something of you. It asks you to believe in something you can’t see, can’t feel, can’t touch. Then it sets down the philosophies that this faith’s higher being represents. Further, it asks that you take these philosophies upon yourself; whether it asks you to simply believe them or live them or proselytize them is yet another philosophy it asks you to take upon yourself. Then it sets forth boundaries of behavior that you agree to in order to function within that higher being’s philosophical boundaries. And last, it may ask you to present yourself accountable to a human functioning as the higher being’s representative; if not a human, then to the higher being itself at some time in your future.

I know quite a bit about evangelicals. You know, born-again Christians: Southern Baptists. Pentecostals. Those folks. I know quite a bit about Mormons. You know, ’cause I are one. I don’t know much about anybody else.

Christianity generally asks you to believe the following:

1. That a higher being (hereinafter referred to as God) created the world and humankind in 6 days (could be literal, could be metaphorical) with his hands.

2. That he set up a number of rules (also known as the Law of Moses) for the people to follow.

3. That he alternately rained death and destruction down on his chosen people or those who would slay his chosen people, depending on who pissed him off that day.

4. That he asked his chosen people to slay a lamb as sacrifice and atonement for their sins.

5. That he somehow magically impregnated a virgin with his divine baby-making matter so that the son she bore would be half-man, half-god (hereinafter referred to as Jesus) and therefore perfect.

6. That he wanted Jesus (aka his son) to take over the whole sacrificial lamb gig so his chosen people wouldn’t have to do it by hand with an actual lamb anymore. And oh, this has the added benefit of saving everyone else who believes in him (Jesus), too. No more raining death and destruction on anyone. Jesus’s atonement for everyone’s sins makes him the savior of mankind.

7. That God, Jesus, and a heretofore unmentioned wraith (hereinafter referred to as the Holy Spirit) form some sort of triad of purpose and/or existence.

Note: Evangelical Christianity (which is really what I’m talking about because that’s all I know outside my own faith) asks you to believe that these 3 entities are 1. Somehow. Like, a trichord in music, or an egg, or well, you know, anything with 3 distinct parts bundled up in 1 package. 3-in-1. This doctrine is hereinafter referred to as Trinitarianism.

8. That God/Jesus/Holy Spirit set forth a new set of rules to follow, the first of which is to believe that Jesus died to atone for everyone’s sins.

Note: Evangelical Christianity is particular on this point, because it doesn’t matter how much other good stuff you do in the world, if you don’t get this first point down, you’re going to burn in a lake of fire for eternity. If you never had the opportunity to hear the gospel of the atonement (hereinafter referred to as the Good News), you’re going to burn in a lake of fire for eternity. Sorry ’bout that. And oh, if you profess belief after a life of absolute assholery, you’re going to heaven, so good on ya!

And what is heaven, by the way? What do you do there? You sing praises to God. You live in a mansion (the one that Jesus prepared for you) that is built on a street of gold. You wear a crown. The jewels in your crown denote HOW good you were. Is there a ghetto in heaven, where people who were assholes live? And wear nickel-plated steel crowns set with cubic zirconia?

And how do you manifest there? Are you the gender you are? (I’m told no; that you become some androgynous person mingling at the Great Cocktail Party in the Sky™). Are you married to your honeybunny there?

9. To prove this measure of faith, you get dunked in some water to baptize you and cleanse you of all your sins. Metaphorically speaking.

10. And also, that God asks you to tithe 10% of your earnings, however you define that.

Carrying on.

Mormonism asks you to believe points 1 through 10

Except for the side notes. We are generally silent on the subject of creation versus evolution. Quite frankly, I don’t know any Mormons who stress about this and I know quite a few (including me) who figure it could have been done any number of ways and in any number of combinations and are kind of scratching our heads over why creation and evolution seem to be mutually exclusive.

PLUS the following:

11. That some specially dispensed Jews were asked of God to build a boat and head west about 2000 years before Columbus did and settle in (but arithmetic isn’t my strong point, so check me on that).

12. That these people survived and thrived for a long long long long long time before being wiped out. But before they were wiped out, they scribed out their history on plates of gold.

