Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford

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Summary: Jane Austen has been quietly living as a vampire and trying to get published again.

It is a truth universally acknowledges that Jane Austen is still alive today… as a vampire.

Oh, yes.

What a fun read. It met needs I didn’t even know I had. It meets my enthusiasm for Jane Austen and enhances my appreciation for her flawed, proud and tender characters. It’s not as good as Pride and Prejudice, but it’s a fun read, with a great blend of a few of my favorite subjects.

Jane Austen? Check.
A book store? Check.
Vampires? Check!

And it’s funny, too.

During a clandestine trip to the English lake district, Lord Byron (yes, the poet) seduces Jane Austen and then bites her, making her into a vampire. Jane stages her death in her time period and then runs away to America where she’s been quietly living all this time.

Jane’s also been struggling in modern-day America to publish what she thinks is her best book yet. She has been rejected by 116 editors. Jane Austen – arguably the most popular female writer of all time – keeps getting rejected. The real irony is that Jane Austen now is the owner of a bookstore in New England and suffers little pangs of agony when she sees another Jane Austen-themed book fly off her shelves. The royalties! The gimmicks! The dolls!? And why does every moron and her sister get a book deal but not Jane?

And one day, Jane’s life changes. A publisher wants her book. A tall, dark handsome publisher who thinks Jane is brilliant and can’t wait to publish more of her books. Jane’s finally getting to realize her dream. And in walks Lord Byron, renamed Brian. He’s finally decided that he and Jane should be a vampire power couple, and he’ll use his considerable charms to ensure Jane complies. The banter between two world-famous writers is delightful.

'"I don’t love you,” she said firmly.

Once more Byron laughed at her. “Who said anything about love?” he replied. We’re both far too old to believe in happily ever after, Jane.”

Perhaps you don’t,” said Jane.

Byron smiled. “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart. ‘Tis a woman’s whole existence.”

“Stop quoting yourself,” Jane said. “It’s vain even for you."'

You don’t have to be a Jane Austin fan to enjoy this book, but it certainly helps. And wait until you find out about Charlotte Bronte.

Saving Face: My Victory over Skin Cancer by Carolyn Shuck

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Summary: A woman chronicles her battle and victory over skin cancer in the 1970s.

I’m dealing with my own skin cancer and Carolyn Shuck’s story of diagnosis, treatment, recovery and struggles with facial skin cancer in the early 1970s, while not quite “inspirational,” was encouraging and helpful.

I was taken aback by the contrast in our styles to our skin cancer despite our similar personalities and life stories. Her skin cancer was diagnosed in the 1970s and she mentions using sunscreen once. Once! Only years after her skin cancer diagnosis, does she give up playing golf, because she doesn’t want to damage her skin even more. She was living in Minneapolis, where I live now. She also has three children, as do I.

It helps that Carolyn Shuck is enormously wealthy and can make monthly plan trips to Madison, WI from La Jolla, CA. Of course, she is seeing the world’s finest skin cancer doctor. If you had the money, wouldn’t you pay to see the best doctor?

Dr. Mohs cuts and removes only the cancerous cells, but his cutting has left her without both sides of her nose and with damage to her forehead and cheek.

At times it seems as if her husband is deliberately sabotaging her efforts:

“How I wanted him to hold me and tell me he loved me now and he’d always love me. That no matter what happened, I’d always be beautiful to him and that he couldn’t bear to be away from me either.

But few men have scripts in their hands for a scene like this. I’m sure he didn’t know what to say. He gently pushed me away, fixed me a drink, and brought me up on the new details of our California move.”

In addition, they move to La Jolla, California, go on trips to Singapore and walk along the beach. I don’t know if the extremely wealthy see no reason why their lives have to change when tragedy strikes, but she didn’t seem as active with preventative measures as I am now. Granted, I am struggling with skin cancer 30 years later. The world has changed a lot since then. However, the topical chemotherapy cream 5FU, which Carolyn tested back in the 1970s, is still in use today. (Yes, the cream does F-yoU.)

