30 Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty-Four

Day Twenty-Four: A book you later found out the author lied about

Forbidden Love/Honour Lost by Norma Khouri

Forbidden Love was first published in 2003 and placed in the autobiography section of the bookshops.

In the book (which I have not read), Khouri (a pen name) claimed that she grew up in Jordan, and that a close Muslim friend of her was murdered in an honour killing for falling in love with Christian soldier.

From the Wikipedia article: “Sydney Morning Herald journalist Malcolm Knox uncovered Khouri as a fraud in 2004, a year after the book’s release, exposing that she fabricated the story and sold it untruthfully as a memoir. She had lived in Chicago for most of her life and was married with two children. As a result, publisher Random House pulled the book off the shelves in Australia and England indefinitely.”
Forbidden Lie$ is a documentary made to discover whether or not Khouri lied, or as she claimed, took ‘artistic license’ with the book. The documentary discovered that Khouri could not substantiate any claims she made, no one could find any evidence of the friend that was supposedly murdered, and that Khouri had actually committed other frauds on her elderly neighbour before the book was written.

All in all, this was a pretty rotten trick by someone claiming something fantastic as autobiography. If it was simply submitted as a fiction novel, it probably wouldn’t have even made it to a publisher. As it was, promoting the story as real-life and autobiographical made it more interesting and intense. It’s a pity the background research wasn’t done before it was published, but I guess this goes to show that even criminals can slip through the cracks.

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30 Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty-Three

Day Twenty-Three: Your favourite romance novel

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Technically, Jane Eyre is not a romance but a bildungsroman, a tale of moral growth from child to adulthood and overcoming the odds. But there is a fair amount of romance in it, in much the same way Pride and Prejudice is a comedy of manners, not a romance. So in the spirit of romance (because I’ve only ever read two romance genre novels and they were freaking awful) I’m choosing Jane Eyre as my favourite romance novel.

Why?

The main reason I love this book so much: the romance isn’t about two incredibly beautiful people falling in ‘love’ and finding minor obstacles to overcome. It isn’t a tale of two beauties: Jane is exceedingly plain and Rochester is in fact kind of ugly. Too many aspects of romance have people immediately attracted to impossible to resist mates, they’re positioned to be the most attractive people on the planet: where is the challenge in that? Where is the drama?

So looking past the physical aspects of their relationship, they delve into personality, which I personally believe is the most important aspect of a relationship. Their relationship woes are pretty major: a previous marriage, Jane’s lack of money and standing, Jane leaving Rochester’s employment and finding other suitors etc.

Jane is such a great character. She’s so totally independent and strong. I mean, she totally loves Rochester but because of her morals, she won’t marry him while he’s still married to the crazy woman in the attic (a recurring Gothic theme). She leaves even though she has nothing, and then it turns out she inherits a great deal of moolah, so she goes back to find Rochester and finds him disabled and destitute, but still loves him anyway and wants to be with him. My favourite quote from any book comes from this novel:

“Reader, I married him.”

Damn right, she did!

30 Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty-Two

Day Twenty-Two: Your favourite series

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead.

Vampire Academy is a good example on how to write engaging YA for a not so YA audience.

Let’s have a quick run down: Rose, our main character, is a dhampir, a half vampire, half human, trained to protect Moroi, the gentle, passive, elemental-weilding living vampires of the world. Her best friend Lissa (that’s why I picked it up, because we share the same name) is a Moroi princess, the last Dragomir, and a spirit user. She needs to be protected from the Strigoi, the evil immortal vampires of the world who prefer to drink Moroi blood. Dimitri is Rose’s older mentor and love interest (he’s only 24, he’s not like OLD old but he’s too old for 17 year old Rose). He’s a dhampir, and he forces Rose to question her duty or follow her heart.

A Strigoi can be made two ways: they can be forced in the traditional ‘I’ll drink your blood you drink my blood BAM you’re Strigoi’ way – that’s for Moroi, dhampirs, and humans – or a Moroi can turn Strigoi if they kill while feeding.

