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An urban fantasy/paranormal romance set during Prohibition in an America in which supernatural beings called “Others” exist and are known to the public, but lack civil rights. Thankfully, they are not just stand-ins for real-life oppressed groups, as those groups also exist (and are oppressed) in the world of the novel.
New York City teacher and full-time activist Zephyr Hollis, who becomes widely known during the book as “the singing vampire suffragette,” is the daughter of a demon-hunter, but unlike her bigoted father, she has never met a social justice cause she doesn’t like. Zephyr is a little over the top – she gives her rent money to the poor, she belongs to thirty-one separate political organizations, and at one point she forgets to eat because she was too busy feeding the hungry – but she’s definitely a unique heroine, and the sometimes absurd lengths to which she takes her convictions make her plausibly obsessive rather than obnoxiously self-righteous.
The book is fast-paced and fun. Within the first few chapters, Zephyr rescues a boy in the process of turning into a vampire, gives her rent money to a student with a hard-luck story, teaches a class to immigrants and Others, is hired by the handsome and mysterious djinn Amir to investigate a local crime lord, crushes on Amir, and attends a rally. I enjoyed the convincing grass-roots politics and the amusing takes on the various supernatural beings, from the disgusting way that vampires die to how Amir, the romantic lead, has ears that sometimes billow smoke and eyeballs that sometimes burst into flames. I repeat: the romantic lead has flaming eyeballs!
Amir, despite a rather more interesting dark side than is common in the genre, is not the alpha asshole who so often appears in romances, and Zephyr, while naïve in some ways, is completely capable of rescuing herself. Amir and Zephyr’s relationship, however, didn’t quite work for me – she was attracted to him so quickly that the relationship didn’t seem based on anything other than that she’s the heroine and he’s the romantic lead, especially since she had such strong feelings for him long before we’d seen enough of them interacting to justify them. I would have liked it better if the romance had developed more slowly, as they were both fun characters individually and had genuine conflicts based on opposing worldviews, which is always interesting in a romance.
I would be curious to hear from someone who actually knows something about the period how accurate the historic details are – the language and attitudes about sex often seemed anachronistically modern to me, but I might be projecting my own preconceptions on the time.
Overall, I enjoyed this. (My favorite bit, for those who have already read it, was the egg whites.) If you like paranormal romance but are tired of heroines who do nothing but have sex and the asshole men who dominate them, this is definitely the book for you.
Note that this is the same author as YA fantasy writer Alaya Dawn Johnson.
Moonshine: A Novel
New York City teacher and full-time activist Zephyr Hollis, who becomes widely known during the book as “the singing vampire suffragette,” is the daughter of a demon-hunter, but unlike her bigoted father, she has never met a social justice cause she doesn’t like. Zephyr is a little over the top – she gives her rent money to the poor, she belongs to thirty-one separate political organizations, and at one point she forgets to eat because she was too busy feeding the hungry – but she’s definitely a unique heroine, and the sometimes absurd lengths to which she takes her convictions make her plausibly obsessive rather than obnoxiously self-righteous.
The book is fast-paced and fun. Within the first few chapters, Zephyr rescues a boy in the process of turning into a vampire, gives her rent money to a student with a hard-luck story, teaches a class to immigrants and Others, is hired by the handsome and mysterious djinn Amir to investigate a local crime lord, crushes on Amir, and attends a rally. I enjoyed the convincing grass-roots politics and the amusing takes on the various supernatural beings, from the disgusting way that vampires die to how Amir, the romantic lead, has ears that sometimes billow smoke and eyeballs that sometimes burst into flames. I repeat: the romantic lead has flaming eyeballs!
Amir, despite a rather more interesting dark side than is common in the genre, is not the alpha asshole who so often appears in romances, and Zephyr, while naïve in some ways, is completely capable of rescuing herself. Amir and Zephyr’s relationship, however, didn’t quite work for me – she was attracted to him so quickly that the relationship didn’t seem based on anything other than that she’s the heroine and he’s the romantic lead, especially since she had such strong feelings for him long before we’d seen enough of them interacting to justify them. I would have liked it better if the romance had developed more slowly, as they were both fun characters individually and had genuine conflicts based on opposing worldviews, which is always interesting in a romance.
I would be curious to hear from someone who actually knows something about the period how accurate the historic details are – the language and attitudes about sex often seemed anachronistically modern to me, but I might be projecting my own preconceptions on the time.
Overall, I enjoyed this. (My favorite bit, for those who have already read it, was the egg whites.) If you like paranormal romance but are tired of heroines who do nothing but have sex and the asshole men who dominate them, this is definitely the book for you.
Note that this is the same author as YA fantasy writer Alaya Dawn Johnson.
Moonshine: A Novel
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The attitudes towards sex seemed plausible to me for the types of characters they were - I got the feeling Zephyr wasn't as experienced as she was hoping to become, though. I bet
The romance was a bit fast. I read it as more of a lustful crush than actual love, so I was okay with it. I really want there to be more books so I can see what happens after the various events at the book's end.
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It isn't out yet here, either. I read an ARC.
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I will also definitely write up the Nalini Singh, if it is indeed one of the ones that comes into the library-- I kind of can't tell her non-angel-book titles apart. (Though she's not as bad as Lydia Joyce, who has these wonderful books that I think of as The Insert Nouns Here of Night.)
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It may be one of the ones coming in on reserve at the library.
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PLEASE write it up when you get to it! Or at least record the exploding cock line for posterity. I no longer possess it.
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Plus I read a whole bunch of the J.R. Ward "Black Dagger Brotherhood" books, despite disliking dozens of aspects of the worldbuilding and prose. I read one of them twice.
I win.
Not sure WHAT I win...
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This is the series with the enormous white hiphop vampires named stuff like Fhuree and Badasse, right?
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I've been told the series has very serious fans.
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I non-ironically enjoyed a baby vampire school bus scene where the school bully Lash teased the new Vampire Warriors' baby vampire ward about his name. (His name is John.)
I see what people mean about crack with this series - I bounced off Black Jewels and the Twilight saga, but this one, I CANNOT LOOK AWAY. And yet Rachel, I will not deceive you: the lady vampires go into heat.
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Does it rise to new levels of Cracktastic Homosocial Bonding?
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And no kidding, with two of the younger vampire generation, she seems to actually be going for an actual gay pairing (rather than 'I was just very confused! before I met my True Mate' and 'It's a manly warrior bond thing. Manly. Warriorly').
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misspelledcool names too?From:
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ZSADIST?
ZSADIST?!!!!!!
You can't make up stuff like that! Or, I guess you can if you're the author! Wow.
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Amir I did not like, but er. Er, that may be because I rather fancied the interaction between Zephyr and uh. The vampire she was teaching his letters to. You know the one. *hides face in shame*
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They did have a lot of chemistry.
I knew a lot of people like Zephyr when I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, which is known for people like that. They were often vegans, which was why I laughed so much at Zephyr's sad attempts to convince waitresses that she really did want the sandwich without meat.
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Why, yes.
That is perverted and wrong and...hot. Really, really hot.
*hides face in shame* *should not be ashamed because is erotica writer* *is ashamed to feel shame*