Carolyn naively thinks that she’ll just get a little extra work done on her plastic surgery but instead encounters an arrogant prick of a different doctor at the Mayo Clinic. He has no idea what he is doing, but his arrogance comes across as confidence and Carolyn so wants to believe that she can have a normal nose again and doesn't bother to ask the right questions. After six botched surgeries on her nose by the Mayo Clinic doctor, she gives up and gets a prosthetic nose. Her husband, DeWitt, thinks she should be happy, but Carolyn still struggles with the daily struggle of putting her fake nose (a third one, after she rejected the ill-fitting and racially mismatched noses another doctor created for her) on and off every day.

“After eleven failed attempts at a nose, why was I asking for more?” Carolyn perfectly expresses her challenges of trying to get healthy and trying to be a good wife and mother.

Carolyn Shuck encountered a lot of people who said incredibly stupid things to a woman with a severe facial disfigurement. “I was glad I’d taken Psychology 101 and knew intelligence isn’t distributed equally: for each very bright person there is one very stupid person.” While I don’t have any facial disfigurement, I did and do feel very self-conscious about my face after treatment.

"I’m an extrovert, always have been. I both enjoy and need closeness to other people; need to hear what’s happening in their lives and to tell them what’s happening in mine. And all the communication isn’t verbal – with my face I’ve laughed with my friends and cried with them, expressed sympathy for them and enlisted their sympathy in return

Would they be uncomfortable, now, in my presence? Not know what to say or where to look? With a glaring defect in the middle of my face, would I find their attention focused on that instead of on me? Would they pity me??

I couldn’t stand that."

This so perfectly captures the sentiment I feel that I may re-read this book, just so I don’t feel alone or when I feel like hiding my face from others.

The writing is simplistic, but well-told with a few scattered narrative leaps. Great story and helpful for anyone dealing with any stage of skin cancer.

Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas

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Summary: Following her divorce, Haven moves back to her hometown and starts a fling with a handsome hunk.

From the title, and the genre (modern romance) I did not expect such a deep, intense book.

Haven Travis is a spoiled little rich girl. She’s used to getting everything she wants. So when she sets her heart on Nick, nothing, not even the disapproval of her family, will change her mind.

On the day of her brother’s wedding, Haven sees Nick slip into the wine cellar. She follows him into the darkened room and silently seduces him. It’s only when she feels the smooth hairless chest of the hunk she’s been mauling does Haven realize she has the WRONG man! It makes me blush just to think about it, but Hardy Cates is discreet and nobody knows anything ever happened.

Haven and Nick elope and set up house in Dallas. Haven’s father disowned her, since he warned her against marrying Nick, but Haven has Nick’s love and doesn’t need anything else. Haven thinks they’re fine without the Travis money, but Nick keeps insisting that they have a baby, because that will make her father bend and help them out financially.

Haven is fairly naïve about married life, and thinks that she just needs to try harder to be a better wife to Nick. Nick insists that his shirts be starched perfectly and Haven is too busy creating a home for them to spend hours at the ironing board. She uses some of “her” money to send the shirts out. When Nick finds out, he gently forgives Haven, saying that she’s been rich her whole life and never had to please anyone but herself. Haven is wracked with guilt, and vows to be an even better wife.

And then Haven cuts her hair short and Nick wonders why she would want to look like a boy. He married a woman.

Nick insists on calling Haven by her middle name, Marie, and introduces her to people as Marie.

Haven’s aunt dies, but the funeral conflicts with a big corporate picnic that Nick expects to attend with her. Haven doesn’t go and never hears from her family again.

Nick also thinks that Haven doesn’t really need to work, that she should quit her job and stay home and be a proper wife to him. She does.

Can you see here this is going?

And then Nick finds her birth control pills one day. He beats Haven, violently rapes her and kicks her out of the house. Barefoot and bruised, with no purse, ID or money, she hobbles into town to call her brother Gage collect to come and rescue her. Gage is in Houston and Haven is in Dallas. Gage can’t get there soon enough so he makes some calls. One of Gage’s many friends gently approaches her. Haven herself didn’t realize how bad the damage was until she sees the look on this man’s face. He takes off his shoes and gives her his socks, so she can walk to the car. Haven is terrified of this stranger, but this moment in the book was so tender and traumatic that I am now a Lisa Kleypas fan. Wow!

Haven is trying to rebuild her life in Houston and is trying to become independent. Haven sees a therapist who helps her see that she worked so hard for Nick’s approval because she never had her father’s approval. And when he washed his hands of their marriage, it only made Haven more determined to make her marriage with Nick work. We also learn that Nick was a narcissist, and that Haven always had trouble setting boundaries. Reading about Nick's narcissism also helped me recognize a narcissist I know.

