Never fear! I’m working on A Babe in Winter. I just had to adjust the story’s priority because honestly, I wasn’t too keen on telling Mouse’s story at all, much less wrapped up in a quest. And I didn’t want the quest to become a series of vignettes, side-quests, and other such clichés. But now that I have abandoned Mouse back to his own mind, I can pick up where I left off in Black as Knight.

But this post isn’t about A Babe in Winter. It’s about an idea I had in 1996 and put away. And the idea I had in 2016. And the two in 2017. And the one in 2018. And the one in 2019. I doodled, knowing Idea 1996 would be essential to each of the others, which could exist independent of each other. But then I got to thinking: What if I put all of them together? Intertwined them? Set them in my favorite city with my favorite themes?

Fairy tales, myths, urban legends, angels, demons, gods, demigods, theology, philosophy, medicine, and science all coming together and conflicting, where they live in a world that views them as a little off, forced to coexist and live under the same bureaucratic restrictions as humanity, with twists and turns made possible because bureaucracy is unyielding.

Now, look. I don’t read fantasy or scifi. I could be reinventing the wheel. I could be trampling all over genre conventions. However, to me, this is a challenge: To write a world that may or may not have been written, explored, or hinted at with absolutely no regard to what’s been done.

It’s a world where the quasi-immortal mortal sorcerer isn’t the chosen one. He’s the help.

He came to Kansas City during Prohibition to get a decent shot of whiskey without having to sneak around. He couldn’t go home for it. Europe was at war. He only went to South America for one reason. He didn’t want to make the trek to Asia, Oceania, or Africa. So he stayed in the U.S.

He stumbled over a magical creature, then found an entire underground community he never knew existed, one that was starting to have legal and bureaucratic problems with the rise of the IRS and social security numbers: Papiere, bitte. He was asked to become the intermediary.

He wasn’t doing anything at the moment, he was happy to find a community that could expand his magical horizons and enhance his power, he was dating a beautiful lawyer for the mob and wanted to make his next family (#5) with her, so he agreed without too much thought to the long-term ramifications.

So now a hundred-plus years later, he’s a lawyer, stuck in a place he’d never have chosen to stay, becoming the locus for magical and mythical beings who need his help. There’s nothing magic about Kansas City other than Warre & Locke, PC, established by Wolfhart Tadius in 1930-something. He employs so many of the magical and mythical that his practice’s nickname is The Island of Misfit Toys. His only living son is ninety-something and sliding into memory care. His only living daughter is eighty-four and pissy about the fact that he’s forever thirty-eight, but she moves back in with him anyway because she’s tired of being the matriarch of her family. His mortal colleagues are starting to wonder why he doesn’t age, and everybody wants to know the mechanism of his youth and vitality, and where he goes about every sixty or seventy years.

But Hart’s not telling. That’s one secret he’ll take to his grave—when he decides to need one.

His current concerns include finding a missing Christmas icon because the Krampus is afraid her counterpart won’t be found in time; helping a newly widowed ex-faery godmother whose mortality is starting to catch up to her in the form of Machiavellian godfae politics; dealing with a frumpy middle-aged perimenopausal vampire with no guidance and no idea how she got that way or why; sniffing out a budding evil mage who’s tearing up the D’n’D world; keeping his community out of 4Chan and Reddit sleuths’ crosshairs; and struggling with a billionaire surgeon because of his tendency to exploit anything if he can make a profit and puts ketchup on well-done steaks. His grimoire is sorely neglected, his magic isn’t sentient so it can’t index them, and he trusts no one to transcribe his voice notes.

That’s not to mention the delightful and beautiful conservation and restoration librarian who specializes in medieval and renaissance alchemy texts, the first woman to intrigue him since his last wife died in 1960 and the first one to whom he might be able to divulge his secrets.

And worst of all, he still can’t conjure food that tastes right, even after over four hundred years.

