Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Release Date: Oct. 12, 2010
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: E-book
Source: Purchased
Series: Necromancer #1
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound Description: Goodreads
Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he’s doing all right—until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.

Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he’s a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . or else. 

With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin?

My October creepy book marathon continues with Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride.  This had been sitting on my TBR list for quite a while, but it fit so well with my theme that I just had to give it a go.

And so we meet Sam LaCroix, your basic slacker extraordinaire with a heart of gold.  He works at a local fast food joint called Plumpy’s with his best friends in the world: his buddies-since-the-playground Ramon, timid but enthusiastic Frank, and Brooke who’s sugar on the outside but all sass when she opens her mouth.  During a break, Brooke & Sam play a game of potato hockey and bust out a taillight on a Classic Shiny Car in the parking lot.  Oddly enough, this action starts a series of unexplained craziness that leads to a world of witchcraft, raising the dead, ghostly portals, a seriously powerful and feisty were-fey-shifter-girl, zombie pandas, and a decapitated head in a bowling bag.  Everything Sam knows is about to change in just about every single way.

If you’re looking for a complete and total scare-fest, this isn’t where I would head.  I enjoyed the story very much, and it definitely has its moments, but this isn’t horror.  It actually reads like a cross between paranormal and contemporary (contemparanormalary? Eh? No?), and that suits me just fine.  It has more than enough monsters and mayhem to entice a paranormal crowd while keeping itself grounded in the present day.  Much of that comes from Sam himself.  He’s fairly easygoing, considering he doesn’t completely lose his mind when he learns he has the ability to wake the dead, and he seems like the kind of guy I would have as a friend.  I mean, he listens to Alkaline Trio, which I think says more about his character than anything else.  It’s so evident that he genuinely cares for his family and his friends, so it’s a comfort to him to know that they will fight for him, even when the enemy is the evilest of evil dudes.

Sam’s supporting cast is a set of capital-c Characters that could easily distract from the story, but they never do.  Brooke and Brid are stand-outs—I also think it says a lot about Sam that he attracts the attention of lots of strong-willed and awesome ladies.  My favorite is Sam’s elderly neighbor Mrs. W., who provides one of my favorite twists in the whole tale.

My one and only peeve about it is the changing viewpoints.  We start with Sam in first person, but it jumps around to other characters’ views, and those are in third person.  It’s an interesting way to show other sides of the story--especially the bad guy--but I thought it slowed the pacing down too much, and it took me away from a voice that called for my attention.  Once you get a better grasp of the characters (and once the focus centers primarily back on Sam), I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

I thought Hold Me Closer, Necromancer was a great story that took a bit to grow on me.  Hopefully, this will bring out more contemparanormalary (it’s gonna be a thing) for me to read in the future.

More Author Insight: Story Scraps

What value if any do you find in a scene or entire story when you reach the point at which you realize just isn’t working? Do you ever save bits & pieces for later use?

"I recycle all the time! Even characters. Mia from The Dark Light was originally meant for a different story that ended up not suiting her at all. No writing is wasted. Just don’t be precious about cutting the stuff that isn’t working." - Sara Walsh, author of The Dark Light.

"I do! I have a folder on my desktop labeled 'Darlings', and I throw all the murdered bits into it - dialogue exchanges, scenes, sometimes just random snippets of descriptions. I probably won't ever use them again, but at least I can feel like they're not permanently gone." - Stefan Bachmann, author of The Peculiar.

"I hoard cut scenes! I have huge files of text that I’ve had to cut from one manuscript or another, in the hopes of finding a place to tuck them in. Sometimes, I do find new homes for these orphans." - Robin Bridges, author of The Unfailing Light.

"I find great value in writing things that end up in the bin. Only yesterday I wrote a 1500-word chapter that showed me my character was ten years too old, far too bland, and had am amazing connection to condiments. I will toss the entire thing…except the condiment part. I have been known to cannibalize stories or parts of stories. I don’t usually save all that much though—just a thought or a line or a character trait. The name of the heroine, Saffron Adams, in my first published book, The Dust of 100 Dogs, was really from my second [will never be published] novel." - A.S. King, author of Ask the Passengers.