This was quite an introspective novel, especially as it is narrated in the first person by Haven. When Haven starts up a friendship with Hardy Cates, her family is naturally wary. Haven did such a terrible job at picking a man previously, that nobody will let Haven trust her own judgment.

“Hardy had charmed me more than anyone I’d ever met. He was engaging, playful… but always and foremost a man. He opened doors, carried the packages, paid for dinner and would have been mortally offended by the suggestion that a woman do any of those things. Having lived with a husband who had spent most of his time inflating his own fragile ego, I appreciated Hardy’s self-assurance. He had no problem admitting that he’d make a mistake or that he didn’t understand something, only turned it into an opportunity to ask questions.”

But Haven gets to control the pace of the relationship, and Hardy remains a fixture in her life, even though Haven freaked out at a little bit of intimacy with Hardy. This book reminded me a little of Never Less Than a Lady, although Julia’s scars seemed deeper yet she healed much sooner.

When Nick stalks Haven and attacks her, Hardy is there to rescue her, and saves her from being raped again. Haven and Hardy, together, are free of Nick’s influence and you know the Travis heiress and the Blue-Eyed Devil she loves will live happily ever after.

I am not blind to Haven’s faults. She still thinks and acts like a poor little rich girl throughout the book, but I raced through this compelling novel.

Descent into Dust by Jacqueline Lepore

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Summary: Widowed Emma Andrews fears she is going mad but instead discovers she was born to be a vampire hunter in Victorian England.

The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Charles Dickens.

Widowed Emma Andrews is at a house party with her sister and cousin. After visiting her niece Henrietta, she thinks she sees a man in the room. All of Emma’s life has been spent guarding against the madness that drove her mother to her death, so Emma tells no one, fearing that she too is going mad. She hears voices, and sees things and is terrified of losing her mind or hurting her family.

Valerian Fox, also a visitor to Emma’s cousin’s house, follows Emma and Henrietta on their walks around the country estate. Emma believes he is stalking them, but finds out he is actually protecting them. There’s a secret that he won’t share with her, but perhaps Emma is not mad after all. When Emma is caught alone in the stable, she killed six snakes with three jabs of a pitchfork, surprising herself.

Mr. Fox finally tells Emma she is a Dhampir, a Vampire Hunter, given extraordinary ability to fight vampires. Together, Emma and Mr. Fox kill the vampire’s minions. Emma is caught in her niece’s room late at night and tells the truth – that a vampire has been stalking Henrietta. Emma is believed mad and is kicked out and instead goes to France to study all she can about vampires.

Emma secretly returns to fight for Henrietta’s soul and instead finds herself fighting a greater evil than she can imagine. Emma is welcomed back into the bosom of her family. When she presses her uncle for more information about her mother, Emma discovers that her mother was not mad, but instead was the victim of a vampire, fighting her bloodlust while trying to raise a child. Her mother is not actually dead, but ran away long ago in order to keep Emma safe. Emma’s next novel, and next adventure, will focus on her search for her mother.

The writing style is Gothic, but it fit the mood and the theme. An enjoyable read.

Simple Secrets by Nancy Mehl

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Summary: Grace inherits an house from her uncle and discovers a dead body on the property.

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher.

Mystery.
Murder.
And Mennonites?
Oh, yes.

This book was a well-seasoned mix of Christian fiction, romance and mystery.

Grace inherits a house from her estranged uncle and takes two weeks off work to settle affairs and get some family heirlooms before selling the house.

What Grace also inherits is the property that her uncle says hides the body of Jacob Glick, a rival for mother's hand. Her uncle believed that Grace's father, his brother, murdered Jacob Glick. Uncle Ben (yes, I know) had hidden the body all these years to protect his brother. Grace knows her father is not a murderer but resolves to solve the mystery of who murdered Jacob Glick, so she can sell the property free and clear.

The Mennonite town of Harmony, Kansas welcomes Grace and Sam is designated to show Grace around town. Sam and Grace fit well together, but Grace can't ever imagine giving up her job in Wichita to stay in backwards Harmony. Why, some houses don't even have telephones!

