Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 37

Sometimes you just wait the “oceans of time” and the mark comes to you.

90. The Lost – Jonathan Aycliffe

The Lost is a fun sort of old school vampire tale. Michael Feraru is like an arrogant stand in for Jonathan Harker, one who just knows he’s meant for something important on his trip to reclaim his family estate in Romania. At one point his plan is to turn the castle into an orphanage – imagine that. A nice, drafty, and ill equipped for childcare fortress space in the Transylvanian Alps, I’m sure they’ll all get educated and adopted in a jiffy if they’re not eaten by wolves or Michael’s ancestors. Also, I say he’s a stand in because The Lost happens to be epistolary, much like Dracula. Although Michael’s new assistant Liliana is not at all a Renfield and they have a super fun sounding library in Castle Vliacu.

 

Why yes I did say “super fun sounding library,” Ozy, and I very much meant it.

The bonus snippet in my copy is the beginning of The Fog, the novelization of the script for one of my favorites.

16. Ghost House – Clare McNally

A New York lawyer moves his family to “quiet” Belle Bay after his wife has an affair with a man who gets increasingly soaking wet and angry…only to find that they picked the house haunted by a super angry former British sympathizer. He gives gifts wrapped in blue and gold brocade, he hates children, and he keeps trying to replay the past with the ladies of the house, including self-proclaimed “romantic turkey” Melanie. I wish I knew what she meant by that.

And of course, nearly everyone in town knows there’s something up at that house. The only person who doesn’t is the young, smoking librarian Janice, who is also pretty new. I guess some of the cops also don’t know or are ignoring the supernatural for real burglar possibilities, like they do. But there are a lot of “burglaries gone wrong” in that house where no one steals anything and Gary, the lawyer, gets seriously hurt and then seriously hurt again and then seriously hurt again.

What’s funny about this book is that I knew there was a sequel because it’s an older book and I saw it; but the sequel was such a lock that it’s addressed in the epilogue. Janice, will you explain what a “romantic turkey” is or is your ghost too disturbed?

Merricat is also unaware of what a “romantic turkey” is. I feel like we missed something about turkeys.

“I came here to be at one with nature, well I got what I wanted… now I have to live with it.”

3. White Pines – Gemma Amor

Up in the Highlands, I guess there are isolated houses that aren’t owned by werewolf families. Fine. This one is across from an island and Megs’ ancient birthright she kind of almost remembers, but is totally forced into once her marriage breaks up. She does not exactly get to live her best life, on her initial trip into town a dog pees on her boots (and this is not forgotten by Amor and frankly, ew, that would affect me all day and forever too), she finds mostly weird silence from the locals, and this is all after she figured out she had coin operated electricity in her house – this actually never seems to get sorted even though she got coins and I was very concerned.

Anyway, her birthright involves an island that will not stop calling to her and gives her headaches when she’s away from it. When she finally goes, she has to crawl past a prehistoric deer skeleton (I would’ve been trying to figure out how to get that back to the house) and over sheep bones, gets invited to a weirdo party, and then everything gets wonky in a monster way. A very big monster way. And also in a “shunting scene from Society with less enthusiasm” kind of way. It’s super gross. And that’s before someone loses their eyes, which is of course the universal time you know things are no longer fun. Losing all the eyes, tongue, boyfriend who followed Megs, some kid who seemed nice, all to follow and simultaneously upend the old ways. I do like folk horror and honestly it’s nice to see a middle aged protagonist making some damn progress too, even if that progress is quite wounding.

 

Thorfy would like to know where his invitation to the weirdo party is.

 

Listen

6. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark

I feel like if Lise wasn’t in the driver’s seat both literally and metaphorically of her own murder, she would have been telling the killer he was doing it wrong the entire time and would be saying with her last breath how dreadfully embarrassing it is to be murdered wrong.

Such a strange little story, from not wanting a dress that won’t keep stains to random demonstrations that prove her unforgettable on her last day (She’s a tourist, a teacher from Iowa, New Jersey! Is she now.) to picking her own murder weapon, such a strange story. It’s pretty wicked really and I understand both why Muriel Spark said it’s her favorite of her works and why it’s on the list I found of essential scary books by women. Mrs. Fiedke’s rant about men wanting equal rights with women alone makes for a bit of disturbed wonder.

 

Yes, Peregrine, you are in charge of all you do. Clearly.

“We could use a television set here at the house. It might keep us off the streets more!”

