Review of recent fiction by Deborah Harkness, Cari Silverwood, and S.J. Smith

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Wicked Ways by Cari Silverwood
Peeper by S.J. Smith


A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The first installment in Harkness' best-selling All-Souls Triology, I picked this up with great anticipation after hearing Maureen Corrigan's glowing review of the third volume on NPR. What I found was a rather tired, overly-conventional romance narrative that fails to inspire on virtually every level. Harkness' characters are little more than second-rate understudies right out of central-stereotype casting. Matthew is a brooding, moody man of mystery, tortured, often volatile, yet--so we are told--oh so irresistible, while Dianna is the fungible stock heroine; beautiful, spunky, independent athletic, in this case a dedicated historian and reluctant witch, and--of course--a woman who has not done much to explore her vulnerable, girly side, hence her potentially fatal attraction to a vampire. Their story is unbelievably dull, weighed down at every page-turn with a thick oily sediment of unnecessary detail: do we really need to know every thought that flits through the heroine's head as she contemplates what to wear on a date, every torturous aspect of meal preparation, or, for that matter, her reaction to every bite of food, every slosh-gurgle of rare wine or drop of cheap tea that happens to touch her lips in every restaurant and dining room in Oxford? 

There is some genuinely amateurish writing here, especially in the awkward, clunky way the author introduces new characters (out of the blue with a heavy freight-load of bewildering, mostly pointless backstory that neither enlightens nor endears). Poor pacing, gratuitous repetition, and a maddening narrative inertia make this virtually unbearable.

While Harkness endeavors to create a new paranormal mythology, she fails miserably at elucidating the real inner lives of her characters or endowing them with any great depth. Would it have been so difficult to do a little research into the very real and genuinely interesting aspects of contemporary Wiccan religion and ethics, the actual theory and practice of magic, as opposed to trying to force atmosphere simply by populating the story with a gaggle of "supernatural" beings? Are we supposed to be dazzled in this day and age by the mere presence of witches, vampires, or demons--even witches and vampires who attend yoga class and go punting on weekends? I've often criticized Anne Rice for some of her later self-indulgent tendencies, but I would gladly re-read all 1,000 pages of The Witching Hour, notwithstanding its cloying repetition, sprawling pointlessness, and ultimate lack of meaningful closure, than ever again bore myself to tears with a book like A Discovery of Witches or its sequels.

Wicked Ways by Cari Silverwood

Cari Silverwood has the makings of a great, entertainingly transgressive tale here. Wicked Ways is, at root, a dark, twisted re-imagining of the standard erotic romance, including all the familiar plot elements--everything from the earth-shattering, "like-nothing-she'd-ever-known" sex to the heroine's de regueur chronic plague of self doubt. All the stock players make their expected appearances: Zorina (Zorie) Brown is a strong, confident, self-sufficient and (of course) beautiful young woman, a university lecturer, not particularly sexually self-aware. . . that is, until she falls victim to the handsome, melodramatically villainous Reuben, a "mesmer" with the psychic ability to control the minds of susceptible women. Reuben and his entourage of sexual sadists draw Zorie into an orgiastic demimonde, repeatedly using her for their paraphilic kicks before quite literally tossing her into the trash. As she waits to be summoned again, the heroine is torn apart as much by cognitive dissonance as her fear of physical abuse, forced to admit that she enjoys what's happening to her, even as she fights, however vainly, to resist. Meanwhile, another mesmer, the enigmatically magnetic Mr. Black assumes the role of anti-hero, drawing Zorie to him with the idea of using her as a weapon to eliminate Reuben--and then, simply using her. (By far and away, the scenes with Zorie and Mr. Black are the most compelling in the novel--would that the author had taken greater, more imaginative advantage of this, and mined their powerful, complex relationship for its full dramatic potential.) There's even a 'sweet guy' in this troupe of romantic archetypes: the sensitive, caring Grimm--a librarian, no less!--who is willing to do anything for Zorina in spite of her seemingly erratic behavior and ultimate indifference. 