13. That somewhere in the early 1800s a kid by the name of Joseph Smith was visited by God and Jesus (who were, by the way, NOT 2-in-1) and given instructions as to the nature and history of the specially dispensed Jews, instructed to be their spokesperson by translating the golden plates, was visited by the Angel Moroni on a regular basis, received continuing revelation from God, and pretty much spread all this information around.

Note: At the time in history that this was happening, there were a lot of crackpot religious theories going around that people believed and wanted to believe and subscribed to; it was just that this one had a better marketing team.

13a. That polygamy was commanded of God and that the stoppage of polygamy was commanded by God. That blacks weren’t eligible to hold leadership positions in the church because of some holdover Victorian bullshit, but then they were. Yay! But we don’t talk about those, not really, no. It makes us uncomfortable, you see. Move along. Nothing to see here.

14. That we make certain covenants with God (in our temples) that include things like giving your time and your talent and your resources to the building of the kingdom of God on earth, and well, chastity (meaning, if you’re single, don’t do it and if you’re married, only do it with your spouse). Okay. Well, that’s certainly groundbreaking. Welcome to Christianity 101.

15. That when you get married in the temple (or re-married, which term is “sealed”), your marriage is for eternity as long as you obey God’s commandments and don’t break the covenants you made in #14. Also, any children you have are yours for eternity also (but there are THOSE days with the Tax Deductions when that’s not the most attractive thing in the world).

16. That it is possible to become a god, with your own world(s).

Yeah, we’re not encouraged to talk about that in public, either, but hell, everybody BUT US talks about it and to me, this is THE selling point of the whole deal. Criminy! Can you imagine being imbued with all that knowledge and skill—and having a workshop big enough to create worlds and creatures? I’m so jumping through whatever hoops for the possibility of that kind of an eternity.

Mormons didn’t come up with this idea by a long shot; we simply actively, quietly really believe it. But really, I’m going to believe this is a possibility whether hoops are involved or not—because it suits my nature to believe this.

17. That God has asked you to obey certain rules as a token of your faith.

18. More rules.

19. More rules.

20. More rules.

Technically, we believe in salvation by grace. In practice… Not so much. The party line is: You are saved by grace after all you can do. But the “all you better do or else” starts adding up really fast.

The “or else” isn’t couched in terms of punishment because the concept of “hell” (the burning lake of fire kind) is a non-starter for us. It’s always couched in terms of rewards you will not have earned.

21. That “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the prophet” is actually God’s words and not the prophet’s because heaven forbid a prophet remain fallible after he becomes the prophet. See 13a.

To summarize:

Christianity in general asks you to believe a lot of weird shit.

Evangelical Christianity asks you to swallow the idea that there’s some kind of 3-in-1 thing going on with God; it also asks you to swallow that people who’ve never heard its doctrine are going to hell by default.

Mormonism (a Christian denomination, as noted by the words “Jesus Christ” in our official church name) asks you to swallow a whole boatload of other weirdness beyond what Christianity in general asks you to believe.

But the thing is, if you can swallow mere Christianity, if you buy into any belief system with a higher being who demands something of you, you’ve already tendered your neck to the fangs of religion. Religion is a vampire.

Which vampire bit you is kind of irrelevant once you’ve decided to submit.

But ours sparkle.

We’re very specific in romance. Got an email yesterday from my newest BFF (kidding! but the offer’s open!) who said, “I know you don’t write romance…” Well, yeah, I do. It’s just got so much other STUFF in it that it can’t be classified, which is why I’m publishing it myself. In fact, it’s got THREE (count ’em, 1, 2, 3) full-length romances going on at the same time all woven together (which is why it’s going to top 700 pages and who-knows-how-many megabytes). And they have sex and there is no fade-to-black and they say the f-word and the c-word. They live a certain political philosophy (some more than others) that will probably be uncomfortable for other types of readers. The story takes place over the course of 5 years and oh, by the way, they’re all in their late 30s and early 40s and wow is that so not part of genre romance.

