Hill, Joey W. - A Witch's Beauty
Tue, Apr. 14th, 2009 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterHa. And of course after I post saying I can't keep up with LJ, I spam you all with book posts. I am sure the deluge will stop as soon as I stop procrastinating!
I liked this a lot more than The Vampire's Claim, probably because the worldbuilding involves heaven and hell instead of vampires.
And mermaids.
Actually, wait. there are vampires too.
I mentioned Joey Hill's cracktasticness before, right?
This is the sequel to Hill's angel-mermaid romance A Mermaid's Kiss, which I did not read because it looks like one of those "beautiful angelic (but not actually an angel) mermaid heroine saves the actually angelic but bitter and guarded hero" things. Also, reports of pixie/normal-sized-angel sex scared me.
I picked this book up because the Dear Author review notes that the heroine is the sea witch Mina, who is half Dark One (read: half-demon). Also, she has tentacles and half her body has been eaten away by fish thanks to a childhood incident. The angel David has been sent to guard her and to keep an eye on hher, as no Dark Spawn (I want to be Dark Spawn!) has ever been not-evil before. The angels are afraid that Mina will join the Dark Ones and wreak havoc with her very considerable power.
I love Mina. She is grumpy and not good and determinedly neutral. She hates pretty much everyone and subscribes to the Sanzo school of showing affection via putdowns. And although Hill changes her a little by the end (which I dislike), she remains herself through most of the book. Also, she makes declarations of love by asking David to kill her if she goes evil! I also love that even though David uses his dominance in sex to help Mina control her Dark Side, he generally backs off and lets her set her own pace and her own terms. Also also, even though he has substantial angst, most of the book is about Mina.
Other cool things/cracktastic bits: Even though there are angels, the main deities are the God and the Goddess. The Goddess seems to be the deity most in play. There are wounded wings AND eye loss! And! My favorite: ZOMBIE DINOSAURS!
The plot finale is spectacular and epic; I actually wished at times it were manga so I could get the visuals. However, despite the coolness, I'm not quite sure what happened, a la Yuki Kaori. That said, I am fairly certain there was a lack of zombie angel embryos. Unfortunately, the way Hill solves the problems presented by the finale reversed a lot of things I liked about the book, and the epilogue features a baby.
In conclusion: I liked this better than The Vampire's Claim, especially when it came to the characters, but it's still flawed. On the other hand, so much crack!
I liked this a lot more than The Vampire's Claim, probably because the worldbuilding involves heaven and hell instead of vampires.
And mermaids.
Actually, wait. there are vampires too.
I mentioned Joey Hill's cracktasticness before, right?
This is the sequel to Hill's angel-mermaid romance A Mermaid's Kiss, which I did not read because it looks like one of those "beautiful angelic (but not actually an angel) mermaid heroine saves the actually angelic but bitter and guarded hero" things. Also, reports of pixie/normal-sized-angel sex scared me.
I picked this book up because the Dear Author review notes that the heroine is the sea witch Mina, who is half Dark One (read: half-demon). Also, she has tentacles and half her body has been eaten away by fish thanks to a childhood incident. The angel David has been sent to guard her and to keep an eye on hher, as no Dark Spawn (I want to be Dark Spawn!) has ever been not-evil before. The angels are afraid that Mina will join the Dark Ones and wreak havoc with her very considerable power.
I love Mina. She is grumpy and not good and determinedly neutral. She hates pretty much everyone and subscribes to the Sanzo school of showing affection via putdowns. And although Hill changes her a little by the end (which I dislike), she remains herself through most of the book. Also, she makes declarations of love by asking David to kill her if she goes evil! I also love that even though David uses his dominance in sex to help Mina control her Dark Side, he generally backs off and lets her set her own pace and her own terms. Also also, even though he has substantial angst, most of the book is about Mina.
Other cool things/cracktastic bits: Even though there are angels, the main deities are the God and the Goddess. The Goddess seems to be the deity most in play. There are wounded wings AND eye loss! And! My favorite: ZOMBIE DINOSAURS!