The author successfully puts her heroine into a state of sexual and psychological peril, and keeps her there, for the most part, throughout the story. This is not an easy thing to do; if handled ineptly, the heroine's response to conflict might easily betray her as a weakling, a crybaby or a pushover. The tension that Silverwood creates, however, is wildly uneven, going slack far too often to maintain a consistent interest. Her use of alternating POV characters from chapter to chapter should, theoretically, add a panoramic quality to the storytelling, as perceptive yet still more intimate than a conventional third-person narrative. Alas, the device here comes off as lazy, feeling like a sloppy attempt to avoid head-hopping, or, possibly, the desperate resort of a writer who can't decide which point-of-view to use in the first place. Where alternating POV ought to provide a richer sense of the individual characters' interior dynamics, Zorie's inner monologue seems to consist largely of shopworn phrases like "Damn him!" and "The bastard!" Ultimately, the author's attempt to tell an original story is hampered by the fact that none of her characters seem to have a single original thought in their heads.

Yet more unfortunate, for all the story's rich possibilities, the execution is muddled, bogged down by writing that is often simply awful, a clumsy, earthbound prose, frumpishly indifferent to style, weak, unpolished, dully conventional, enervated by the author's apparent addiction to the easy cliché. Too much of the book has the feel of an apathetically edited second draft. (When I find myself repeatedly screaming at a book like an exasperated Muppet, there's definitely a problem!) A catalog of missed opportunities and simplistic choices, the author ties things up with an annoying--and ultimately rather insulting-- coincidence. The story that might have effectively explored the difference between the romantic fantasy of the 'bad boy' and the nightmare of the truly 'bad guy' is diluted, melting into abject silliness, its potential for page-turning drama simply pissed away. Such a waste!

Three stars for the ghost of a good story. Sadly, not recommended.   

Peeper by S.J. Smith

If I was annoyed by Cari Silverwood's Wicked Ways, I was thoroughly pissed off by S.J. Smith's Peeper. 

At first glance, this is an homage to that particular vein of hard-boiled detective fiction in which the flawed hero must embrace his own inner darkness in order to overcome the very real evil that confronts him. The great American detectives almost always take the morally ambiguous route, with sexual temptation lurking in cheap hotels and dark alleyways, seldom more than a few short steps beyond the garish glow of the streetlamp. It is this inner conflict--this moral tension--that makes the detective more than a mere pulp-fiction construct, but a bona fide literary character--universally compelling.  

Jenks, the would-be peeper of the title is none of those things. An average Welshman of no extraordinary achievement or particular ambition, a man, perhaps on the brink of midlife crisis, Jenks has nothing better to do than emulate the hard-boiled heroes of his daydreams. Rushing in without a clue, he takes a case involving the retrieval of blackmail photos, only to find himself made a chump, entangled in a sordid web of intrigue with--what else?--an impossibly beautiful woman at its center. Jenks' moral compass spins wildly at times, though, always--tiresomely, boringly, predictably--returning to the True North of the 'beautiful, adoring wife' who waits for him at home, a character who seems simply too good--and far too accommodating--to be true.

The story is 'fleshed out' with a good deal of decidedly hot sex, which seems to be the whole point of the endeavor--not that there's anything wrong with that. Yet, in the end, what promised to be a darkly clever mash-up of detective fiction and erotica turns out to be little more than a practical joke at the reader's expense, a silly, juvenile, elaborately-contrived 'twist' rendering all that went before meaningless. Frankly I have NEVER read a novel that made me so angry, or left me feeling so manipulated or so cheated. (Who's the chump now?)  In the still-red glare of retrospect, this story has the feel of a petulant wave gift, and--far worse--a waste of time.  

Listen! If a writer is going to embrace the darkness and explore the transgressive, than they fucking well need to go all in and embrace the darkness! None of this cowardly, amateurish  backing out at the last minute--"Oh, sorry guys! I didn't really mean it . . ." Go all the way, hold nothing back, put your characters in genuine peril and keep them there until they figure out a way to overcome their conflicts. Otherwise, the exercise is about as worthless as a bowdlerized Dick and Jane story.