And oh, guess what, 2/3 of them are Mormons: Giselle is a true believer, not endowed, unable to pick between the sacred and the profane because she is drawn to them equally; however, she goes to church and she does what she’s supposed to—up until the point she chooses to be seduced. Bryce is searching, a returned missionary, former Peter Priesthood who feels betrayed by God. He’s not sure what he believes anymore, because he wasn’t taught the gospel; he was taught the Miracle of Forgiveness and he doesn’t really know what the gospel is (that would be found in Matthew 22:37-40 and James 1:27). Sebastian left his mission halfway through it because of the experiences he had on said mission that caused him to doubt; he now professes paganism. Knox was excommunicated…but not for the reason you might expect; he is the truest believer of the four and he has been completely disenfranchised.

Addendum: But they do NOT take the Lord’s name in vain. I do have standards.

So given that, it doesn’t fit the definition of any genre, not romance, not LDS (please see below comparison of “LDS fiction” to Steeple Hill and inspirational fiction of the type you’d get at Zondervan). I’m billing mine as straight fiction, but I think it will appeal to romance readers more than LDS readers (unless, of course, you’re one of those Mormons).

“Inspirational romance” as defined by RWA (Romance Writers of America):

Inspirational Romance
Romance novels in which religious or spiritual beliefs (in the context of any religion or spiritual belief system) are a major part of the romantic relationship.

and Harlequin and the CBA (that would be the Christian [read: evangelical] Book Association, retailer/distributor of books and kitsch) is a legitimate (sub)genre. It’s a genre because it has guidelines that publishers of inspirational romance follow. Harlequin didn’t set them but defined them, wrote them down, codified them, made them mainstream.

(And oh, by the way, inspirational romance sales are neck-and-neck with erotica sales and outstrip all the other romance subgenres put together; interesting to me that the two extremes are the most popular. Heh. With mine, you get both in one shot.)

The debate raging now is whether “LDS fiction” is its own genre and, therefore, analogous to “inspirational romance.” I say yes. Why? Because there is a certain expectation that goes along with it. Just because it is CONSUMER-defined as opposed to SUPPLIER-defined makes no difference to me.

Romance = genre that is well-defined and codified with a gazillion subgenres.

LDS fiction = genre that is only well-defined within the consumer’s mind and NOT codified, with no subgenres yet no wiggle room. Rock. Hard place.

My advice, as I have said elsewhere, is for publishers of LDS fiction of all types to get together, define the terms as set forth by consumer expectations, codify it, make it what the readers expect it to be when they pick it up. Take a page out of Harlequin’s Steeple Hill submission guidelines (do Deseret Book and Covenant have anything that specific?) and get something on paper. Those of you who stray outside of those bounds, label label label.

This donnybrook is over the fact that consumers felt ambushed. They expected one thing and got another, which is exactly what they are trying to avoid with their reading choices. I respect that while it was not in any way marketed as LDS fiction, it was written by a Mormon and published by a Mormon publisher, so in the consumer felt him/herself entitled to the expectation. Perhaps marketing mistakes were made, but oh well. Learn and grow.

And readers, you who sling the arrows of self-righteous outrage because you don’t dare set foot outside of Deseret Book and have no clue what you’re getting when you see “Mormon bishop’s wife,” “vampire,” and “dying daughter” in the back blurb: You get over it, too, and quit passing judgment on the man’s eternal salvation. It’s not for you to say. And I do not for one second believe the “I didn’t know ‘vampire’ was code for ‘blameless female sexual expression and enjoyment,’” claim because unless you’re 7 and live under a rock, you can’t possibly be that naïve—not even if you do live west of the Rockies.

And you wonder why we get a bad rap in the public eye.

Backstory: LDS fiction
(aka Mormon fiction)
is analogous to, say,
what Steeple Hill puts
out or any other run-
of-the-mill Christian/
evangelical inspira-
tional romance. No
swearing, no sex, very
clean. No taking the Lord’s name in vain,
no smoking, no drink-
ing, no allusions to any of these things. For all intents and purposes, the term “LDS fiction” has come to be defined informally in the same milieu as inspirational romance category fiction.

The lines get a little muddy when you have people like Orson Scott Card, who is an observant Mormon, who occasionally writes in explicit LDS terms but mostly doesn’t. Does he write LDS fiction or not? I say no. I say he’s an author who is LDS. His work isn’t marketed as LDS fiction and Mormons aren’t his target audience.

