Blood Rights - Kristen Painter

I recently finished a book that was completely beyond the scope of what I normally read.  The book?  Blood Rights by Kristen Painter.  I don't read a lot of urban fantasy and I read zero paranormal romance (and by zero I mean none).  Why in God's name did I decide to pick up this title then?  Well, I'll tell you - I trust Orbit Books.  The more I read the more I come to depend on publishers I trust to consistently put out quality books regardless of subject matter.  Not to mention Orbit and Nekro put together an absolutely gorgeous cover that appealed to me as a red blooded American male.  We're so simple aren't we?

In any case Blood Rights is a vampire book set in the near future. I kept expecting some kind of science fiction action, but it never developed. The story follows Mal, a vampire living in exile, and Chrysabelle, a comarré (think vampire feeding device trained from birth to serve) on the run from vampire nobility. When Chrysabelle finds her vampire patron dead she feels sure the blame will fall on her. She flees into the human world chased by Tatiana, a noble vampire with a bad attitude and a craving for ultimate power. Naturally our intrepid comarré ends up in the hands of Mal who is trying really hard to not to eat people and has a grudge of his own to settle with Tatiana.  As might be expected the pair find themselves very attracted to one another and Mal ends up in the role of protector as Chrysabelle tries to stay alive and clear her name.

When I first started Blood Rights I really wasn't expecting to like it.  One of my twitter and message board friends (Bastard Books) is a big urban fantasy reader.  I tease him frequently about his love of tramp stamps and crossbow wielding broads, but I realized it might be intellectually dishonest of me to ridicule him without actually knowing what I'm talking about.  Picking up Child of Fire by Harry Connolly or Storm Front by Jim Dresden would have felt like a cop out.  So I consulted my trusty book catalogs and found Blood Rights which thankfully met all my criteria - publisher I trust (check), sexy girl on the cover (check), gothic feel (check), some sort of supernatural thingy (check), and written by a female (check).  For better or worse, I was committed.

Then something sort of funny happened, it ended up being for the better.  There is no question that Blood Rights is paranormal romance in the very well done disguise of urban fantasy.  That's not a criticism at all since Painter made her hay as a writer with covers that feature rock hard abs and curling smoke.  To ignore her experience in that genre would be a mistake and she integrates it well largely because the nature of the romance is so unexpected.  There are no heaving bosoms (alas) or comparing of bodies to chiseled works of art.  In fact, there's not really any sex that I can recall (well unless you count demons doing evil vampires) and only a smattering of kissing.  Instead Painter creates an entire culture of eroticism around blood sucking.  To a vampire sucking blood from a comarré is the equivalent of Kim Kardashian walking up to my desk right now and straddling me - irresistible and all together impossible to ignore.  There is tension and passion and it's all tied to self-denial.

Sure, things get a little bogged down in the early going as Painter dwells a bit on Mal's insatiable desire to chomp down on Chrysabelle's neck.  And by the third or fourth time I was definitely ready to move on and get to the action, but I never had to wait long before things picked up.  Additionally, the novel does an excellent job of dribbling out bits of world building within the romance to give me a reason to be there other than as the creepy guy in the closet (this would be a good time to include a link to R. Kelly's In the Closet).   And for me, it totally works.  So well in fact that after finishing the novel I tweeted the author with, "I can't look at my wife's veins without feeling 'dirty'."

As to be expected with an experienced author, Painter's writing style is very accessible and fits the subject matter well.  There isn't a lot of subtext, but who really wants any when it's time to kill vampires?  She has created a lush imagining of the supernatural culture replete with shapeshifters, demons, fallen angels, and others who all orbit around the vampire nobility.  The comarré - humans living among vampires - are far more than they appear to be much of which I believe remains to be revealed.  Interwoven among these races and humanity is a Biblical thread that promises much more to come in future books.  If I had to try to put a bet on what such a conflict might look like, I'd go pick-up John Milton's Paradise Lost and dust it off.

For someone who wants romance, vampires, and hot chicks with full body golden ink, Kristen Painter's Blood Rights is a great place to start.  While it hasn't convinced me to go commando on the urban fantasy wilderness, I won't be shy about picking more up in the future.  As for the rest of the House of Comarré series, I'm very much on board.

Oh, and I guess Bastard was right.