Smith's writing is competent--not great--clunking along like some rusty, superannuated family car that barely manages to get readers from point A to point B. Yet there are too many times when it feels as if the vehicle is taking us in circles, repeatedly covering the same bumpy terrain, always going right, never left, driving past the same landmarks, rutting up the same mundane, unnecessary details.  It all becomes extremely dull after a while. 

Yet another title I cannot recommend. 

Great review of TAS' 'The Moon-Haunted Heart'

An absolutely smashing review of The Moon Haunted Heart:

https://emmanuelledemaupassant.com/2016/04/04/moon-haunted-heart-a-revie


You can get the book here:

paperback:

Createspace Direct

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

e-book:

Smashwords Edition

Kindle Edition

Nook (Barnes & Noble)

Review of 'Cautionary Tales From the Edges' by Emmanuelle de Maupassant

Cautionary Tales From the Edges 

This extraordinary collection of short tales is, at once, a celebration of the simple beauty of language, a colorful and sometimes terrifying glimpse into the grimly fatalistic heart of Slavic folk culture, and a highly satisfying work of sensually charged entertainment. These twelve stories range pleasingly in mood and atmosphere from the mysterious and macabre—reminiscent of Angela Carter’s treatments of traditional folk and fairy tales—to the broadly humorous, bawdy romps in the spirit of Boccacio, populated with loutish peasants, dirty old men, promiscuous milkmaids, and horny demons in varying degrees of malevolence, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, elemental sprites, and throngs of things that go bump in the magical night.

Yet, as the collection's title suggests, no story here is without an overt moral component, an appropriate comeuppance for bad behavior, just desserts for greed, lechery, and deceit, unfaithfulness, cruelty, murder—the whole catalog of sins, mortal and venial. The tales are narrated with the occasional poetic aside by the souls of the dead, collectively observing the realm of the living, commenting on human folly, sometimes with sadness, more often with a sort of wearily superior resignation as if to say ‘we see it all so clearly, yet the living make the same foolish mistakes again and again, and we, poor spirits, not wholly beyond care, can only watch, having forever lost the ability to intervene.’

Emmanuelle de Maupassant’s language is elegant and direct, never simplistic or condescendingly obvious in spite of occasionally meandering towards preciousness, at times a little too dainty—at least to my taste. The style is consistent—very important!—concise and to the point without venturing off on tangents. Throughout, I was happily reminded of those wonderful—and wonderfully old-fashioned—fairy tale collections from the earlier years of the last century (are there any readers here old enough to remember the original Childcraft series?) genuine literature that never patronized or talked down to its intended audience, never insulted the reader’s intelligence or dumbed down its content to accommodate the attenuated attention spans of addle-brained TV addicts.

The author has done a great deal of research into Slavic folkways, customs and cuisine, and clearly loves the material she is working with—an affection that shines through on every page.

Recommended.

Story from TAS' "The Moon-Haunted Heart" in this month's "Lightpole Magazine"

check it out:

http://www.syeopub.com/lightpole-magazine/

Story from TAS' "The Moon-Haunted Heart" featured on Janine Ashbless' website

check it out!

http://janineashbless.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/blue-monday-terrance-aldon-shaw-guests.html?zx=910131f48e76e83a

Review of 'Tampa' by Alissa Nutting--and more!

So, let’s talk about Tampa. Not in the hushed, breathless tones of closeted embarrassment, as if we’d been forced to reveal a guilty secret long hidden. Not in the stale, dusty diction of ‘moral rectitude’ or the tongue-clucking, pulpit-pounding hyperbole of reactionary outrage. Let’s talk about this book as a piece of writing, as an example of a particular literary paradigm, as an effectively narrated story, and as an entertainment.