Then you’ve got Eugene Woodbury who has single-handedly managed to blow up that minutiae of the intrawebs interested in writing LDS fiction, publishing LDS fiction, reading LDS fiction, loving LDS fiction the way evangelicals love Janette Oke. Poor guy’s taking a beating (but then, he might like that; I don’t know his kink).

Aside: I urge my genre romance readers to go here and read his book, offered online, Angel Falling Softly, about a Mormon bishop’s wife making a deal with a vampire to save her daughter’s life. (It’s also available in Kindle and print.) Except for a teensy bit of Mormon culture that goes unexplained but which I think you can get from context, I think you’ll enjoy it. Unique take and no preaching and oh, a nice love scene (and, er, a little necessary girl-on-girl so the vamp can eat, but you didn’t hear that from me).

Which is why the LDS fiction contingent is blowing up even as we speak. For some reason, there is the perception out there that it was marketed as LDS fiction. It wasn’t. It was offered by an avant garde publisher of fiction that has its basis in Mormon culture. I mean, I expected to see a little of this, but for cryin’ out loud!

Then we get into the inevitable comparisons to Twilight, which is an erotic book. Whether it was intended to be, I don’t know. I don’t think so, though Janine from Dear Author disagreed. Mind, the majority of LDS readers who are online don’t get the heavy sexual subtext and think it’s a nice, clean read for their girls. To compound the problem, the vampire code for blameless sex is completely lost on the LDS culture in general (I don’t know why that surprised me).

Which is another reason everybody’s having hissy fits. Apparently, the back blurb with the word “vampire” in relation to saving a kid’s life wasn’t enough of a tipoff for LDS readers who thought they might be getting a Twilight clone with regard to its “cleanliness.”

So anyway. I’m watching all this going on, the sarcastic worry over the fate of Eugene’s salvation and standing in the church, the hand-wringing over the label “LDS fiction,” who should be writing it, who shouldn’t be writing it, who should use the label, who shouldn’t use the label. It’s all amusing, but sad at the same time.

What’s even sadder is that while they “feel” Eugene mocked the doctrine, mocked God, mocked Job, they don’t say how. (Hint: He didn’t.)

What I see are people who are so unwilling to venture away from the shelves of Deseret Book that they A) don’t know the obvious cues the back blurb is giving them, B) don’t want to acknowledge that moral ambiguity exists within the minds and hearts of good Mormons much less deal with it head-on, and C)
all too willing to condemn one of their own in specificity. For instance,

I think a lot of the problems the church is going to have in these last days are going to come from within. There are some disturbing trends coming to light and this is a prime example.

And:

I am very glad that I don’t have to be there when Mr. Woodbury has his next priesthood interview!… Too bad the rest of us LDS authors may have to spend years making up for the damage this book will do.

Mind, I am not making fun of these people. That’s why I didn’t reference the comments with a link, because I don’t want anyone else to, either. They are my people. I go to church with them, I have friends like them, I am one of them. I’m not sure which of the above bothers me most, but I think it’s the rigidity, the soul-deep certainty that good people are blessed not to suffer pain or doubt or make difficult choices that have no right answer–and that people who have pain and doubt and have to choose between bad and worse somehow deserve it.

Check your pride at the door, folks. Maybe you did feel duped because you assumed it was LDS fiction as it is typically understood–and I am empathetic with that response; I’ve been ambushed, too. However, it was a vampire story. There was no ambush awaiting you. And please, be more careful in the future because when you read a back blurb that contains this:

Milada is Homo lamia. A vampire. Fallen. And possibly the only person in the world who can save Rachel’s daughter. Uncovering Milada’s secrets, Rachel becomes convinced that, as Milton writes, “all this good of evil shall produce.”

As the two women push against every moral boundary in order to protect their families, the price of redemption will prove higher than either of them could have possibly imagined.

you probably ought to think about what that might entail, even if you have no clue that vampire is code for sex and think Twilight was squeaky clean.

PS: Twilight Fangrrls. I have apparently become obliged to disclaim that I liked Twilight. Just…probably not for the same reason you did. Hawt. (Though that could just be my touchy libido.) No literary outrage need be expended on my behalf today, although I thank you for thinking of me.

