Monday 28 April 2008

Damnation by Nathalie Gray

Page 19 of a 124 page story “Now was not the time to indulge in carnal needs” I disagree. Page 19 was just the right time to get down to it for the first time. Oh well. Mind you later on. This novel contains a half-way decent vampire orgy. That was nice.

Earlier than half-way through the story I realised this was a stonking good read. On so many levels. Wow! Hot hot scenes. A very high body count. That still doesn’t make the reader lose sympathy with the hero. Omg. The hero isn’t even faithful to the heroine. And I still like him. The heroine isn’t a very nice person either. I think I love her! Wow! It’s a freedom fighter’s novel. It’s about a downtrodden minority Doing Something Proactive about their situation. Rather than waiting for a rich prince to fall in love and rescue them from hell. Am I making sense? No matter. Wow. Wow. Wow. Everything a vampire love-story should be. Have I used the word poignant? It is. Thank you Mrs Giggles for first bringing this author to my attention. I didn’t really like Feral. But this. This Damnation. Is amazing. Oral. Anal. A smattering of non-consenual guy on guy. (Don’t worry. The perp Dies) Tension, excitement. All in 124 pages. I thought skills like that were a thing of the past. I suppose I should use the word ‘futuristic’ as well. For a change it works quite well.

Ok. Calm down. Let’s discuss the heroine’s transformation from a ball-breaking ‘bitch from hell” to a revolutionary sympathiser. Was it believable? Let’s face it. Dawn basically transforms into a spineless puddle of gooey emotionality. Ahhh. Ugh.

Page 84. Things start to turn nasty. The heroine, Dawn, gets caught. I had to stop reading and go do some housework for a while. I just know the author will punish and humiliate her. It’s her style. Obviously there was some higher purpose to me reading Wolfsbane first. :>( On page 87 the heroine got captured. I couldn’t take the tension. So I decided to read from the ending backwards. (yesiamacoward)

But have no fear gentle reader. The plot gets resolved by page 104 and then it’s nothing but carnality all the way to the end. Lovely. I checked out page 107. No criticism intended. Just that my latest book package arrived at that very moment. I’ll return later.

Geez. What a fantastic read. Goes straight onto my recommended list.

p.s. sorry about all the repetition. I'll re-edit in the future. Obviously I got a bit excited about the fact that I actually enjoyed a novel after so much dross. And then there's the aforementioned book package....and I still have all the shopping and gardening to do! Pooh.

1 comment:

Humans. Cats. Boat. said...

You read backward from the ending?! Man, I thought I was the only one who did that. HAD to do it with Jeff Long's The Descent, otherwise I would've sent him hate mail.

Again, thanks for buying and reading my books. Yes, I *should* have more readers like you. Someday, I will, since I intend to rule the world.

Yes, I like to start small.

P.S. incidentally, Damnation won an RT this year for best scifi...the credit goes entirely to my editor, who saves me from myself. A lot.