The plot finale is spectacular and epic; I actually wished at times it were manga so I could get the visuals. However, despite the coolness, I'm not quite sure what happened, a la Yuki Kaori. That said, I am fairly certain there was a lack of zombie angel embryos. Unfortunately, the way Hill solves the problems presented by the finale reversed a lot of things I liked about the book, and the epilogue features a baby.
In conclusion: I liked this better than The Vampire's Claim, especially when it came to the characters, but it's still flawed. On the other hand, so much crack!
Tags:
(no subject)
Tue, Apr. 14th, 2009 10:40 pm (UTC)Mina, on the other hand, wasn't. I lurved her crankiness! I loved the fact that the power of lurve didn't go and make her all sunshine and light and sweetness who wanted to put flowers in everyone's hair. Nope! Instead, she's all WTF are you all staring at?
But yeah, the ending... There were definitely zombies and Dark Ones and angels but I'm also unclear as to how it was all exactly resolved other than knowing that Mina pwned everyone.
Oh, and I'd like to mention that I like Lucifer's character a lot. I see what you mean about wanting the manga visuals. At the point where they all think Mina's gone over to the dark side, I totally could see Lucifer come roaring out of his underwater cavern with scythe in tow. It was epic in my head, anyway. ;)
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 08:56 am (UTC)I completely forgot about Lucifer's character because I keep comparing him to Yuki Kaori's Lucifer and pretty much all Lucifers are boring when compared to Yuki Kaori's Lucifer.
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 09:01 am (UTC)Well, yes, that is true.
(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 16th, 2009 10:14 pm (UTC)Really I think I just read Hill for the BDSM power dynamics. It's so rare to find that in mainstream books (Hill has gone mainstream, being stocked in all my local Borders the last time I checked). The epilogue sounds like Mina became just another romance heroine, which is boring.
(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 16th, 2009 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Apr. 17th, 2009 12:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Apr. 17th, 2009 01:12 am (UTC)oh!
Tue, Apr. 14th, 2009 10:43 pm (UTC)Re: oh!
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 08:55 am (UTC)OMG! I forgot to note how baffled I was by the angels' bi-colored blood. She keeps saying it's blue outlined by red, but I kept wondering how the colors are separated and why it doesn't turn purple or something. So I figured the blue and red must be like oil and vinegar.
And then I realized I was trying to come up with a somewhat scientific justification in a world with ANGEL MERMAIDS and ZOMBIE DINOSAURS!
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 12:25 am (UTC)BWA-HA-HA! Best childhood trauma ever! That even tops zombie dinosaurs!
PS. In a fit of tastelessness, I just created a new body parts tag which might be appropriate for this book. (Tumescent tentacles.)
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 08:57 am (UTC)I love your tag. I must send you the books as soon as I am done with this awful week because I am dying to see your reaction to them! (zombie dinosaurs!)
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 02:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 15th, 2009 08:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 16th, 2009 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 16th, 2009 02:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Sun, Nov. 22nd, 2009 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Mon, Nov. 23rd, 2009 05:57 pm (UTC)JOEY HILL, ILU.
(no subject)
Mon, Nov. 23rd, 2009 06:06 pm (UTC)OMGWTFBBQ
I am so, so sad that I do not get graphical storytelling at all, because it is clear that manga would be the right kind of crack if only I could administer it. *sadface*
(no subject)
Mon, Nov. 23rd, 2009 06:19 pm (UTC)Sometimes I really bounce off her stuff, like the one where someone is so angry at her lover cheating on her that she LITERALLY rips his heart out and makes his lover eat it! But then there is Mina, whom I love, and her actually having women on top!
Warning!
Tue, Dec. 22nd, 2009 11:55 pm (UTC)1. It is ALWAYS a bad sign when an author tries to combine their disparate worlds. This brings the vampire three-marks mythology together with the merangels. It's... too dumb to be cracky fun. (One of the Amazon reviews says that actual Vampire Series characters visit! Ew!)
2. Back to Hill's UberMaleDom schtick, with the added bonus of UberFemaleHealer. Ick. This book could be called Raping the Glittery HooHa.
3. I seriously meant "rape." That particular scene was not DubCon and it was not Sexy NonCon.
I'm doubting I will finish it. I rarely quit books and I may not be able to stop, but really, I would have been better off never to have started. :(