For a popular title regarded by many as a mere succès de scandale, one may be surprised to discover just how well-written much of Alissa Nutting’s debut novel truly is:

I knew I’d find it hard to cut the girls in my classes any slack at all, knowing the great generosity life had already gifted them. They were at the beginning of their sexual lives with no need to hurry—whenever they were ready, a great range of attractions would be waiting for them, easy and disposable. Their urges would grow up right alongside them like a shadow. They’d never feel their libido a deformed thing to be kept chained up in the attic of their mind and to only be fed in secret after dark.

or this:

When I stepped outside after my last class, the unfiltered afternoon sun was blinding. The bedlam atmosphere of the day’s end made the stoic brick walls of the junior high and all its false markers of imposed order—the perfect geometry of the landscaping, its immaculate semi-circles of wood chips bordered with green hedges and palm trees—seem like relics of a recently invaded and devoured civilization . . .

These qualities are fairly consistent throughout the text, though one may note less precision in vocabulary—the occasional jarring inaccuracy in word choice—in the penultimate mad rush towards denouement and climax. (This ‘creeping carelessness’ is hardly uncommon in books produced under looming deadlines. One sees it in the works both of independent and traditionally-published authors.)

[By the way, Ms. Nutting: Corvettes don’t have back seats—and if your heroine was trying to maintain a low profile, a Corvette of any vintage would be the most impractical thing she could drive around in with the possible exception of a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.]

Tampa is, first and foremost, a character study. Nutting’s Celeste Price is a calculating sociopath, an anti-heroine very much in the literary/filmic tradition of Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter or the character of Walter White in Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad. Readers will be aware of ‘what must occur’ from the very beginning, and are, thus, held in a protracted, ecstatic state of dramatic irony, knowing full well that this character’s development must inevitable follow a downward trajectory—that the moral expectations of the broader society be satisfied. Suspense will come in the form of speculation, trying to guess how and for how long this beautiful predator will evade capture, and what, ultimately, will be the cause of her downfall. Will one of her 14-year old student conquests be compelled by guilt to confess? Will she be found out by some adult in a position of authority? Will her husband become suspicious? Will she herself become too eager and give away the game? Do we, the readers, care enough about this woman to get butterflies in our stomach when she encounters a close call?

Many of the details in Tampa are borrowed wholesale from the 2005 story of Debra Lafave, a Florida middle-school teacher charged in one of the most notorious, high-profile statutory rape cases of recent memory. (The author had attended school with Lafave.) Yet, the narrative might have been set almost anywhere in the US. Predators lurk in big cities and small towns, tiny rural school districts and sprawling urban ones. A few manage to evade capture for years. Some are never captured or called out at all. Thus, there is a sense both of universality and disquieting familiarity—something uncomfortably close to home—in Nutting’s telling of this tale.

Many of the descriptions of sex between the adult predator and her underage victims are quite explicit—sometimes gratuitously so, as in the scene where Celeste, trying to regain the trust of Jack, her disgruntled ‘boy toy’, invites him to penetrate her anally (“giving him a treat”) on top of her desk. For the purposes of her story, the author ignores questions of agency and consent—except insofar as those issues inconvenience her anti-heroine. Nonetheless, many of these descriptive passages are effectively arousing, whether the author intended them to be so or not.  (Frankly, there is no shame in admitting this. Especially if one picks up a book with the desire to be titillated, it’s hardly fair to complain after the fact that one actually was turned on—though, I suppose, some people are capable of complaining about anything without the slightest hint of irony.)

As an assured, well-crafted piece of writing and as a sharply-observed character study. as a slickly-plotted adventure, right at home in the contemporary tradition of the anti-hero, as an accessible, relatably-narrated story, and as a surprisingly effective entertainment, Tampa is recommended. 

* * *

I’d been going back and forth in my mind about whether to review Alissa Nutting’s Tampa. Certainly, in reading this title, I had that old familiar sense of the imagination revving into the red zone—that frisson of near-absolute certainty when I know I won’t be able to resist the urge to share my thoughts about something I’ve read, listened to, discovered, or experienced. Yet, at the same time, some bureaucratic homunculus in another remote, dusty compartment of my brain was dragging its feet, drawling dully like Ben Stein in Soapdish or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Are you suuuuure about that?”