He could leave anytime, but he won’t. Because he’s not an asshole.

but habitual readers will learn something, even if it’s a masterclass in what not to do.

I don’t know when or where formalized trigger warnings started in earnest (not the rare “The following film contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”), but I first saw them on the e-publishing sites in the mid-aughts.

Some took themselves very seriously and come from a place of concern (but this is not on the Kindle buy page):

This series deals with parental loss and terminal diagnosis of a loved one. I’ve been through it myself, so I hope it is dealt with appropriately – with real sensitivity and empathy.

Some could marginally be classified as spoilers:

This is a dark romantic suspense and psychological thriller of 80,000 words, featuring a main character with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Trigger warnings for abuse, self-harm, CSA, pregnancy-related issues.

Some were cheeky extensions on the blurb:

CAUTION: This title contains the jarring and bizarre juxtaposition of explicit sex and overt religion. As an added bonus, there’s quite a bit of libertarian/objectivist philosophy, politics, money, and cursing—the really bad kind. I also threw in a smattering of violence, nude art, the criminal use of mint chocolate chip ice cream, rampant armchair psychoanalysis, a slew of shoulda-coulda-wouldas, and a cat named Dog.

There are arguments for and against, of course, and I am firmly on Team No in terms of warning about problematic or disturbing content.

For one, if they serve as spoilers, there is no point to reading the book if you know what happens before you can click BUY. Whether you turn to the back of the book before you start reading is your problem, not the problem of a potential reader who resents being spoiled without warning.

For two, and this is my biggest WTF objection, don’t read what is clearly marked and shelved HORROR and then complain about what you get.

Somehow trigger warnings spread to academia and classic literature, including Shakespeare, riding on the coattails of safe spaces.

Students in America have been asking for “trigger warnings” to be included on works of literature which deal with topics such as rape or war.

That’s not new. Book banning is a trigger warning on steroids.

I’m not going to go into how people should handle their trauma because that’s not my business. I don’t care about your trauma and you don’t care about mine. That’s as it should be.

I’m also not going to tell you to suck it up. I’m going to tell you how not to suck it up and why you should suck it up.

AVOID IT

SUCK IT UP

If you’ve done the above and you choose to read Book Title anyway, that’s on you.

HOWEVER.

“Trigger warnings” (and I use that phrase loosely) do serve another purpose: Marketing.

That thing you don’t want to read? Somebody else is actively looking for it, so it behooves an author to take that into account and arrange their words accordingly.

This

is not a trigger warning or spoiler. It’s a product description. The readers who pick up this book already know what it is and they are actively looking for it. They want precision as to their taste in tropes.

THE FLIP SIDE.

Calling it “clean” romance instead of “sweet” is damaging and kind of derogatory

It always really grinds my gears when people call it clean romance when it is closed door, fade to black, no mention of sex at all, etc. It implies that sex is inherently dirty or wrong in some way. Calling it sweet on the other hand doesn’t have the same connotations, just that the book isn’t steamy or spicy. It’s also putting down those who might like a different kind of romance.

Emphasis mine.

That’s a you problem.

I don’t love the word “clean”, either, but it has one thing going for it: It’s a very efficient term. [ … ] “Closed door” and “fade to black” only apply to certain books, since some books have no reference to sex at all. I guess “no steam” would work, but I feel like “steam” is slowly becoming less popular than “spicy”, so I’m not sure if it will hold up long term. TLDR I’m okay with “clean” because everyone knows what it means.

Emphasis mine.

THE SOLUTION.

If you’re an author who doesn’t like trigger warnings, but still need to be precise for readers who are looking for exactly what you’re selling, the solution is very simple:

It’s efficient.

Just … don’t be this guy:

One of my earliest memories is my dad holding my coat out for me as a gentleman should, and saying, “I can do it myself!” with all the irritation a three-year-old (or thereabouts) can muster. His feelings were hurt and he got mad and punished me with the silent treatment.¹

Then later, maybe I was about ten or so, because reasons, he was calmly discussing my attitude, which concerned him: “Elizabeth,² no man is an island.”

