Bicycling update

I haven't been mentioning this, but we still do it every day. T. has been interested in the Burley Kazoo, so he went to and from school yesterday on it, and to school on it today. He went straight for it when we went for our morning ride. And let me just say, nothing says to a motorist, "You want nothing to do with any accident she/they get into" like a surrey bike and a bright pink skirt.

The only issue was a big black SUV thinking about passing me on Prospect approaching Spencer on the way home. There was a spandex clad guy on a bike coming up Spencer (and, I might add, a huge grin on his face when he saw me), and I took the whole lane so he wouldn't have to stop at the top of the hill. Poor driver. Sometimes I feel like a moving traffic calming device. They may not _feel_ calm but they sure as hell have to slow down.

_Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night_, Kresley Cole (kindle)

Book 3 in the Immortals After Dark series.

I almost hesitate to review this book, since Janet over at Dear Author did such a phenomenal job:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/10/08/review-wicked-deeds-on-a-winters-night/

This is the story of a Witch (Mariketa the Awaited, early 20s and not yet immortal, a rare, collect-em-all-five-types-of-powers witch) and a Werewolf (the depressive and depressing Bowen, who thinks he lost his Mate about 200 years ago) who lose a contest (the Talisman's Hie, won by Sebastian in Book 2) and win each other. Aw. Isn't that sweet.

Most romance novels explain Teh Brokenness of their Physically Perfect But Emotionally Damaged characters by some kind of tragedy or trauma in their past. Bowe, obviously, lost his mate, and then it turns out he _really_ hates witches because his dad wanted to be the strongest of his brothers, and he got his wish from a witch who offed his brothers for him. Not what Dear Old Dad had in mind because he abdicated from the kingship he inherited. Bowen, as a result, is a bit Tetchy when it comes to magick.

Mariketa is unhappy because (a) she can't control her powers and (b) she has to cover up in a glamour and burqa, er, full coverage scarlet cloak with a big hood to keep from being identified by the Big Bad who prophecy says is gonna (try to) get her.

Mariketa, the Woede demon brothers Cade and Rydstrom (who will get their own books later in the series) and some fey, all team up to collect some prizes in the contest from a pyramid in Guatemala that imprisons some incubi who just want to die and (correctly) identify Mariketa as someone who can help them. After a little interaction between Bowen and Mariketa, Bowen locks them all in assuming they can escape, then goes off to get locked up with the Fyre Serpente (and yes, Serpente has an accent mark on it, no less) with no food or water for a couple weeks (where he was left at the end of Book 2). He is rescued from there solely to go rescue Mariketa et al from the pyramid which no one else can figure out where it is, to prevent the outbreak of war among a bunch of factions that desperately need to stay allied for the quickly arriving Accession, aka Big War with the Vampires (well, at least the Horde vampires). Still with me? Yeah, not even halfway through the book. And despite all this plot activity, most of the verbiage centers around Mariketa and Bowen not trusting each other (well, given that she cursed him to not regenerate and that's what cost him the Hie, and given that she's been stuck with creepy crawlies and incubi for 3 weeks, surprise) but still being hugely attracted to each other.

What bothered Janet, at Dear Author, is something that bothers me a lot about supernatural and other romances with One True Love. It bugs me IRL when people think they've found their Soul Mate, largely because every single time I've encountered that kind of starry eyed belief, Snowballing Clusterfuckage ensued. Yes, dear, you are haaaawwwwttt for each other with a hawtness that is Older Than the Stars and Stronger Than WTF. Okay. Fine. And what Cole is up to in this novel is yanking the Soul Mate idea around so much it more or less disintegrates. I'm not sure if that was her intention, but that was the result.

Bowen "senses" Soul-Mate-age with Mariketa. But his Mate died long ago so that can't be. Mariketa being a witch, thus, she has Enchanted him. Evil. Oh, and never mind he's still wearing a medallion given him by his Soul Mate almost two centuries ago. Surprise! That medallion is the enchantment that convinced him Mariah 180 years ago was his Mate when she wasn't. And the whole thing was set up by the Big Bad that is after Mariketa. Mariketa's damage is that her dad died and her mother left her to be raised by other witches; she doesn't realize dad's soul got sucked out by big bad and mom went to go beg for it back. Of course, the HEA delivers big time because, hey, this is Kresley Cole. Me likey.

Mariketa, not unexpectedly, wants Bowen to commit to her, Soul Mate or Not. And Bowen is advised to make a decision and stick to it, because waffling is bad. And I'm sitting here wanting to make parallels to Sanford and women, and desperately trying not to. No wonder I hate the Soul Mate idea. And while I didn't anticipate the details, I figured no way in hell is Fate so screwed up as to match Bowen to Mariah (once we had the details on her, and they match ex/first wife romance novel stereotypes so perfectly) and no way did Mariketa's parents abandon her for frivolous reasons, once we had the details on them (actual, loving, parents. Whoa!). From there, it was a very short step to finding the conniving bitch responsible for all the manipulation. I just wish it had been a conniving man instead of a conniving woman, because that's a misogynistic stereotype I'd be happy to do without.

Surprisingly good, if you can work your way past some of the surface stuff.

_Dark Needs at Night's Edge_, Kresley Cole (kindle)

Book 4 in the Immortals After Dark series.

