A Bloody Job Under the Moon

Hey O-Gluers!

Are you ready for this?  It's a TWO-FER!

I read A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore AND Under the Blood Red Moon by Mina Hepsen.

So, yeah, it won't be double the length, because it's already 10:30 and I want to go to bed at a reasonable time.

Ok, so A Dirty Job is great.  I like it a lot.  It's funny, self-effacing, witty, and weird.  Charlie Asher becomes a minion of death, which means he collects the objects people put their souls into when they die.  And then evil creatures are trying to take over San Francisco.  There's lots of back story and fun stuff happening and interesting characters.  I don't feel like talking about it.  It is my assertion that the greater majority of the readers of this blog have either read books by Christopher more or in fact read this very book.  So, I'm really not concerned about rehashing the plot.

I just want to ask.  Is it ok for a writer to intentionally niche himself?  Moore writes books that have a similar flavor.  They all have flashy covers, goofy protagonists, and supernatural themes.  So it's an equation that works for him.  So many writers do this, and I'm not sure that I like it.  I mean, he's good at it, so he should keep doing it right?  Or should he try to push himself as a creator of imaginary worlds?  Or are most writers limited to a niche by the type of talent they have?  Because I don't think Moore would have sold many books with poetry, or memoir, or serious novels.

He's a goofball.  And you have to love him, or at least let him amuse you. Like a court jester:

Right on cue.

So, on to Under the Blood Red Moon.

Not a bad first dip into the chilly pool of paranormal romance.  Not a bad go round.  So, it's ridiculous, I mean we have a half Russian princess half English nobility lady named Angelica.  She doesn't really want to get married, but wevs, she has to support her brother with the heart condition ( I don't know why this was necessary except to provide additional dramaz to the part of the book where people were getting drained of blood by rouge vampires and the brother was freaking out.)

So, Angelica is looking for a hub-sand.  Wooo.  But it's HARD FOR HER because she can read minds.  She can hear what everyone is thinking.  All around her.  It makes it hard for her to go to balls, because it makes her crazy and woozy.  And so she hid behind a bush.  Because that made it better.  Sheesh, bushes stop the mind reading.  There's GOT to be a good innuendo in there somewhere.  All of a sudden, she sees this captivating guy.  Woah.  Come to find out, he reads minds too.  So she's ceaselessly attracted to him and has to find out all about him. She meets him and he shows her how to block out all the voices from her mind.  It's like night and day.  One day she is crippled socially, the next day she's gallivanting about and all because of this charming irresistible dude who changed her life... blah blah blah.

Obviously, he's like a 500 year-old vampire.  They flirt around for about half the book.  He's looking for a slayer and the rouge vampire.  She is trying marry this human guy but she can't get Alexander out of her head. We get to the last 1/4 of the book before anyone has any sex at all.  For all the skin and lips on the cover there really should have been dozens of sex scenes.  But they do the nasty once (at the end of a vampire ceremony), and because in 18th century England there are no rubbers, she's showing the next day.  Well, she's showing this sooper secret mark that tells you and everyone reading something REALLY IMPORTANT.  But I'm now going to tell you, because I don't want to deny you the scentilating last 15 pages of the book where the author scrambles to have a final fight scene, marry everyone off, and explain all the prophesies that were fulfilled in the making of this baby.  Seriously, packed a lot in there at the end, not entirely comfortably.

Anyways, lacking on the sex, but not a bad story.  Although, from a feminist perspective, Angelica was screwed until she got screwed by sooooper old vampire uber alpha male.  No way she was going to save herself or enjoy life without a man.  Just not an option.  Some of the plot devices were really transparent.  Like, "I see what you did there, Hepsen."  Get this, Mina Hepsen is a pen name.  The author's real name is Hande Zapsu from Turkey. Personally, I don't see how Mina Hepsen is really all that much better than Hande Zapsu.  Zapsu is kind of an awesome last name.  Zap.  Zapsu.

Righto. That's that about that.  I've got a couple more PR books from the library.  It's going to get magical in here.  Enjoy your week, Okra-Gs.