Then Amazon KDP banned two of my books. This came as a shock, not least because neither title was listed as erotica, but literary fiction. Both books had been available on Amazon for well over two years with, apparently, no problems; no complaints about their transgressive themes or darkly erotic content, no negative reviews, no pitchfork-wielding mob of outraged citizens storming my castle gates.

And, of course, when I asked the folks at KDP to explain the reasons for their decision, they sent me an automatic ‘non-response’ to the effect that (1) I had broken their rules. “Please refer to our content guidelines.” (2) They would not tell me specifically which rule I had supposedly broken—frankly, their ‘content guidelines’ are so broadly written as to be utterly meaningless, in effect ‘you know what you’re not supposed to do . . .’ or ‘our rules concerning erotic content are’ “ . . . pretty much what you’d expect.” (3) I was further informed that if I ever broke their rules again—the ones they won’t cite specifically—they might go so far as to cancel my author account altogether.

My response to this treatment was to feel disappointment, anger, sadness, and depression in roller-coaster-like rapid succession. A good chunk of my income from writing derives from sales on the Zon, so it would not do to have my account banned. Then, too, I realized that I have a deep desire to communicate with readers. I want people to discover my books, to read them, to find meaning, enlightenment, entertainment and joy in them. I could live with reduced income, but to be cut off from my potential audience? That would be a kind of death. To simply work in isolation day in, day out, but not be able to share myself through my writing? To be forbidden ever to reach out into the wider world? To be rendered voiceless? For me, that would be a Hell far worse than anything Dante ever dreamed up.

What stings most deeply here is the sense that my work has been found wanting, judged and condemned by a transparently hypocritical double standard. If, in Tampa, Alissa Nutting can write explicit, anatomically graphic scenes of sex between a 26-year old teacher and her 14-year-old student, and not only have her book rocket to the top of the best-seller charts, but see that book prominently featured in Amazon’s advertising, what objection can there be to the content of my work, which actually endeavors to explore and acknowledge issues of agency and consent? If George R.R. Martin can write fairly graphic scenes depicting the 14-year-old Danerys Targarian having sex with Khal Drogo under the watching eyes of the whole Dothraki tribe, not to mention scenes of brother/sister incest—one of which takes place in a ‘church’ near the reposing dead body of said brother and sister’s son!—why the hell can’t I write and publish the relatively mildly graphic stories in Kiss-Off theDevil about mature 16- and 17-year-olds exploring their sexuality? Jill Solloway’s novella Jody K  is a brilliant glimpse into the mind of a 14-year-old girl at the dawn of sexual awakening—but what have I written that makes Birthday Girl, my story of a headstrong 15-going-on-16-year-old at a similar developmental stage—a story in which no sex physically occurs!—so much more objectionable?  Nabokov’s Lolita and Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage are rightly hailed as classics though both reference acts which could be interpreted as statutory rape. What’s wrong with my gentle literary story of a lonely 16-year old boy with a speech impediment being led to manhood by the 28-year-old step-relative he adores in Summer of ’69?

Is the problem that I refuse to pass judgment on my fictional characters for behaving the way real-life people do every day? That I will not condemn my characters or punish them simply to satisfy the atavistic expectations of a few self-appointed, loud-mouthed ‘traditional family values’ crusaders—and certainly not the obsolete ‘Movie of the Week’ morality of an idealized world that never was? That I categorically reject any worldview that reflexively conflates ignorance and innocence?

Or does the fate of my books boil down to the same tired, old truth: that authors with name recognition, a vocal fan-base and a small fortune, or those operating under the aegis of a traditional mainstream publisher or the protection of an influential agent are more or less free to break whatever unwritten rule there is so long as their books promise to sell like the next GoT or FSOG?

I choose to write about erotic themes because I believe in the liberation of the human spirit. The spirit and the body cannot be free until we have unshackled ourselves from shame, and to break those fetters we must honestly, unflinchingly, examine ourselves, our wants, our needs, our drives, our emotions whether dark or sunny, the irrational roots of our inhibitions and fears, the terrifying wonder and awesome beauty of our sexuality in all its bewildering complexity. Sex is essential to the human experience and that experience doesn’t mystically commence on the morning of our 18th birthday. If an author is going to tell an authentically human story—a story with sufficient depth of truth, empathy and understanding—the sexual component of our human-ness must be acknowledged. Stories in which sex is ignored or redacted altogether are little more than fables to entertain the willfully infantilized.

