Through the Looking Glass

Sorry to inflict these on you, but I wanted somewhere to put my notes on these novels as I read them to refer back to.

When Darkness Comes, Alexandra Ivy

The worst of the first bunch thus far - this one had so many problems, it's hard to know where to start.

How about a lousy premise? Yep, got it. Basically, there's a big force of "good" and a big force of "evil" and only one can exist on this plane - no co-habitation allowed! This doesn't sound all that bad...until you realize that the "good" guys essentially bought some nobleman's daughter for a ritual to stuff the "good" force into her so as to prevent the "bad" force from coming back to this plane. Is it just me, or does this sound like a not-very-nice thing to do for the supposed good guys?

Oh, wait - I forgot to mention that the "good" force is....the Phoenix. Hoo, with burning people and everything. X-Men, anyone? Right. It's also really, really powerful and, as stated in the book "takes steps to protect itself" from evil. Okie dokie...

So if it can protect itself, yada yada, then why did said "good" guys (a coven of witches) find it necessary to enslave a vampire and force him to protect said Chalice (that's what the lucky lady is called that gets to have the Phoenix crawling around inside)?

So....the good guys have already 1) bought someone, 2) forced them to become the Chalice, and 3) enslaved a vampire (who is a type of demon...and where have we heard that before ladies and gentlemen? Heh....just wait because there'll be another little zinger later). Can I get some applause for the good guys?

Righty-ho. We've got the Chalice, which prevents the "big bad" from coming to this plane, but doesn't prevent all of the big bad's minions (demons) from crossing over, and of course their #1 goal is to destroy the Phoenix so their Daddy can come play!

There's the premise. Already we've got problems because if the Phoenix is so powerful (and it is, as we soon see), then there's no need for this poor vampire fellow to be shackled to the Chalice.

Except wait! He's tall, dark and handsome (and does the brooding thing quite well, and also the sexy flirting and the "you know you want me") and if he wasn't geased to protect the Chalice, then he and our heroine (the Chalice's personal assistant) would never meet! gasp

Hoo.

So, the story opens with the current Chalice dying, her house essentially exploding, and the lovely, gamine assistant (Abby Barlow) ending up with the Phoenix force transferred into her, which of course means the tall, dark and handsome vampire is now her protector and Oh woe is me because he doesn't want to be her protector, he wants to be her lover (like he can't be both?).

Then, because she's not "safe" he wants to find the witches and get them to yank the Phoenix back out of her because only then can they live "happily ever after" - because as long as it's in her, the demons will keep coming after her! Except that apparently, after a while, the Phoenix is able to "hide" itself so demons can't sniff it out...yeah, again, the logic here...isn't.

So our two intrepid lovers (oh, yes, the sex came fast because of course the perfect time to engage in lusty sex is when you are running from demons and in constant danger and I'm not just whistling Dixie here. The times these two choose to have sex makes the brain hurt in the same way getting smacked with a large two-by-four would...including a scene where they went to a house/building the coven had been in (and many of them killed) out in the middle of a field somewhere in Chicago, and they were tired and weak and so miracle of miracles they found a cave nearby (yes, I'm serious, some kind of "cave") where, despite them being worried that whatever had attacked the witches might still be around, they had wild and crazy sex.

So, they can't find the witches and can't find the witches, and they keep trying to come up with ways to find the witches, and then, suddenly! Our vampire hero decides to go see an old friend of his (some kind of demon/fae/whatever) who...owns a coffeeshop and has his ear to the ground as to the supernatural in the city and has probably heard something about the witches and guess what? This friend not only knows where the witches are, but even has their address.

Can someone please tell me why we just spent three-fourths of the book desperately searching for the witches when all we had to do was go grab a cup of coffee and talk to the vampire's faerie friend?? Why wasn't this the first thing tried? This guy is apparently "the" guy to go to for information of this kind....but we waited until the novel is three-fourths of the way finished to talk to him?? Yeah...premise and plot are so thin as to be anorexic.

Shoot. me. now.

Finally, our heroes discover the true goal of the witches - well, one of them at any rate, who's gone completely loopy and has this idea to completely destroy all demons in the world, thereby eliminating all evil and everyone can then live in lollipop land!

Oh noes!! We can't do that, because not all demons are evil, says Abby! I've seen good demons (hello, Buffy/Angel again, anyone?!?) So of course now the goal has changed to stopping the evil plan of the "good" guys.

Right. Remember that the vampire is supposed to be the powerful protector? Despite the fact that Ms. Barlow is able to fry people with the touch of a hand? Yeah - you'd think he'd be the hero at the end, right? Of course not! Ms. Barlow grabs hold of that Phoenix force and conflagrates the evil good witch! And everyone lives happily ever after! No, really! Vampire and Chalice are married and that's that!

The author tosses in all of these pop culture references - including...wait for it...Buffy! I'm not sure what her intentions were by including them, but they absolutely jangled on the nerves.

Was there anything at all I liked about this book? Other than a few turns of phrase that were nice, I really can't think of a single thing. Overall, the writing was simplistic, the sex scenes mediocre, and the plot so idiotic that there might as well have been no plot at all.

Reviews to come soon:
Dark Prince, Christine Feehan
Tempting Danger, and the sequel Mortal Danger, Eileen Wilks (I'm halfway through the sequel).

The other reviews hopefully won't be quite as long as this one.

After that, I've got two more books from the original order (a third by Wilks called Blood Lines and then for a change of pace, an historical - Katherine by Anya Seton). The second order of books arrives today and includes Bitten by Kelley Armstrong and Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison (thanks for the recommendations!) I also re-purchased all of the Anita Blake novels and the Gentry novels because if you're going to write paranormal romance, you better really take a look at the top-selling author in the field currently. I can't remember where I finally gave up on the Blake novels, but I'm going to make myself read through the entire series. I've read all of the Gentry novels (and there are some things I like very much about them), but didn't keep them once I was done.

Tags: writing