Oh, I understood what he meant immediately. It wasn’t like he hadn’t hinted at it before, but there were two problems with this advice: 1) the guy giving it thought he was an island, so WTF Dad, and 2) he really didn’t understand that from the very beginning, being offered help was saying I have no faith in you or You’re too stupid to do this yourself.³ I didn’t have words for this when I was three and I had no concept of social niceties because I was three.

Having to ask for help was even more humiliating: You were right to have no faith in me and I am too stupid to do it myself.

I started writing Dunham (that wasn’t its title back then) with a lone female pirate captain who got there on her own, and was the sole authority on her ship. She was a loner. She did everything alone. And she was a virgin because of course she was.

Anyway, life tossed me around somewhat and I started to see something: Those with power, money, or even people who just had their shit together, had support. Sometimes, lots of support. They had help along the way, from generational wealth and grooming to catching a glance of a homeless guy down on the corner that one time who gave you an approving smile and a good piece of advice. Nobody got there alone.

I spent 23 years doodling along on my lone female pirate captain who did it all on her own. But every year that passed, problems kept popping up, logical fallacies, plot holes.

How is she supposed to be educated when she just randomly plopped out of some hoo-ha with no guidance? How is she supposed to get a ship when she doesn’t have a pot to piss in and she’s “too moral” to steal?⁴ And, wait. If she’s too moral to steal, why’s she a pirate? That’s what pirates do, isn’t it? How’m I supposed to square that circle?

Meh, it’s my story, I can do what I want. I am going to shove that very big peg through that very small hole, and I’m going to do it by myself.

However, shit happened and by 1996, I’d stopped doodling on my pirate captain. It was a vestige of my past, my immaturity, my inability to bring my vision to paper because I knew I didn’t have the chops for it and had to keep writing books to acquire them.

In 2002, I got married to a wonderful man who helped me pretty much without me noticing, and by the time I did, I realized he did it out of love, not because he had no faith in my ability, intellect, or general existence. I acquired children. My interactions with other parents were … well, less than effective and pleasant. I learned. Mellowed. Maybe I softened. Learned how to pick my battles. Or maybe I was just tired of everybody’s shit and decided almost none of it was important at all.

In 2007 wrote The Proviso after an epiphany that I was going to have to chuck my idea altogether and rewrite it, which I did to my (mostly) satisfaction. Gutting all that gentleman thief, unworkable premise, stewpot thinking made my world and my writing so much better. So I very carefully opened my pirate captain files to reacquaint myself with the work. I had a vague vision, but I didn’t know how to fulfill it, and what I had already done would not work.

One day, I sat my ass down to read a romantasy wherein the main female character, a warrior commander of some military force was captured, leaving her troops in a complete mess. She had a second-in-command, but he was ineffective. This was addressed sort of, but only tangentially to point out that she was a wartime leader, but not a peacetime one. When I was younger, teens, mid-twenties, I would have felt satisfied, complete, whole. Yes, this is how it’s supposed to be. Yeah, so what if she’s not a peacetime commander? Those guys are pussies anyway.

It got me to thinking: What would happen to my pirate captain’s life’s work if something happened to her that didn’t actually kill her, and she was disabled or had to start over?

Oh, and then came the weevils.⁵ It was eye-opening. What’s this?! Pirates engage in subterfuge to win? They don’t just slug it out head-on like honorable men?⁶

My time living life, having a husband, having children got me thinking: We are a product of our time and circumstance. We do what we must. We don’t get anywhere alone.

And fuck me if I was going to allow my pirate captain to have an ineffective pussy as a second-in-command because she can’t stand to rely on someone else and lose everything she’s got if something bad happens to her.

She might be a lot of bad things, but she is not stupid.

