Cocktail für einen Vampir / Sookie Stackhouse Bd.12

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Vielleicht ist es Zeit für Sookie, zu gehen...

Hinweis: ich habe das Buch auf Englisch gelesen (zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt ist es auf Deutsch noch nicht erhältlich).

Sookie Stackhouse ist (oder war?) eine meiner absoluten Lieblingsromanheldinnen, mit ihrer erfrischend bodenständigen Art, ihrem flapsigen Humor und ihrer Neigung, ständig von einer haarsträubenden Situation in die nächste zu stolpern. Dabei trifft sie auch noch eine erstaunliche Menge an extrem gutaussehenden und interessanten Männern...

Aber die letzten beiden Bücher haben mich leider etwas enttäuscht.

Ich bin mir nicht einmal ganz sicher, warum. Vielleicht, weil Sookie sich so sehr verändert hat - von ihrer anfänglichen Unschuld und manchmal sogar Naivität ist nicht mehr viel übrig, und genauso wenig von ihrem positiven Blick aufs Leben. Natürlich ist das verständlich, bei Allem, was sie erlebt hat: Tod und Folter, Herzschmerz, Verrat... Aber es stimmt mich dennoch wehmütig, wie abgebrüht sie inzwischen ist, wie einfach es ihr fällt, zu töten oder eine Leiche zu entsorgen. Ihr Staunen über die aufregende Welt des Übernatürlichen ist abgestumpftem Pragmatismus gewichen.

Vielleicht liegt es auch daran, dass ihre leidenschaftliche Beziehung zu Eric (meinem Zweitlieblingscharakter direkt nach ihr) inzwischen irgendwie schal und zerrüttet daherkommt. Ab und an haben sie noch (nicht groß beschriebenen) Sex, aber es gibt nur noch herzlich wenig Romantik. Und die Romantik war immer ein großer Teil dessen, was sie Serie für mich so ansprechend gemacht hat.

Oder vielleicht ist es der Humor, der mich nicht mehr wirklich überzeugt. Normal bringt mich Sookie alle paar Seiten dazu, laut herauszuprusten oder sogar meinen Tee über meinen Kindle zu spucken, aber die letzten zwei Bücher waren für mich eher ernüchternd und leicht deprimierend.

Damit möchte ich nicht sagen, dass die Bücher schlecht sind - sie entsprechen nur nicht meinen Erwartungen, und das muss ja nicht für alle Leser gleich gelten. Ich werde das nächste (und letzte) Sookie-Buch dennoch kaufen, und um ehrlich zu sein, hoffe ich inständig auf ein wenig Unbeschwertheit und eine dicke Portion Romantik - ein Happy-End für Sookie.

Blind Date mit einem Vampir / Dark One Bd.1 (eBook, ePUB)

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Vampire, Möchtegern-Vampire und viel Herzklopfen!

Wer seine Vampir-Romanzen mit einer guten Dosis Humor und einer selbstbewussten, aber nicht immer perfekten Heldin mag, sollte hier auf seine Kosten kommen! Der Schreibstil ist erfrischend salopp, das Buch nimmt sich nicht zu ernst, und es gibt viele kleine augenzwinkernde Kommentare zu übernatürlichen Liebesroman und deren Fans.

Joy, die Heldin, liebt Bücher über aufregende Vampire mit Sex-Appeal, aber sie glaubt nicht wirklich an Vampirismus. Ihre Freundin Roxy - immerzu aufgedreht und bereit, ihren Kommentar zu Allem und Jedem abzugeben -, glaubt dafür um so fester daran. Sie überredet Joy zu einem Urlaub in Tschechien, wo der Autor einer erfolgreichen Reihe von Vampir-Schmonzetten (ausgerechnet) in einem waschechten Schloss haust... Und wo man doch ganz sicher an jeder Ecke echte Vampire treffen kann!

Kurz nach ihrer Ankunft stellen sie auch schon fest, dass ein Art düsterer Jahrmarkt in der Stadt gastiert; man kann sich seine Runen lesen oder sich etwas über seine früheren Leben erzählen lassen, und es gibt natürlich auch (angebliche) Vampire. Aber ist der melodramatische, von sich selbst überzeugte Dominic mit den ziemlich falsch aussehenden Vampirzähnen wirklich "echt"? Oder vielleicht ist ja auch der mysteriöse, sarkastische Raphael der Vampir? Immerhin weigert er sich, zu essen, und kippt sein Bier in die Zimmerpflanze wenn keiner hinguckt.

Joy muss sich schon bald nicht mehr nur mit ihren Gefühlen rumschlagen - heftige Anziehung bei Raphael, heftige Ablehnung bei Dominik -, sondern auch ihre geistige Gesundheit hinterfragen (Visionen sind sicher kein gutes Zeichen!) und eine eifersüchtige Hexe im Zaum halten.

1 von 2 Kunden fanden diese Rezension hilfreich.

A Tale of Two Vampires

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Time-travel, vampires and unstoppable romance!

Iolanthe (who prefers to be called Io, thank you very much) really, truly hasn't had the best of times lately: she's lost her flat and her job in short succession, no thanks to the men in her life.

Visiting her beloved cousin Gretl in Austria for a prolonged vacation seems like the perfect idea to get back on her feet, right? She can relax and unwind, and maybe she can even take enough excellent pictures to start a new career as a professional photographer. (A girl can dream!)

Shortly after she arrives, Io and Gretl visit the GothFair that has set up shop close to Gretl's home. There, they meet Imogen, an old friend of Gretls... And fair, pale Imogen doesn't look a day older than when Gretl saw her last, 12 years ago! Io is fascinated by the ethereal woman and asks her for permission to do a series of portrait pictures. Little does she know that Imogen and her brother are more (way more!) than what they seem... (And so is she, herself!)

