The Vampire’s Bride
Grade : D+

As I was reading this book, a line from The Magnificent Seven kept popping into my head. The bandit king asks the cowboys why they defended the Mexican village and Steve McQueen says he asked the same thing of a guy who jumped out of a rolling train into a cactus. “And?” asks the bandit king, “What did he say?” McQueen replies, “He said, ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’”

Now, I’m sure it seemed a good idea to write a tale of Atlantis, peopling it with creatures deemed the gods’ mistakes: Centaurs, demons, vampires, etc. And it probably seemed like a good idea to include traveling between worlds. And the publisher clearly thought it was a good idea for Ms. Showalter to write about the villain vampire on a rampage from previous books and pair him with an equally rampaging but less villainous blue-haired Amazon, then chuck them and a dozen other assorted creatures on a desert island to be eliminated one by one à la Survivor.

Problem is, when your advanced reading copy gets splattered with projectile chicken noodle soup due to excessive snickering, this reader reckons they should have rethunk it.

Layel’s human mate was raped, tortured, then burnt to death by shapeshifter dragons two hundred years earlier and ever since the vampire king has waged a war on the entire dragon race. However, he’s in the middle of a battle when the Amazons come charging in. Mayhem ensues until suddenly a portal opens and some of them - including aforementioned blue-haired rampaging Amazon - are dropped onto a desert island where they become sport for the gods.

Frankly, the setup is so ridiculous I can’t go on, which is a pity because the main characters aren’t half bad. Layel has a truly tragic and touching past and Delilah the Amazon is a pretty cool gal, bloodthirstiness aside. Layel needs to get over his dead wife and Delilah needs to find it in her warrior-woman strength to give herself to a man. They have good chemistry and I was glad when they finally made it together.

But ye gods. The author must have adopted the reverse of the maxim "quantity, not quality" because the book suffers from bucketfuls of the former and a dearth of the latter:

    Species – Twelve

  • Characters (including past, present, and future couples) – Stopped counting.
  • Blood, guts and gore – “Abattoir” doesn’t cover it.
  • POVs – Oh, dozens. Or feels like it.
  • Mental lusting, actual lusting, foreplay, and sex – Waaaay too much to be interesting.
  • Love stories – I thought there was one. Then there were two. And then there were three. Bloody Ten Little Indians, in reverse.

And on a more personal note, I've never liked myths of gods playing with mortals. I love studying them and understanding them, but a part of me hates listening to them because I think it’s so bloody unfair for mortals to pay for the whims of stupid deities. And here we have a story where the gods manipulate living, thinking creatures and create a situation with definite undertones of Lord of the Flies (which I hated) and a contest straight from Survivor – only this time with the contestants voted off the island getting their heads chopped off. Then add in an interesting couple whose hormones are given countless page time but whose relationship is given short shrift, an accelerated and unsatisfactory secondary love story, a character with an extremely annoying speech pattern, a writing style that vacillated between Unsuccessful Old School Archaic and Successful Valley Girl, and you have what I call an RPFU. First two letters stand for “right” and “proper”.

I loved Ms. Showalter’s Catch a Mate, but although her paranormals have a spotty record here on AAR it did seem like a good idea to give her another shot. Having jumped into the cactus and emerged with spines in my ass, I’d try her contemporaries again but my one encounter with her fantasy endeavors leaves me unimpressed. I’m done with Atlantis. For good.

Reviewed by Enya Young
Grade : D+

Sensuality: Burning

Review Date : May 5, 2009

Publication Date: 2009

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Enya Young

I live in Seattle, Washington and work as a legal assistant. I remember learning to read (comic strips) at a young age and nowadays try to read about 5-6 books a week. I love to travel, especially to Europe, and enjoy exploring smaller towns off the tourist track though London is my favorite city in the world.
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