Rose and Lissa share a psychic bond because Lissa – who uses ‘spirit’ as her element – brought Rose back from death in a ‘shadow-kiss’. Rose can feel Lissa’s emotions and sort of transport herself into Lissa’s mind to see and feel things through her mind.

Like I said yesterday, I’m not into vampire fiction. I’m really, really not. But that just goes to show how good this series is, if it can engage a non-vamp fanatic into a major fan.
I chose to represent Vampire Academy as my favourite series over Animorphs, because although Animorphs is being re-released this year, it’s written for kids of the 90s, while Vampire Academy is more contemporary. I own every book in both series, and Animorphs shaped my childhood; but Vampire Academy has influenced me as a writer and I aspire to be as good as this.

Sure, sometimes the editing doesn’t catch everything (I found four typos in my US version of Vampire Academy) and sometimes I feel Mead cheats (the use of flashback is actually pretty awesome, but it’s frustrating when the flashbacks happen in a episode we’ve already read about and had no idea said flashback was happening. I prefer the flashbacks from before the series started). I love the idea of main character Rose being able to leap into best friend Lissa’s mind so that we can see a different part of the story from her point of view. I think that’s quite original and interesting.

*no longer available* FREE short story download: “Don’t Even Peep”

To celebrate this blog achieving 1000 views, I am offering a free short story download. This download is a pdf file and will be available for a limited time only. I hold the rights to this story and reserve the right to modify both the download content and this web page without notice.

Image © Starla Fortunato

“Don’t Even Peep” is a late 19th century paranormal short story. It is copyrighted and offered for consumption under good faith.

I wrote it in 2007. The idea simply popped into my head one night.

It will be published alongside five Tina Storm: Demon Hunter urban fantasy short stories, and three other paranormal short stories later this year.

The download can be found here:

Download no longer available. 

This is your chance to check out some of my writing before it is available for commercial consumption.

I’d love to hear any comments you have.

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30 Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty-One

Day Twenty-One: A guilty pleasure book

The Night Huntress Series by Jeaniene Frost

Why this book is a guilty pleasure:

  • I’m not into vampire fiction. Really, I’m not. They’ve been overdone. But I like this series.
  • The heroine, Cat, is half-vampire, not your run of the mill helpless human victim.
  • Cat kicks total ass.
  • The love interest, Bones, is blatantly modelled on my favourite version of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – the Spike from season 6 and 7, the one who loves Buffy, has mad sex with her and then goes off and gets his own soul. Bones is a full-blood vampire, a Master vamp, a bounty hunter, and a total badass.
  • And he’s totally protective and territorial of Cat.
  • And his nickname for her is ‘Kitten’. I love that. It’s the same nickname one of my love interests calls my heroine because she’s soft and cuddly with claws. LOL.

  • The sex in this series is insane. Each time (and there is multiple times per book) it’s more intense than the last. I don’t know how Frost keeps coming up with stuff.
  • The two main characters have a legitimate relationship with completely normal problems such as communication issues and jealousy – none of this Bella/Edward, Nora/Patch, Luce/Daniel crap.
  • Normally I feel really detached from the love interests in paranormal and urban fantasy. I don’t see how the heroines can love their mates. Their mates tend to be controlling assholes. But in this series, I understand Cat and Bones’ relationship, and I enjoy reading about it. Cat and Bones have very real, very adult problems in their relationship, and they overcome these problems in very real, very adult ways. There’s no “OMG he’s so hot I can’t think straight, but I hate him!” “I’m going to kiss you forcefully now!” “Yes, I’m all yours once more!” kind of crap you find in YA fiction. It’s a legitimate relationship, not this whole ‘destiny’ and ‘young love, I’m 17 and I know what true love is!’ bollocks.
  • There is actually a plot to each of the books, but I’ll be damned if I can remember them. All I really care about is the relationship. That’s the best part.
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