When Io decides to take some pictures in a small forest that's supposed to be haunted, she is catapulted back in time into the 18th century, where she meets dashing Baron Nikola Czerny - who unfortunately thinks she's a whore, since she is dressed in revealing 21th century clothes...

My review:

Let's get the cons out of the way first, shall we? ;)

Sometimes Io's flippant, super-colloquial way of speaking gets a bit too much - especially after she finds herself in the distant past and everybody around her keeps (understandably) misunderstanding her. It makes her come across as juvenile and annoying, on more than one occasion. Who talks like that ALL THE TIME? She can also be rather demanding and surprisingly dense, which is slightly off-putting.

Also, her unique gift/talent could've been explained and developed more, to play a more integral part in the story.

For my liking, the book is just a bit on the short side. It feels like the story got cut off at a certain point, with numerous stray threads still dangling. I would've loved to read more!

On to the pros! :)

Io is definitely not your typical delicate, frail damsel in distress - she's a confident, spunky, independent modern woman, a kind of heroine I thoroughly enjoy (even if her strength and independence is a little bit overdone here).

Nikola is a likeable hero: intelligent with a great sense of humour, swoon-worthy good looks and a much more mellow, pleasant personality than he sometimes lets on... (Just look how he treats his scatter-brained subordinates - all bark and no bite!)

The story doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a witty, light-hearted romp through time, peppered with jokes and tongue-in-cheek plays on the stereotypes we all know from other supernatural romances. And speaking of romance, Katie MacAlister has a knack for writing scenes that make your heart skip-skip-skip a beat! ;)

All in all, I would definitely recommend this novel! And don't worry, even if you haven't read any of Katie MacAlister's other novels, you should still be able to enjoy this one.

First Frost (eBook, ePUB)

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Let me first say that I have NOT read the Mythos Academy Books yet - I bought the Mythos Academy Bundle, which includes "First Frost", "Touch of Frost", "Kiss of Frost" and "Dark Frost", and I'm going to read them in this order. So I do not know yet if this short story contains spoilers, foreshadowing etc. for the main books.

In "First Frost", we meet our heroine Gwen, a teenaged girl with an unusual gift: when she touches things that other people have touched before her, she draws fragments of memory and emotion from them in vivid images. Her mother and her grandmother also have supernatural talents, a fact that Gwen explains with their shared gypsy heritage. Before the happenings of this short story, she has apparently mostly used her talent for personal gain - by finding lost belongings for a small fee.

One fateful day, Gwen's curiousity gets the best of her: she deliberately touches a hairbrush belonging to a girl in her class in order to learn her secrets... And Gwen learns more, far more, than she bargained for. Her attempts to help trigger a tragedy that she couldn't have anticipated.

Pros:

Books that feature schools for paranormal teens always appeal to me, and this short story gives me hope that Mythos Academy is going to be just the ticket. Boarding school - check. Young heroine that is (mostly) new to the world of the paranormal - check. Hint at a possible love interest - check. Hint at conflicts and an enemy or possibly several - check.

I like that Gwen "sounds" like a real teenager. The writing style may not be perfect but it feels natural to me for exactly that reason. At heart, our heroine seems to be just a normal girl with normal insecurities, hopes and dreams. It's going to be interesting to see how she copes with her new unusual school (that not only features kids with awesome powers, but also kids who flaunt their apparent wealth with brand clothing and designer watches).

I also like that right from the start, Gwen's talent is not just a blessing but also a curse. She helped somebody who was stuck in a horrible situation, but she paid a heavy personal price for it.

Contras:

This is a short story with the emphasis on "short"! It's really just a teeny tiny teaser to get you hooked. Since I got it as part of the bundle, I don't mind too much, but I would've been disappointed if I'd spent money on it.

I feel that Gwen has more than a touch of Mary Sue* - the white skin and the violet eyes (not a combination I usually associate with gypsies), the unusual magical talent and her magical family... Her awkwardness and clumsiness only make up for that a tiny bit, but I'm hoping that in the main novels, Gwen will develop further into a fleshed-out, well-balanced character.

Deadlocked

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Sookie Stackhouse is (was?) one of my favourite novel heroines, with her refreshing down-to-earth attitude and her quirky humor, always stumbling from one outrageous problem to the next, meeting her fair share of interesting and smoking-hot men in the process... That said, the last two novels left me feeling a bit let-down.

I'm not entirely sure why that is. Maybe it's that Sookie has changed so much - she has lost a lot of her innocence and her naivety, along with much of her positive outlook on life. Not that it isn't understandable, with all the death and torture and heart-break she's been through, but still... It's disheartening how easy it has become for her to kill in self-defence or to get rid of a corpse. Her wide-eyed wonder at the world of the supernatural has made way for jaded pragmatism.

Maybe it's that her passionate relationship with Eric, who is my second-favorite character after her, has gone all stale and dysfunctional. There's bland sex but little romance, and for me, the romance has always been a large part of the appeal of the books. At this point, I hardly care anymore with whom Sookie will ultimately end up (though it seems pretty clear who it will be.)

Maybe it's that the humor just doesn't ring true for me anymore. The Sookie Stackhouse novels usually have me laughing out loud (or even snorting my tea all over my kindle) every couple of pages, but despite the occasional pun here and there, the last two novels mostly felt sort of bleak and depressing to me.

I wouldn't say that they are bad... They just fall short of my expectations, which might or might not be true for other people. I will still buy and read the next novel, and to be honest, I have my fingers and toes crossed for a little bit of silly fluff and a dose of satisfying romance.