So Freya’s Bower (one of the veteran epublishers in the landscape) has this annual anthology called Dreams and Desires, where the proceeds from it go to a charity. This year’s charity is A Window Between Worlds, a non-profit organization that provides art supplies and training for art as a healing tool free of charge to battered women’s shelters across the United States.

Marci Baun, Freya’s Bower’s Perpetrator In Chief, asked me to contribute a story to the anthology, and because it’s a) for a good cause and b) for the #1 cause on my personal list of good causes, I said SURE! The result? Short story Twenty-Dollar Rag.

For fans of the Dunham series, the hero in this one is the weird kid from Stay (who wears kilts and sleeps in trees), Vachel Whittaker, all grown up and possibly more normal than the rest of the Dunham men. Lo, there is no religion or politics in it.

Here’s the blurb for Dreams and Desires:

True love, freedom, self-worth, security … Dreams and desires of the ordinary woman, or man. From a thirty-something, single woman who wants a baby to a jeweler who finds love with the least expected man to a widow who wants to finish her degree and find love to a young, futuristic woman who’s still searching for herself to an 18th century saloon girl whose lost hope but still dreams of love to a man who has escaped his abusive lover but has lost himself. This collection of nine stories celebrates the attainment of all one can dream or desire. Which one do you secretly yearn for?

And here’s the blurb for Twenty-Dollar Rag:

One night. One man. One dress.

Regina Westlake sees nothing wrong with her clubbing lifestyle until the gorgeous guy cleaning her pool refuses to play her games. When he’s hired to be her arm candy for a formal event, he makes his disdain for her clear by re-dressing her in something far more appropriate than what she had worn to the party.

Shattered, she takes his contempt, his dress, the memory of his kiss—and rebuilds her life from the ground up. She never expects to see him again, but when she does …

Buy the collection, have a few hours of entertainment and help somebody out at the same time. Win-win!

I feel like I just got jerked around in an extremely passive-aggressive manner by a narcissistic fuckwad.

I can’t tell you how pissed off I am at this moment.

No review. No more crit. You can see previous entries here and here. It’s completely irrelevant.

Tell you what. I’ll read Stephenie Meyer again before I’ll read anything else this author’s ever written. I can’t imagine Breaking Dawn is a worse betrayal by an author than this.

ETA:

I’ve gotten a bunch of emails about what actually happened, so here you go. Spoiler warning.

I have no way to reconcile any of this to any reality, writerly or Mormonly or humanly. None. It makes no sense on any level.

Some books deserve it, but some that might seem to deserve it … don’t.

Those are books from the history of romance novels that are mocked for their fashions and specific song references and other tidbits of culture that date them and, quite often, the covers that were made for them at the time. In particular, very often the sweeping scope and larger-than-life characters and plots are mocked. The people doing the mocking, I find, are young and/or young to the romance genre.

I don’t know quite what they expect when they read a book from the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s that would rightfully be fodder for mockery if written now, but the fact of the matter is, they’re not meant to be timeless in every respect. If one puts oneself into the study of romance novels, to be intellectually honest, one must also be able to sift the culture of the time and how these novels work within that.

I’m not sure why there’s this unwillingness to go along with the zeitgeist of the time in which the book was written, but instead to apply today’s standards of fashion or technology or pop culture as markers of timelessness. We don’t expect that of our historical novels, so why do we expect it of “contemporary” romances that cease to be “contemporary” the moment the galleys are finalized?

Me? I like reading the zeitgeist. I don’t miss it if it’s not there, but if it is, it’s a lagniappe for me. It gives me a feel for the time period and takes me back. Perhaps the difference is whether one is too young to be taken back or not. I don’t know.

However, in reading some earlier novels, I find this especially important because a lot of the plot devices realistically used then could not be used now because of advances in technology. If one can accept that it was 1979, and the heroine didn’t receive a letter that the hero had sent and he had no other way of contacting her or finding her to clear up a misunderstanding, one should also accept the blue eyeshadow and feathered hair.

