Wicked Game = Wicked Good Book
May. 13th, 2008 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmward14The only reason I won't be buying Jeri Smith-Ready's (aka jer_bear711) new book Wicked Game at my local Borders today is because I was one of the folks lucky enough to buy it at RavenCon a couple weeks ago. Which means I've already read it (aka devoured it in one sitting). Which means I can honestly tell you to run out and buy it, because it's a fabulous book.
Yes, the book has vampires. (Hawt vamps, even.) Yes it has romance. But it takes both in directions you've never seen before. The heroine, Ciara, is a con woman trying to go straight by helping a group of vampire DJs keep their station from being gobbled by a homogenizing radio conglomerate. (Can you say Clear Channel? Jeri didn't, but that's what it reminded me of.)
The vamps were turned at the transformative moments of 20th century music--the delta blues of the Twenties, the rockabilly of the Fifties, the psychedelic Sixties, the reggae of the Seventies, the Eighties' goth and alternative scene, and the grunge Nineties. But they're stuck there. Jeri modernizes the old Eastern European tradition that a vampire can't cross a threshold which has been scattered with grain. According to the tradition, the vampire will be forced to count each grain and will be trapped until sunrise. In Jeri's hands this translates to OCD vamps, and it works beautifully.
Just about everything in the book works beautifully--plot, characterization, language. My only gripe is how long it will take before book two is ready to roll. But Jeri's trying to mitigate the pain. Over the next twelve months, Jeri will be posting the turning stories of each of her vamps on her site. I'm looking forward to them all.
But I really want to read what happens next.
Cheers and smiles,
jer_bear711) new book Wicked Game at my local Borders today is because I was one of the folks lucky enough to buy it at RavenCon a couple weeks ago. Which means I've already read it (aka devoured it in one sitting). Which means I can honestly tell you to run out and buy it, because it's a fabulous book. Yes, the book has vampires. (Hawt vamps, even.) Yes it has romance. But it takes both in directions you've never seen before. The heroine, Ciara, is a con woman trying to go straight by helping a group of vampire DJs keep their station from being gobbled by a homogenizing radio conglomerate. (Can you say Clear Channel? Jeri didn't, but that's what it reminded me of.)
The vamps were turned at the transformative moments of 20th century music--the delta blues of the Twenties, the rockabilly of the Fifties, the psychedelic Sixties, the reggae of the Seventies, the Eighties' goth and alternative scene, and the grunge Nineties. But they're stuck there. Jeri modernizes the old Eastern European tradition that a vampire can't cross a threshold which has been scattered with grain. According to the tradition, the vampire will be forced to count each grain and will be trapped until sunrise. In Jeri's hands this translates to OCD vamps, and it works beautifully.
Just about everything in the book works beautifully--plot, characterization, language. My only gripe is how long it will take before book two is ready to roll. But Jeri's trying to mitigate the pain. Over the next twelve months, Jeri will be posting the turning stories of each of her vamps on her site. I'm looking forward to them all.
But I really want to read what happens next.
Cheers and smiles,