PPS: I won’t be tagging my book LDS fiction, either, nor seeking shelf space at Deseret Book, so you are safe.

Perhaps I should admit upfront that I consider myself an undemanding reader. I’ll happily go wherever the author wants to take me as long as it’s logical, consistent, and interesting. Let me add that I don’t even particularly care whether a story is plot-driven or character-driven; give me something to chaw on intellectually and I’m good to go. Make me laugh and I’ll forgive almost anything.

This is one reason why, when I read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, I was highly annoyed. I like vampires. I’ve studied vampire myths since I fell in love with Vlad the Impaler somewhere in the early ’90s, so her inconsistent worldbuilding, her habit of telling rather than showing, and her mostly flat characterizations grated.

By contrast, Eugene Woodbury’s take is haunting. Poignant, even.

Rachel Forsythe is an LDS bishop’s wife who is drowning under the weight of the responsibilities tearing at her: a dying daughter and the latent grief of one daughter’s inevitable death, the need to give the other daughter the attention she needs, the burden of carrying on mostly alone while her husband tends to the needs of his congregation, not to mention the regular everyday duties of a mother and wife. Then she gets a new neighbor.

Milada is a vampire temporarily out of her element in a very sunny Salt Lake City to explore an investment opportunity. She lands herself in a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood in a split-level ranch, surrounded by people she views as a bit odd, but nice. When Milada is invited to a barbecue at the bishop’s house and ends up saving a little boy’s life, her secret starts to unravel.

Once Rachel realizes and accepts what Milada is and understands the unique properties of her dining habits, she must decide how far she would go to save her daughter’s life.

This isn’t a vampire story. It’s a character study of the things we, as Latter-day Saints, might do when pushed into a corner with no apparent way out. It also asks if we have faith in what we say we believe.

The theme of the entire book can be summed up in one line. When Rachel presents her idea to Milada, Milada says: “Christians claim to believe in eternal life. So why are you so afraid of death, Rachel?”

I don’t know if Mr. Woodbury intended for the reader to believe Rachel’s answer, but I didn’t believe her. It doesn’t make any substantive difference, though; the effect would have been the same. At the end of the day, no matter how much faith we have, we do not know what happens to us when we die.

Rachel herself seems somewhat scattered and toward the middle of the book, it seemed I hadn’t heard much more about her dying daughter and I almost forgot she had one. Though that was corrected posthaste, I would have liked to see more distress at her daughter’s situation more consistently, and though I (as a mother) could appreciate that she was probably emotionally numb, I felt the daughter actually didn’t exist for a few chapters. I just don’t feel Rachel’s distress very deeply until she starts connecting Milada’s dots. That said, I do like Rachel and find her sympathetic.

With regard to this vampire’s world, I believed it. Mr. Woodbury gave me a different physiological and anatomical (i.e., plausible) reasons to believe that these creatures exist and how. Mr. Woodbury doesn’t shy away from the innate vampire-sex connection. He does not use the act of biting and drinking as a metaphor for sex, accidentally or otherwise; he makes a clear case that sex is necessary for the vampire to get her nutrients.

Mr. Woodbury also displays a sly humor that abuts worldly sensibilities to Mormon culture and deftly captures the irony. For instance, when Milada checks out the art her interior decorator chose, she muses: “Considering the milieu, Milada would have recommended O’Keeffe.”

I can’t say that the end was a surprise because there were only three logical ways it could have gone and any one of them would have been perfectly workable; two of them would have been relatively comfortable. He took the uncomfortable path. What I’d like now is a sequel to explore the fallout of that ending.

Mr. Woodbury does nothing the easy or expected way in this story. There are no Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum platitudes. She doesn’t consult her husband either as priesthood leader of the home or as bishop. Rachel makes a unilateral decision that has no precedent in LDS history or culture or doctrine; she doesn’t know if it’s wrong or right and she clearly doesn’t care, she doesn’t spend a lot of time dithering over the details of what could happen, and she doesn’t even pray about her decision. She acts quickly and on pure instinct, as any vampire ever did. There are a lot of questions in this book and almost no answers—and I liked that.

Moral ambiguity amongst faithful Mormons: More, please.