Sakura of DOOM

Still desperately trying to catch up on book blogging.

I think I kept expecting to be much more entertained by the book than I actually was.

Garnet Lacey is a Witch who is being hunted by some special branch of the Vatican. On the way, she meets Sebastian, a very old vampire, some more vampires, some more people of the Vatican and etc.

Given that Hallaway touched on many of the same issues in her Lyda A. Morehouse books, I didn't roll my eyes as much. Alas for the poor writers whose current books on conspiracies in the Vatican are being overshadowed by the ubiquitous Dan Brown.

But I either wanted more fluff or more depth, and ended up being unsatisfied all together. Also, I didn't much like the tall, dark and dead guy of the title, which generally just kills a romance book for me. And half way through, I thought Hallaway was going to do something very interesting with the heroine and the love interest, but it didn't happen.

And to be honest, there was so much plot going on that I had no idea why I should be interested in the relationship, but there was still so much relationship that there wasn't the depth of worldbuilding that I wanted.

Also also, I am mean, but the various capitalizations bugged me.

I got Lyda Morehouse's books at WisCon because she was so cool when I saw her on the Feminist Romance panel.

It's a somewhat cyberpunky thing (I'm probably defining cyberpunk wrong and will get a multitude of comments telling me that, but that's ok) that reminds me a little of Elizabeth Bear's Hammered (because I read it first, even though it was published after Morehouse's book) and Sean Stewart's Passion Play. The entire world is being run by religious governments after a furious backlash against science and the secular humanists due to the explosion of Medusa bombs some decades ago. Also, membership in a religion is a prerequisite for LINK access, which is basically the internet times a zillion. Without the LINK, it's difficult to make monetary transactions and get any sort of information. Recently, LINK-angels have begun appearing, which are taken as a miracle.

I love the first chapter of the book, which describes the protagonist's fall from grace and excommunication, leading to a bitter career in private investigation. Then, of course, a stunner walks into the office and proposes an investigation into the LINK-angels, in return for LINK access.

The best part is, the steely private eye is Deidre McManus, and the femme fatale is actually a homme fatale (if you can say that). There was intense, intense love for that scene along, which was pitch-perfect, down to Dee describing Michael's every physical feature and him perching on the side of her desk to tempt her into some scheme.

I don't actually know, because I haven't read/seen much noir at all, but I don't think the rest of the book follows the noir gender role inversions, as it becomes more sf-y and less noir. Also, the rest of the book focuses much more on religion, which isn't too surprising, given the angels. I liked that Morehouse didn't do a straight "religion is evil!" thing; while she portrays the secular as persecuted, I liked that Deidre is Catholic and is still Catholic at heart, despite her excommunication. Her characters feel like they live in a world in which being religious is necessary, and there's no jarring PC-ness to take me out of the characterization.

All in all, I liked it, though I guessed some of the plot twists. But the book felt a little fluffy, for reasons that I can't quite pin down. I think I wanted something larger and more epic to suit the religious theme (ok, actually, I am just a sucker for Giant Heaven and Hell Battle Epics of DOOM), but I don't think that was the book's fault.

ETA:
oursin's review