***2017 Summer Lovin' Reading List***

Not my cuppa tea, your mileage may vary. It does provide a unique spin on the vampire mythos. There are two forms, the virtuous Carpathian and the corrupt vampire. When a Carpathian goes bad, he or she becomes a vampire. Their problem? Hardly any Carpathian females and those who still exist seem to have only male children. Without a life-mate, the Carpathian men are eventually reduced to a state where they can't see colour, can't experience much emotion, and can hardly avoid going vamp.

And that right there was my biggest issue with the whole book. It is entirely driven by male sexual needs and women are ultimately responsible for containing them. There isn't a sympathetic male character in the whole book! Well, I guess there is the priest who was a decent man but all the other human men are criminal, abusive, or teetering on the edge of violence. All the Carpathian men are arrogant assholes--controlling, condescending, seemingly unable to listen to anyone, even each other. (And how creepy is it that all these hundreds-of-years-old men are now standing around staring at Raven's belly, wondering when she is going to produce a girl child that they can perhaps claim as a life-mate?)

My other problem? Raven herself. For someone who thinks she's smart, she does nothing to prove it. She's smart enough to escape from the "protections" that Mikhail has constructed for her, but then goes wandering off into the woods, barefoot and half-naked. Both Raven & Mikhail go on and on about love and trust, but their behaviour says that there isn't all that much trust.

I respect the folks who love this series, though. The whole life-mate concept, while seeming claustrophobic to me, might seems tempting to those who would like to be sure about their relationships. We live in a world of 50% divorce rates--how nice would it be for everything to click magically into place when we meet a magical life-mate? No doubts, no regrets.

Not every book is for everyone, and I am done with this series. My TBR list is too long to waste valuable reading time on books that make me roll my eyes this violently.

***2017 Summer Lovin' Reading List***

Another title in what seems to be morphing into my Summer Vampire Reading List. I liked this one and will probably read on, at least for another book or two, in the series.

These are old-school vampires, susceptible to both crosses and holy water, something fairly uncommon in current urban fantasy. Anita knows that she is opposing evil, not just being prejudiced against a new segment of society.

There was also, I thought, a nod to Anne Rice's vampires, specifically Claudia. The biggest, baddest vamp in Anita's town is actually a 1000 year old little girl!

I'm not exactly sure why, but Anita reminds me of Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock. I think it may be a matter of kickass attitude, but Jane is much more comfortable working for and around the undead than Anita.

Anita needs a woman friend right away!! She can't continue to lean on the psychopathic Edward (although I must admit that he has a treasure-trove of weapons, making him a handy kind of guy to know. If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy). Anita also has an unexplained talent for resisting vampire glamour which I will be interested to learn more about. Plus its pretty obvious that Anita is riding for a fall when she declares, "I don't date vampires, I kill them." I predict she'll be dating one in the next book.

The Buzzard is a real buzzard saved from a dog and lost a wing and is now cared for at the offices of the Mutant Wizards. The loons, they are the group of people who work in the offices of the Mutant Wizards. Meg is helping her brother out at the offices of the Mutant Wizards, the company he created to market and develop his game (Lawyers from Hell). He feels that something is not right and asks her to come help him. She agrees as she is recuperating from a Blacksmithing accident that broke her hand. Her official title is "Office Manager," but she is answering the switchboard, trying to find someone that will come in and work the switchboard and find out what is happening in the company. 

The buzzard is named George and sits up in the front with Meg and she is the only one who feeds and cares for him. The staff bring their dogs to work and play pranks all while working on version 2 of the game and developing other games with different specialties (Doctors, Psychotherapists, Police, etc). Outside there is a Veterinarian who is trying to catch a pregnant feral cat and then begins to come into the office to try and liberate the one winged buzzard. 

Ted, is a programmer, who takes credit for work he doesn't do and plays pranks and blackmails others. One day he decides to pretend he has been stabbed while riding around on the mail cart and when he is finally murdered, no one notices until he ends up back at Meg's desk. She now has to find out who really killed Ted and save her brother and one of his employees from being arrested for the murder. 

There are a lot of moments where you just have to laugh at the antics. I find many of the things hard to believe actually happening, but that doesn't stop it from being funny. 

Yes, I do recommend this book. I love the funny things that happen and the wordsmithing. She uses a large vocabulary and there are moments that just make you laugh out loud. 

Just want a fun cozy mystery? This one is for you. 

I tried to click on the CD-ROM's icon to open it. A gray box popped up, saying, "Please enter the unbreakable top secret password."

"That's definitely Tad's sense of humor," I said. "In case we had any doubt which CD-ROM was his."

"I tried everything I could think of," Michael said. "Including all the Greek words I know."....

"I don't have to guess," I said. "that writing just told me. That's not Greek, it's Elvish."

....

"Or maybe Elven; I forget which is correct. It's been years. Ever read Tolkien?"

"Yes, but as you said, it's been years," he said. 

"remember the scene where they kept trying to guess the password to the door of Moria, and realized that it was right there in the inscription--'Speak friend and enter'?"

Page 211 of "Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos" by Donna Andrews

I loved this quote and it was another that I read out loud to my middle who loves "The Lord of the Rings" and was tickled over a quote from a "Psych" book that she read where that was the stupidest password...password. 

She and Michael are working together to find out who killed Benson. He seems to have made a lot of enemies and many of them were in the area or close by. Tony, another crafter, is known for stealing other people's work and saying they developed along parallel lines, but his work is shoddy and poorly done. He had seen Meg showing a flamingo to her mother's friend at another fair and decided to make one, too and then compare to her work. Because his work is unoriginal and shoddy he is able to sell for less and people think they are getting something. 

I so enjoy these stories. So much happening and so many eccentric characters.