131. Salem’s Children – Mary Leader

Peacehaven is a small town in WI started by the descendants of several persons accused/hanged as witches in Salem, MA. And the townspeople of Peacehaven seem to be having some trouble separating themselves from the Salem Witch Trials, replaying and dreaming and replaying what happened all over again once Submit shows up and possibly also before. I have to admit, having the first name of Submit for the main character was hard on me as a reader. It’s used as a command at the beginning of a sentence sometimes and so I didn’t realize it was the main character’s name occasionally because she is also called Mitti (way easier) and because there are a lot of characters in this book. A lot. Annoying teen children, devious women, an apparently sexy newspaper man, an evil priest, relatives who want to steal Mitti’s land for a casino/condo/fake archaeological site (inside a real archaeological site), an elderly lady whose house is about to be sucked into the river, the lady with cancer who has a taciturn husband, and the one black family, with their “activist” son who is the town scapegoat…because this is 1979, he’s also shirtless and working with the FBI, so he has a lot to do. His mother is also playing Tituba in the town pageant of the witch trials because these people who are constantly living in the past and replaying the worst parts of their ancestors’ lives needed to do that on stage! A reason to be more judgmental and accusatory, finally. These people did not need a pageant.

Beyond the whole pageant idea, there are family conflicts about Mitti’s dead cocaine addict husband who tried to rape their daughter Rowan, even though Rowan doesn’t know that’s what he was trying to do; more bigotry against the Native American woman who works as a home care nurse for a couple of people in the town – they kill her cat and her goat and her dog while it’s about to give birth and eventually her; so essentially a lot is going on that is also really repulsive to read about. It all really seems to come down to a small town doing the small town thing of driving those “undesirables” who won’t go along with shitty casino/condo plans out to a gallows with fiery torches and accusing them of witchcraft as a cover story for just wanting them dead. It’s a little much, really, and as it’s possible that simple greed was a factor in the Salem Witch Trials themselves, just reminds me of what I don’t like about religious self-righteousness or joining large groups. Or any groups who want everyone to have the same thoughts about anything. That’s a big No.

 

Salem does not recall having any children. Corn, yes, children, no.

 

“To be haunted is to glimpse a truth that might best be hidden.”

13. Haunted – James Herbert

A stubborn skeptic investigates a haunting in out of the way Erdbrook House, one of those English country houses that’s gone derelict in places and weirdly spotless in others, as they do. This is the first novel of Herbert’s David Ash character and the first I’ve read of Herbert. It was way shorter than I expected it to be, and reminded me of what Anne Rice’s vampire and witch books would be like if New Orleans was damp instead of lush and there was a grumpy Englishman to follow around, i.e. there was a level of the weirdly ridiculous version of the supernatural (yikes to the “romantic” elements), plants and houses were vastly described, and many thoughts of the past, um, haunted the characters. I could see myself as a younger person reading every single thing of Herbert’s, except probably The Rats because that’s too scary to touch for me (they’re too smart, too able to chew through things, and their hairless tails scare me), and spending hours immersed in late 1980s damp lush atmosphere and not noticing if the ending was kind of annoying or not.

 

No, Pickles, you will not need to hide in the sheets from ghosts after reading Haunted.

A good start does not lead to a coherent middle or end.

115. The Death of Jane Lawrence – Caitlin Starling

At the beginning I thought this had so much promise. I was excited about the heroine who wanted to marry for business reasons and was suddenly helping with the practice of medicine and doing more learning like math-Jane Eyre becoming a doctor…and then…she ended up obsessed with the possibility of actually falling in lust with her husband and forgot herself entirely to deal with his ghosts and his unsuccessful magic and circles and we were twirling, twirling, twirling towards whatever.

 

Horace and Ozma are about to start their ritual twirling. Peregrine, to the left, is totally done with that sort of thing.

Gnarly ritual murders within

98. White Bones – Graham Masterton

There’s no getting rid of the gruesome with Graham Masterton. Not even in a crime novel. And I have to say, I do not take much issue with gruesome descriptions being a horror person, but the ritual murder in White Bones had me squirming and frowning like a silent version of Paul Reuben’s death scene in the post credits of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer film. It’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting into reading Masterton, but Feast didn’t bother me as much as this did. I have no clue why I thought maybe Masterton would be toned down for a crime series. No clue.

Unlike Katie Maguire, the protagonist of this and the rest of her series which I will certainly read, who has many clues coming in via Celtic mythology… and in addition to the super creepy ritual, also has other cases she’s concerned about. Crime never takes a break. Sometimes it would be nice if it would coordinate with staffing, but that will never happen. Anyway, the pacing in White Bones is somewhat relentless and it does have some really weird shit in the resolution that can easily fall into the realm of offensive but might not entirely ruin the book for every reader; to be fair that is also sort of par for the course for Masterton, so beware.

 

Murderface says never relent, unless it is nap time and you find a nice spot to slumber. Slumbering is an important part of being relentless.