Blood Rights is available now in the U.K. and on September 27 in the U.S.

The Greyfriar - Clay and Susan Griffith

As I was nodding off last night to the thundering pops of at home fireworks outside my window (northeast D.C. thinks the 4th of July lasts for a week), I couldn't get Disney's Beauty and the Beast out of my head. Beautiful Belle is trapped in the Beast's castle and held against her will. During her imprisonment Belle comes to see the Beast for what he is and not what he looks like. He's smart, gentle, and compassionate. Outside the castle, Belle's suitor - Gaston - plots to "rescue" her. In truth, Gaston is a blowhard who only wants to free Belle to pump up his own ego.

After twenty minutes or so of pondering, I realized that I couldn't get Beauty and the Beast out of my head because I'd just read it. Only Beast was a vampire in a book called The Greyfriar by Clay and Susan Griffith. Of course the realization came at the same time my neighbor set off a screamer, so my epiphany was accompanied by me falling out of bed - not terribly impressive.

In 1870, vampires rose up to become the dominant life form on earth.  This event would come to be known as The Great Killing.  150 years later free humans only exist in enclaves near the equator where vampires refuse to live.  Adele, princess and heir to the largest of these enclaves, has been captured by Prince Cesare, the most notorious vampire alive.  Not everything is at it seems in the world of vampires, and Adele soon comes under the protection of Cesare's brother Prince Gareth.  Now, she's a piece for both sides in a chess match that's sure to lead to open war between vampires and humans.  The only thing between Adele and a gruesome death are Gareth and a mysterious entity named the Greyfriar.  Can they keep her alive long enough for her betrothed, Senator Clarke, to come and rescue her?

So the plot of a fantasy novel is retread?  Right, no one is surprised.  There are more examples of recycled material in fantasy novels than almost any other genre.  As long as there's enough to otherwise entertain a fantasy yarn can get away with some unimaginative storytelling.  By and large, I think Greyfriar accomplishes that.

I maintain that world building is the most important aspect of a novel in the speculative fiction genre.  So many blemishes can be covered up by a world that stimulates the imagination in a new and unique way.  The Griffith's blend a fully realized alternative reality earth complete with imperial borders, political infighting, and magical powers.  They also up the ante by providing something fresh to the vampire narrative by tossing out many of the stereotypical "vampirisms" to create a more realistic (lol?) interpretation.  It's my opinion that they pull of this off near flawlessly providing such a great backdrop that the underwhelming plot becomes an afterthought to the world's epic scope.

Your neck looks so tasty, Belle!

Outside the not-so-imaginative plotting, my complaints are two fold.  First, two real places featured heavily in the story - the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle - just aren't well drawn.  I've been to both of these places and neither were described in a way that made them come alive.  I'm not sure what the point was of naming them as real places given their lack of ambiance.  Both of these places are as haunting and impactful as a place can be.  None of that really came through in the writing.  Second, there's just a too much Twilight going on between Adele and Gareth.  It's pretty well done and there's a great deal of action to keep things butch enough for male readers (yes, a generalization, sue me).  Still, in this post-Twilight world vampire/human infatuation is going to near impossible to pull off without some serious eye rolling.

To use a ridiculous metaphor, Greyfriar is to books like Big League Chew is to chewing gum. I mean it's no Bubblelicious, the unquestioned king of gums. Nor is it like a black licorice gum with nuanced flavors. It's not even one of those gums that's like regular gum until it's bitten into and there's that squirt of liquid whatever it is. Nope. It's Big League Chew - simple, fluffy, and a little overwhelming after an extended chew. It's not a gum that's meant to be chewed every day (unless exhausted jaw muscles are the end game), but there's nothing wrong with occasionally shoving a big wad of Big League Chew into your mouth and endangering your ability to breath.

So where do I come down on this book anyway?  To be honest, I'm not really sure.  This definitely isn't the kind of novel that I gravitate toward with the, how can our love survive the gulf between us malarkey.  Still, there's a pace of action, and a depth to the world that are impossible for me to ignore.  For anyone who enjoys romance, action, and some blood sucking - The Greyfriar is a great choice.  It hits all three of those things out of the park and provides enough that I will absolutely check out the sequel, The Rift Walker.  Looking for something with a dynamic plot or lustrous prose?  Eh, I might look elsewhere.