I date my novels for a reason, which is to commit the zeitgeist of the moment in the mind of the reader, leaving no question as to its pop cultural references. In 10 years, no one can say, “That feels so dated.” They’ll have to say, “The author is very explicit about these events occurring between 2004 and 2009. If it feels dated, well, that’s because it is. It says so right in the chapter headings. Go with it.”

The expectation that one should be able to pick up a romance novel (or any other novel) from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and either not be reminded that that was when it was written, or not be offended by some of the themes in the novel borne of the time it was written, seems to me that we wish to either forget that part of our history or cover up the history. More likely, however, is that we may live (and read) in the moment and may be either unwilling or unable to reference the history of the time in which the novel was written.

It’s a shame, really, because a lot of stories’ richness and layering gets lost without the proper historical context.

Right now I’m reading The Actor and the Housewife, and I just don’t quite know what to think. Here’s the blurb:

What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list—you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter …

Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened … though nothing has happened.

It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special … something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it?

A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.

This part is what gets me: “It isn’t sexual.”

My. Ass.

Now, look, Sister Hale. I realize that I shouldn’t be coming to this novel from the perspective of a romance reader, because it’s not a romance. (I know it’s not because the library cataloging block told me it isn’t. It says it’s “chick lit,” and library cataloging blocks don’t lie.) But I am coming to it from a romance reader’s perspective because it’s whispering naughty thing in romance’s ear at this point. Yet I don’t know a die-hard romance reader in the world who wouldn’t tear her hair out.

Becky Jack (the main character) is, thus far, what we romance readers would call TSTL. Too Stupid To Live.

Also? Flirting *kofffallinginlovekoff* with someone while you’re happily married is a HUGE romance no-no.

I had to take a break from the gore of this woman’s squished IQ and blog it. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to finish the book, except …

I must get back to the trainwreck that she is. I should turn my eyes away. Look somewhere else. But I can’t.

Came across an interesting article by Jennifer de Guzman about the female audience need for a female superhero. Well, you know, I followed the links to the XY asshole type who said, “No, you really don’t.” Then I went to Jezebel’s post. Read them all, then come back. Josh Tyler (who knows what women want) posts:

Catching bad guys is not a common female fantasy.

Hey, you know, lemme go back in time to my 7-year-old self and tell Little Miss Batgirl that. (Notwithstanding BatGIRL opens up a whole host of other topics and is problematic in itself.) He further digs his hole:

Men are interested in imagining themselves as ass-kicking heroes. Women are interested in movies about relationships and romance and love.

Now, this discussion falls under the two of my pet topics: The definition of feminism and the gatekeepers, the gatekeepers in this case being filmmakers. And I gotta say, I can think of only one filmmaker who does the female superhero well (albeit not in WonderWomanish garb): Quentin Tarantino. And he made a lot of money exploiting the hell out of her. What does he know that Josh Tyler doesn’t?

Better yet, what does genre romance know that Tyler doesn’t? This is where the genre romance gatekeepers have stepped up to the plate and it’s where women will find their superheroes, albeit it not in graphix or on celluloid.

It’s the kick-ass heroine in urban fantasy. They don’t have a Batgirl or Wonder Woman outfit. They don’t have a golden lasso or an invisible plane. Sometimes they don’t come from a mysterious Other World. They have leather. They have a tramp stamp. They have guns or cross bows or daggers or swords or a combination. They prowl the streets looking for wrongs to right and bad guys who need an ass-whoopin’. Yes, yes, I hear Buffy’s name being screamed from the rooftops, but she’s not part of this discussion because …

… most of these setups (unfortunately) involve otherworldly paranormal goo-drooling and blood-drinking types, and, quite frankly, I get tired of the endless fighting of the supernatural. How ’bout some human baddies? (This is one reason I love Beatrix Kiddo just so damned much.)