If you love your characters, do not judge them. And, if you put those characters into erotic situations, do not judge yourself! Perhaps we should refrain from apologizing for our work before anyone has had a chance to read it. We should stop saying that what we do is dirty or filthy, denigrate or dismiss our own labors with phrases like “Oh, what I do isn’t important. It’s only erotica (or smut, or filth, or porn . . .) after all.” Are we not judging our readers with this attitude as well? It doesn’t have to be this way. Love what you do, love your characters, and love yourself. That, my dear friends, is one thing nobody can ever take away from you. 

TAS

Review of 'Best Women’s Erotic of the Year Volume 1' (ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel)

Best Women’s Erotic of the Year Volume 1 

Here we have twenty-two well-crafted short stories by some extremely talented women who prove that erotica is very much alive and well as the new century enters late adolescence. Thriving, in fact, and thrillingly diverse, pitching a big tent (pun intended) resounding with many voices. Still very much among the quick in spite of all efforts to pronounce it dead. Brash, defiant, alive and kicking—licking, kissing, sucking, touching, feeling, fondling, fucking . . .

And thinking, too! Rather a lot, as it turns out. These aren’t the braindead crayon-scribbles one used to find in cum-stained plain brown wrappers. There’s no bad writing here. It’s all good—and a surprising percentage of it is also very good, understatedly original, quietly trenchant, colorfully curious, probing, poignant, powerful, from Valerie Anderson’s Demimonde—an engagingly superb evocation of debauchery and kink in buttoned-up late-19th-century New York, to A New Canvas by Tara Betts and Drawn by Nic by Heidi Champa, both breathing in their cool inspirations from the gritty world of contemporary street artists. Jade A. Waters’ Ophelia the Second takes readers into the mind and heart of an infatuated understudy, while Starstruck by Lazuli Jones takes a similarly delightful journey into the mad-rushing thoughts of a fortysomething fan-girl at last meeting the object of her hottest teenaged fantasies—one hero, it turns out, who does not have feet--or anything else--of clay!

There are little one-act erotic romances (The Ropes by Elise King, The Wolf at His Door  by Deborah Castellano, The Assistant  by Tiffany Reisz), flights of fantasy made arousingly real (Date Night by D.R. Slaten, Flying Solo by Rachel Kramer Bussel, Matilda’s Secret by L. Marie Adeline, Alvin’s Night by Elizabeth Coldwell), salacious vignettes conjured from slightly-unconventional premises (Scents and Sexuality by Doriana Chase, Restitution by Ria Restrepo) and straight-up, no-frills sex-capades (Revisiting Youth  by J. Crichton and H. Keyes, Out of the Ordinary by Rose P. Lethe, Two Doms for Dinner  by Dorothy Freed).

I like those stories best whose authors seem to have done a bit of extra ‘interior spadework’, digging deep to the roots of character and emotion: Tabitha Rayne’s Enter Me, in which a woman, rendered deaf  by a terrible accident, endeavors to reconnect with her lover and the sounds of the past; Jessica Taylor’s The Altar of Lamented Toys, redolent with nostalgia and regret in a dystopian, post-pandemic world without batteries, Theda Hudson’s Lighting the Pyre, a treasurable snapshot of life in which a cancer survivor goes in for a tattoo to cover the scars and finds a way to re-engage with love and passion again,  and Rose Caraway’s The Carnalarium, a simple, sympathetically drawn story of letting go in more ways than one. Perhaps most pleasantly surprising of all was Waiting to Pee by Amy Butcher, a story in which diverse characters are so acutely, thoughtfully observed, yet so thoroughly, stealthily, unpretentiously entertaining as to catch the reader happily off guard. Magnificent!

Highly recommended!