Waiting on Wednesday (30)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine 

that highlights eagerly anticipated books.

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Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Release Date: February 5, 2013

Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Series: Finishing School #1

Author Website: http://gailcarriger.com/

Pre-order: Amazon / IndieBound / Barnes & Noble

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to finishing school.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

First in a four book YA series set 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate but in the same universe.

Why can't I wait? 

Girls who curtsy while throwing knives at you? Yeah, that gives a new meaning to "finishing school," ya know what I'm saying? 

Author Insight: Story Scraps

What value, if any, do you find in a scene or entire story when you reach the point at which you realize just isn’t working? Do you ever save bits & pieces for later use?

"I save everything. It’s important to keep your incunabula for the inevitable post-mortem 48 Hours special." - Daniel Marks, author of Velveteen.

"If I cut something, I put it in a separate document, just in case.  So far I haven’t gone back and integrated any of these pieces elsewhere, but I wouldn’t rule it out." - Lenore Appelhans, author of Level 2. 

"I’m a packrat when it comes to my writing. I cut scenes all the time, but I always save them. Often I do use them later, if not the whole scene than a snippet from it, or even just a sentence or a turn of phrase." - Lili Peloquin, author of The Innocents. 

"I don't do a lot of preparation for a novel before I start writing, so I end up making many mistakes. But every blind alley helps me map the world I'm writing about. I try not to make the same mistake twice, with the idea that when I run out of mistakes whatever remains is the correct thing to do!" - Steven Arntson, author of The Wrap-Up List.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Release Date: Aug. 30, 2011
Publisher: Tor Teen
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Borrowed
Pages: 316
Series: Anna #1
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. 

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

It’s October! To me, that signals the official start of fall aka my favorite time of year. Despite all my yammerings in the past about what a giant scaredy cat I am, something about cooler temps, pumpkin-flavored everything, and changing leaves puts me in the mood for scary stories. It was with this idea in mind that I picked up Anna Dressed in Blood, a ghostly tale I’d heard raves about in the past.

Anna begins as the story of Theseus Cassio Lowood (though his friends call him Cas). Our hero is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost killer. Yes, ghosts are already mostly dead, but we all know that means they’re still slightly alive. Cas uses the atheme he inherited from his late father (also a ghost killer) to “slay the demons” and send them onto their final destination. He and his mother travel to Thunder Bay, Canada so he can take out an thoroughly angry and murderous ghost named Anna Korlov, more commonly referred to as Anna Dressed in Blood. And, like many other heroes before him, Cas finds much more than he bargained for in Anna’s house.

Cas is one of my absolute favorite narrators of all time. This is by far one of the most authentic male voices I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.  He’s got a hilariously dry wit, combined with a splash of teenage sarcasm and the sweetest bit of sincerity, and I want to genuinely hang out with him. He manages to inject humor throughout the story, even when the reader has very little to laugh about. Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I actually like when YA uses curse words. Cas deals with some serious mess here, so I think his swears aren’t gratuitous in the least. I could read volumes more of Cas.

So why is there little to laugh about? Well, because Anna Dressed in Blood is a ghost story, which of course means there must be death. This one, though, has its share of gruuuuuesome deaths. From the true details of Anna’s demise to the backgrounds of the other ghosts Cas comes across to the descriptions of the murders at Anna’s hands (and ew icky dude blech she knows how to kill ‘em for real!), this isn’t a tale to be taken lightly. Again, I’m a big ole wuss, so I took to reading this mostly in daylight hours.  There’s a sneakiness to some of the scarier bits here too, so just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, a new ghost or a plot twist from the deepest depths of Creeptown shows up or someone shuts a door too loudly and you jump out of your skin. What, that’s just me?

I’m definitely glad I gave Anna Dressed in Blood a shot. It’s a great book to sate the scary story urge that this time of year always brings. I’m planning on picking up the sequel, Girl of Nightmares, just as soon as I can.

Release Days Round-Up: October 14-20

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