Theft is not a compliment.

Hopefully, by the time this post goes up (nearly two business days after I’ve spent time agonizing over my language in take down notices to make sure it’s oh so clear and specific), the three shops on Redbubble selling my work as theirs will have it removed. I believe the three shops are all run by the same person/robot person  and that probably all of the work put up on their shops is stolen from the actual artists like mine was.

My sweet little Danger Crumples, who has many book-related parody occupations, but was always such a good detective, was put up in at least three Redbubble stores I found by thieves, like they painted him or created those images in any capacity. Like they painted my Danger Drew Mysteries. Um, you thieves have never been in the presence of Danger Crumples and had no right or consent from me to ever put my paintings of him anywhere.

He’s my little star beast, he helped inspire me to even start painting again, and it’s so ridiculously painful to see that now my art is being stolen too. I have already had my books stolen thousands of times through free download sites I’ve found over the years instead of being paid for even though I charge less than $5 for each, and now, it’s even more of a knife in the heart because this is my pig. I care about my guinea pigs above all and Danger Crumples is, was, and ever shall only have been my pig. He lived his whole life with me except for maybe about 30 days and his ashes are readily displayed in his bamboo box with its fly nameplate in the room next to the one I’m typing this in. I feel violated seeing people using him and so I don’t think I can be more clear about how not anyone else’s he is. Not even as a muse. Get your own muse, thieves.

This is me with Danger Crumples on 3/17/2011, the day after I got him, taken by my friend Adam. The part of my face you can see is how I always look when I’m beaming at my guinea pigs, even more than 10 years later.

 

All three of the main book paintings in my Danger Drew Mysteries are really cute, I know, and I’m the creator, the owner, and the only one who has the right to put them up on any art sale websites or anywhere at all, like this very blog, where they can be up alongside pictures of actual Danger Crumples…which only further and further emphasizes that this is my art and where I talk about it alongside the almost-reviews of actual books.

I would have loved to be able to photograph him with all of the paintings of him, but it was too late and seemed too weird with his ashes, even for me.

 

I bet those piece of shit thieves don’t know I painted full spines and textblocks on those paintings and I signed them as the painty author because they are paintings totally by me.

 

So, if you see Danger Crumples somewhere that isn’t this blog or very clearly associated with me, or for sale anywhere other than one of my art stores of which there are currently only two: My Redbubble and My Threadless  (my stores are also linked at the bottom of my page, perpetually, as are clear reputable places to get my books), it’s some jerkwater thief who deserves consequences.

 

It’s possible that someone else who has done a Nancy Drew parody will end up here, maybe who made work that’s also been stolen, and I put in takedown notices as the Danger Drew Mysteries are clearly the work of me. However, in case they’re needed by another victimized creator like me, these are the shop names I found selling my work on Redbubble like they created it and they all had more Nancy Drew work and most of the work there looks like different people made it, which I think it’s probably fair to say different people did since they stole from me and I don’t make work with people who aren’t silhouettes or reduced to bones:

Fangirl Problems, Inc. (fangirlpro) – I have to say, I think your “fangirl problem” is actually that you’re a thief.

Creationsby – Not creating your own work, are you, Creationsby? Creations by not you, thief.

HelloNancyDrew – Hello, thief. I think Nancy Drew is generally a character against crimes of opportunity. They had the gall to post this quote as their artist profile: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison/ You didn’t do the work of Danger Drew Mysteries, jackass. I did.

 

Don’t steal.

 

 

“You could have your name in the trade journals.”

77. The Vines – Shelley Nolden

Experiments in self-righteousness allow one family, that has a Nazi in it, to use a poor woman as their guinea pig. We like guinea pigs here, and Cora the guinea pig is the most redeeming part of the story.

Cora, not unlike Typhoid Mary who also resided on that same North Brother Island, has tons of gnarly diseases that could kill others and do and have, but doesn’t die. Cora doesn’t show symptoms, but she requires hazmat suits to be around. And not unlike many other families, the Gettler family has crippling diseases pay it a visit without Cora, but since they’re doctors (including the Nazi one), they think Cora, who is also somehow essentially immortal, can be used to fix those diseases. And maybe she can, but they’re not really getting anywhere and I personally did not care for any of them.

While an immortal guinea pig does intrigue me and I was interested in Cora’s story and how she can’t really do lots of normal things (relatable for the perpetually allergic like me), the lack of resolution to this story was bothersome. As a reader who also writes, something needs to be resolved in the beginning of your series, and in every book after it. There can’t just be a 400+ page introduction with no part of the plot resolved.

 

Merricat should have been an immortal guinea pig.