This is the first issue of a Marvel series that brings Dracula to the 1970s.  It is very Hammer House of Horror, and somewhat predictable if you have read comics from the 50s or 70s  - those horror comics.  It's not bad and somewhat enjoyable.  I love the credits square at the start of the comic.

Its a standard romantic triangle vampire tale.

I'm reading this book for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge ("book published the year you were born" category - yay for 1979). It is horrible and I stopped at chapter four last night because I couldn't take it anymore. This book is so old-skool romance that it is painful to read, but I don't want to read anything else from that year either, so I am sticking with this one. The high-ish lights:

1. Love triangle spotted within first chapter. In this corner, childhood friend Morgan, who is clumsy at all romantic gestures (yes, even getting him trying to get frisky with heroine is cringe worthy) but he loves her so damn much (*cough* obsessive *cough*). In that corner, 32 year old privateer (he sides with the Americans in the Revolution, so he is a good privateer) Frenchman Andre, who knows how to kiss and other stuff because experience. This dumb as a box of rocks heroine, Devon, bumps into Andre by accident at the tender age of 13 and is instantly in love/lust with Andre (who at the time was about 27). At the fourth chapter point (Devon is 18, Morgan is 19, and Andre is 32), I hope they all die of syphilis.

2. All the characters are horrible people. Completely unlikeable. There is no actual villain yet, so just random, ugly on the inside people. Except for the heroine (strawberry blonde goddess ahoy!), who is perfectly perfect in every way.

3. Did I mention the TSTL heroine? She turns 18 and is kissed twice in the same day (see point #1). Of course, Andre's kiss flames the passion inside her, including the tingling sensation in "her hidden place" (oh man, the euphasisms are going to kill me) and make her breasts taut when she touches herself. She is so pure and innocent that she doesn't know what to do with these new feelings and has no women friends to talk to about these feelings. So she quickly dresses and tries to hide her shameful lust.

I hate sex-shaming, especially in romance novels. I don't care if the hero or heroine is a virgin or not, but don't make out sex to be shameful if it is not done within the confines of a partner's (especially male partner) gaze/actions. UGH, UGH, UGH.

I also hate isolated heroes and heroines. Seriously, only one friend and he has to be a potential lover? Not one woman friend in the entire bustling port town of New London to be friends with? I AM NOT BUYING IT.

4. Silver lining - it takes place in a time/location other than Regency England. Considering my usual choices, this is pretty bold choice.

I am probably going to knock out the travel book on Scotland to help break up the pain of reading this book.

Looking at my stats for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I felt I needed to search out a few books in my TBR pile to read to knock out a couple of prompts. The one that stumped me was "a book published the year you were born" - 1979 here I come! GoodReads had a list of the top 200 books published that year.....wow is all I can say. Some of those titles....yeah. So you have Stephen King and Anne Rice, Janette Oke (Christian author), Kathleen Woodwiss and VC Andrews (yep, that book was published in 1979) - those are just the authors off the top of my head.

Reading further down the list, I came upon Silver Storm by Cythnia Wright. It sounded familiar so I checked my TBR spreadsheet (yeah, I needed one to keep track of what is still waiting to be read....) and there it was (at the bottom, because I organized it according to the author's last name). Score! Bodice ripper from the late 1970s means this is going to be the highlight of my summer reading (I am planning on reading it on my birthday which is in August) or going to be the worst. reading. ever. The original cover is so totally old skool romance.

bookshelves: one-penny-wonder, italy, paper-read, winter-20112012, published-1979, books-about-books-and-book-shops, amusing, little-green-men, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, incest-agameforallthefamily

** spoiler alert ** Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. Translator note: In chapter eight the passage from 'Crime and Punishment' is quoted in the beloved translation of Constance Garnett.

Dedication: for Danielle Ponchiroli

Opening: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller'. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade.

p 26 - aleatory: adj. Dependent on chance, luck, or an uncertain outcome

p 58 - afflatus: A strong creative impulse, especially as a result of divine inspiration. [Latin affl tus , from past participle of affl re, to breathe on



Not being clever enough to make this review a parody, I'll use the tellingithowitwasforbettie stamp.

Don't know what I expected, however this initial encounter with Calvino and that egotistical start where he openly manipulates readers, wanted me to give him a right ol' penguin slap.

Then all of a sudden I was all about loving it AND laughing out loud and thinking what a clever ol' pretentious bastard he was. At 200 pages this should have been over within a few hours, nevertheless this is not a quick read; some passages have to be read two,three times for their beauty, or their fun, or their outrageous confusion.

The end turns to dust (pulviscular material) and a marriage: all I need to know now is did YOU read the same book that I did or was it, perchance, a fake!?

Can fully see why some detest this book/ can't get past the first 30+ pages, however I heartily endorse the whole with a dobbing big tick and place it on the to re-read shelf.

My mind's eye gives me this as an approximation of the Railway Buffet, if one can imagine yellowy fog on the outside

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"It was all very well for me to pull up the mouth of the plastic bag: it barely reached Jojo's neck, and his head stuck out."

The first sensation this book should convey is what I feel when I hear the telephone ring..."

Speculate, reflect: every thinking activity implies mirrors for me."

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