Here's the cover for Livia's vampire romance that's coming out from Silhouette Nocturne in a couple of months. Pretty cool, I think. I love the title THE VAMPIRE AFFAIR because that's also the title of my favorite Man From U.N.C.L.E. novel (#6 in the series, by David McDaniel), and as I've mentioned before, I was a huge U.N.C.L.E. fan. I remember buying that paperback in a gas station in El Paso in late May or early June of 1966. My brother-in-law John (who loaned me my first Edgar Rice Burroughs book, A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, as some of you may recall from a Forgotten Books post a few months ago) was in the army then and had been on leave after finishing basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana. He had to report to Fort Bliss in El Paso, so my parents and I took him and my sister out there, stopping along the way to visit Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico (not as far out of the way as you might think). I bought THE VAMPIRE AFFAIR (the U.N.C.L.E. version) while my dad was filling up the tank for the trip back home. The first day we drove only as far as my uncle Sidney's house in Goldsmith, near Odessa (remember Uncle Sidney from last Saturday's post about his birthday party? Same guy), and spent the night there. I remember reading that U.N.C.L.E. novel in one sitting that evening and loving every minute of it.So what does this have to do with Livia's book? Well, nothing, really, but if you've been reading this blog for very long you know I seldom miss a chance to wallow in nostalgia about books I've read. However, I've read THE VAMPIRE AFFAIR (Livia's version) several times now, and it's a heck of a yarn, with a lot of humor and action to go with the romance. In fact, there's one scene that wouldn't be at all out of place in an U.N.C.L.E. novel. She's writing about bad-ass vampires here, not soulful, tormented ones. I had a great time reading the book. Of course, I'm not the most unbiased reader in the world . . .
3 comments:
The cover makes a lot of promises. Does Livia's text deliver? At Pulpfest we learned that the Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask stories would be pushed back a year to make way for the BLBB of Vampire Stories. Somehow I'm not impressed that this will fly. The BLBBoPS tapped into a large market of people eager to read good, tightly written, hard-boiled fiction. I'm not sure that the people who watch vampire movies actually read that much. Penzler talked about a big book of adventuous stories but I don't think the series will last long enough for that one to come out.
I think the book delivers, but as I said, I'm not an unbiased reader. Overall, though, the quality of the Nocturne line is pretty high. I haven't read all of them, but I've enjoyed most of the ones I've read. A couple of stand-outs are MIND GAMES by Merline Lovelace, which is low on supernatural content but is a nice, taut espionage thriller, and THE DARK GATE by Patricia Palmer, a full-blown fantasy adventure with evil elves, not the cuddly kind you often encounter in fiction.
I don't know if we'll ever get THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF ADVENTURE STORIES, but I'll be one of the first to buy it if we do.
30 days of Night and vampire wedding are very old vampire movies still then these movies are in demand. People love to watch these movies. Truly, these movies have different concepts. Even I love watching them.
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