Aside: I’m not talking about kick-ass heroines whose JOB it is to be kick-ass. I’m talking about the ordinary woman pulled into extraordinary circumstances and who rises to the occasion [ahem, EILIS], or the anti-heroine who exists outside a societal structure and takes on the role of vigilante as a form of service to society (with hopes of paying restitution or redemption or at least a few cosmic brownie points) GISELLE. Or—better yet—a heroine who starts her journey being a milquetoast and ends up with a spine of steel JUSTICE. After all, we’re not born kick-ass. Life makes us or breaks us that way and the hero’s journey has never been just for men.

So here again we see that the gatekeepers (in this case, filmmakers) don’t know their audience well enough to exploit another revenue stream—but genre romance does! We’ve been subsisting on these women for decades (can you say “pirate queen”?). Clarissa Pinkola Estés even wrote a little book about the kick-ass heroine, her history, and her place in our evolutionary collective subconscious, so this?

Men are interested in imagining themselves as ass-kicking heroes. Women are interested in movies about relationships and romance and love.

He really needs to go talk to Dr. Estés or at least read her book.

Tarantino! Thurman! Thank you for The Bride. I love her. (And all of her wicked evil baddie stepsisters, too!) Now, step up to the plate and give us a female superhero only with spandex this time, ’kay? Call me!

Favorite kick-ass heroines. Who are yours?

Zoe is an independent publisher I “met” by happenstance when I got soundly thrashed on Dear Author for suggesting that a multi-published author whose 3-book SERIES contract had been canceled after book 2 (leaving her fans out in the cold with characters they loved) actually self-publish the third book in the series (you know, since her rights had reverted back to her and she already has a fan base salivating for it). Good gravy, you’d’a thunk I’d said the Rapture was coming tomorrow and they’d all be left behind and have 666 burned into their foreheads bwahahahahaha burn in hell losers.

Anyhoo, as Bob Ross would say, it was a happy accident.

Kept is a free novella you can find at her site (link above) in PDF form. You can find it at Amazon in Kindle for 80¢ and you can find it on Smashwords in various formats for those of us who bitch if we don’t get it the way we want it. Somebody call me a waaaaahmbulance.

And really, “free” is my second-favorite four-letter f-word.

Here’s the blurb:

Greta is a werecat whose tribe plans to sacrifice her during the next full moon. Her only hope for survival is Dayne, a sorcerer who once massacred most of the tribe. What’s that thing they say about the enemy of your enemy?

Now, I don’t do much paranormal and I really don’t like shapeshifters, but throw the word “sorcerer” or “wizard” or “warlock” at me and I’ll take a second look. And I’m glad I did.

Beefs first:

The story was a little choppy in moments of transition, but I’ve seen that so much lately that it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to and, I’m guessing, readers are being taught to get used to it and, by extension, writers are doing it more.

Also, the story could’ve been longer with more explanation of the world. I (Random Reader who likes really really really long books) would have liked that. Let me get you some salt for that opinion.

Good stuff:

What glimpses of their world I got, I liked. I could tell it wasn’t a half-assed world half-thunk-up on the fly, and that it had depth and detail underneath. (Repeat: wanted more.)

I really enjoyed the hero’s crankiness and the fact that he was “old” (how old we’re not told, but I inferred around a century). I liked that when the hero and heroine had sex pretty nearly upfront it was because of species-specific hormone issues (i.e., cat in heat) that she usually controls with medicine, but didn’t have her medicine with her.

I laughed a lot through this book. The banter is witty and cute, seems natural to both of them, and gave the characters the depth that natural humor brings to people.

The cover’s pretty and the interior design is good. In short, it’s right up there with a lot of the novellas in the anthologies by traditional publishers that are on bookstore shelves and much better than a lot of other stuff I’ve read lately from the e-presses that I paid for. I enjoyed myself.

Coulda been longer. Did I say that?

So. If you get it from Smashwords, leave a tip, okay?

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 [private link]. 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.