Another Wroth brother, this time Conrad. From age 13 until his death at the hands of Russians while protecting the family homestead including plague-ridden and soon to die sisters and father (well, some may have already been dead), Conrad was a member of a Secret Society devoted to killing members of the Horde (evil Russian vampires). You can imagine how he felt when his brother Nicholas converted his other brother Sebastian (of Book 2) and him without consulting them (well, Conrad was mostly dead already, and Nicholas didn't know about the Secret Society thing. I mean, Secret, right?).

With his old brothers-in-staking staking, er, him out (okay, staking doesn't work -- you have to behead in this series) because he is now Teh Enemy, Conrad tries to stay alive, or at least undead, and turns out to be phenomenally good at it. He gets paid for killing people and, in general, it turns out that a lot of the people someone is willing to pay to make dead aren't very nice people. Oh, and he drinks them dry to collect their powers and, as an undesirably side effect, gets their memories. This is not good for the sanity.

When Conrad's brothers finally track him down and, with some assistance from Bowen (see Book #2) and Magick Handcuffs lock him up in a dilapidated old estate, Conrad meets Neomi (there's an accent mark) Laress, daughter of a French burlesque dancer, herself a burlesque dancer and a prima ballerina who used the funds she raised on stage to buy this estate back in the 1920s. Unfortunately, a guy she turned loose turned on her (and then himself) and she wound up haunting the place. She is Conrad's Bride, but he can't be blooded because she is incorporeal.

Because he's hangin' with a nice, funny, sexy lady, and Not Drinking the Blood and Memories of Really Bad Supes, Conrad starts to recover his sanity, thus making this a little like the Only She Can Reach Him Through His Disability subgenre (cf Flowers From the Storm, Laura Kinsale). His brothers think he is hallucinating, which is a little silly. Why balk at ghosts when you are a vampire? Ah, well. In any event, Conrad still has some problems, including a demon mark that won't heal. After some in-person phone sex, Conrad decides that it's just a matter of coming up with a plan and implementing. Unfortunately, his brothers have quit visiting (probably locked up somewhere) so he's unable to get out of the magic handcuffs. OTOH, as we know from Book 1, one solution to the your-limb-is-trapped problem for immortals is removing the limb. After all, it'll regenerate! Off to the woodshed for an ax -- right when Neomi decides its time to come clean about having stolen the key to the cuffs and now being willing to hand it over. Ooops. Big Misunderstanding ensues and harsh words.

Neomi, however, decides enough is enough. Conrad is right. We need a plan. So she finds the cell phone (also stolen), calls the House of Witches and gets Mari to come over and hatch a plan. It has some unpleasant conditions, and Nix is not overly happy, but Neomi gets a body and goes to the Ball, er, Big Party to Plan the Accession and find Conrad. Next, Sexxxorringg!

Conrad really does it up: he's not only cleaned off the blood and shaven, but he's gotten a haircut, nice clothes and started hauling her all over the globe for fancy dinners and moonlit walks on the beach and whatnot. Neomi won't marry him because of the conditions, which also mean she can't tell him about the conditions. Big Misunderstanding ensues and then Demons show up. Third party inadvertently drills Neomi immediately after she clears up the Misunderstanding in an effort to stop Conrad from trading his life for hers, after all, hers isn't worth much since it's gonna be so short. And not just mortal short. As in, at 2 weeks, she's feeling lucky to have lasted this long.

So now Conrad's looking for a witch to fix the body and Mari's under pressure to use the mirrors and Bowe has a Bad Feeling and can you guess where this is going? In a way, this episode is a lot like a nice version of Torchwood's _They Keep Killing Suzy_. Only They Keep Killing (and Bring Back) Neomi.

One of the things I dearly loved about Stargate SG-1 was the incredible frequency with which major characters were killed off and then brought back. And they didn't do it the same way that many times -- oh, sure, the occasional repeat, but in general, new and different ways to die and come back once a week, many weeks of the year for 10 years. Just to keep things interesting, they'd once in a while bring back someone who had been dead for a long time, keep 'em around for a while, and them kill 'em again permanently. And once in a rare while, they permanently offed a major character.

Cole has been okay with killing off main characters in this series (Kaderin, in Book #2, for example). Being dead in this game is not black-and-while. With a time-travel key and witches and a goddess of the impossible, there's no end of deus ex machina available. And the whole help-hero-recover-from-serious-damage isn't limited to this book -- that's a staple of the genre, and a part of Rescue Culture that makes R. and I scream, "Codependency, much?" Once again, Cole fiddles with the Soul Mate idea: in theory, there can be no doubt if a woman is a Vampire's Bride or not. He starts breathing and his heart starts beating and he can get it up. But until Neomi is corporeal, nothing happens, so Cole is stuck wondering is-she or isn't-she.

This entry, tho, really makes a stark point about the amorality of True Love. It apparently Does Not Matter that Conrad is/was a crazed serial murderer for hire. Altho he does have to stop killing except in self-defense going forward. Which raises a whole fascinating series of questions about the purpose of True Love or, at any rate, women, in the Kresley Cole universe. This isn't so much about redemption as redirection.

In case it isn't obvious, I'm still going back for more.