But as Grace and Sam try to interview other town people to find more about Jacob Glick, the list of suspects keeps growing. Is it even safe for Grace to uncover the truth? The sabotage doesn't fit with the Mennonite community but somebody has been carrying a deadly secret for 25 years.

Grace's relationship with God is a subtle part of the book, not beating anyone over the head, but supplying Grace with a steady hand and guidance. The tender romance between Sam and Grace is written with just enough tension that you could almost forget about the mystery and the dead body in the north forty.

Quite an enjoyable read. Don't let the Mennonite factor scare you off.

Dead Air by Kerri Miller

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Summary: A Minneapolis TV journalist uncovers an international scandal while tracking the disappearance of another journalist.

Author Kerri Miller is a local radio personality here in the Twin Cities. She has an on-air book club and hosts interesting guests. So I was excited to read this book. And it's not terrible, just disappointing.

Dead Air follows the life of Cate McCoy, a TV journalist assigned to cover local politics. Eddie Hamm is a parody of former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Hamm (even the name shows you that he's larger than life) insults women, is a former paratrooper, says outrageous things and then calls the press vultures, yet has an extremely high approval rating. Of course Jesse Ventura would provide material for a book, but I felt like the fictional  governor's antics and personality were an over-spiced side dish next to a bland, boiled main entree of a story.

"All of this protocol bullshit was exhausting, like being back in the military without the fun of jumping out of planes."

Cate, as so many fictional journalists do, gets caught up in solving the mystery under the guise of being a reporter. In this novel, it's the disappearance and possible murder of Millicent Pine, a radical aging journalist, in town to do a profile on the governor. But the antics of the governor are just a red herring, as Millicent was working on a much bigger story, the abuse, rape, murder and kidnapping of young Mexican Mennonite girls.

Cate and her trusty camerawoman Andy fly down to Mexico, sneak into a factory, and uncover a pornography smuggling operation. Cate is saved from a bullet in the back and a shallow dusty grave by the sudden appearance of a DEA agent.

"McCoy, it's been said before but I'll say it again. You are one tough broad-caster." 

Sheesh.  Yet, Cate's a reporter to the end, refusing to share any of her information with the cops and trying to solve the murder by herself. Weak character development and a convoluted plot disappointed me.

If you want nosy crime reporters, consider Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer or any one of the Irene Kelly books by Jan Burke.

A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler

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Summary: A teen becomes the sole caretaker of her schizophrenic mother while worrying about her own mental state. 

The picture of someone dealing with a family member with schizophrenia is so compelling, so stressful, so anguished and thoughtful.

Aura’s mother is an artist and incredibly creative. Aura is creative too but limits her artistic talent in the fear that art lets out the schizophrenia or vice versa.

Aura is living with her mother, taking care of her, and struggling with the stupidity of high school rules after their dad abandoned both of them after divorcing his mentally ill wife. Aura’s dad writes both of them out of his life, and infuriated me with his neglect.

For Aura’s birthday, her dad gives her journals to track her mom’s schizophrenia instead of art supplies, money, clothes or something fun.

“Tell it like it is, creep. Just say, “Here you go, Aura. Write everything down so I won’t ever have to get involved, not one more time.” Say it. Say she’s mine. You can’t be fucking bothered.”

Giving a sixteen year-old tools for a task that a nurse should be doing? Insulting and clueless. This is one of the best scenes in a well-written book.

“But I couldn’t care less about a couple of crappy presents, not with what I left at home. The words down there in the pit of my stomach – Mom’s a rope raveling down to nothing – fester like a giant pile of salmonella, making me feel like I’m about to throw up. I want to tell Dad – just blurt it out and have it over with. I want to tell someone, especially since Janny’s no help at all. (And do I blame her? Do I, with everything that’s falling on her right now? Yeah, in all honesty, I guess I really do.)

But I promised Mom, too – no meds, no more, not ever again – and that’s exactly what Dad’s gonna want to do. Tie her arms behind her and shove a funnel in between her lips, if that what it takes to get the pills down. And I swore, too No Dad. If I break my promises, I’m terrified Mom will snatch her love away, like it was never truly mine to begin with, but a library book that I’m now supposed to return.”

No sixteen-year-old should have to deal with this. I was struck by the drama, the pathos, the heart. You can feel Aura’s panic. The ending is a little too neat for me, but I so enjoyed this book.