A Taste of Crimson by Marjorie M. Liu

[firecat]

This book is the second of the multi-author Crimson City series created by Liz Maverick. I listened to the unabridged audiobook, narrated by Rebecca Rogers.

In this urban paranormal romance, vampires and werewolves are barely tolerated second-class citizens in a city run by humans. They are negotiating an alliance, but it's difficult since they hate each other so much. A young werewolf -- the granddaughter of the Grand Dame Alpha, the leader of the werewolves -- and an outcast vampire executioner-for-hire are assigned to solve a series of vampire murders. They fall in love, which is forbidden by all the norms of both of their clans.

This is the first paranormal romance I've read (except for the Anita Blake series), and the first book by Liu. So I'm not sure how many of its quirks are quirks of the genre itself, vs. quirks of this author. I found it odd that the vampires heat up bags of blood in the microwave and buy sunblock at the local drugstore when they want to go out during the daytime. And that the werewolves obligingly chain themselves to the bedposts during the full moon so they won't rampage through the city killing everything in sight. (Who lets them out of their chains?) But these oddities didn't stop me from finding the book entertaining.

I like that money and class are part of the story, although I didn't think it was adequately explained why the vampire protagonist was poor. (In other words, I suspected him of being poor so the reader would like him.)

I was worried that I would find the romantic relationship awful, but I didn't - the characters are well matched and they treat each other as equals for the most part. I have a bit of an aversion to romances that turn around "We met each other 24 hours ago, but we are in True Love and Will Always Be Together No Matter What." But that's probably just how the genre works.

There's a subtle undercurrent of gender-play in the book, not only with the main protagonists (who are somewhat gender-reversed - she is more kickass and he is more gentle) but also with some other characters. It is nice to have a female protagonist who wears striped tights and has pink hair, instead of the traditional beautiful leggy blonde with boobs out to there.


One thing particularly bugged me. I suppose it's silly. I don't mind if romance books pretend there's no need for safer sex, and I don't mind if they do write safer sex into the love scenes. But I do mind if safer sex is acknowledged and then ignored. In this book the lovers kept doing it and then going "Whoops, we forgot condoms again, my bad." I suppose this is setup for a later book in the series. But assuming that a lot of young people read these books I thought it was setting a Bad Example. [/crochety rant]

The final third of the book gets a little crazy with plotting and characterization goes a bit off. (I gather from other Liu reviews here that she does tend to have crazy plotting, and that probably wouldn't have bothered me so much but the first two thirds of the book didn't feel that way to me.) I could have done without the Friendly Demon Ex Machina who suddenly shows up and happens to be able to get the protagonists into a completely secure building and have them invisible into the bargain. She speaks in dialect and that makes her feel like something of a racial stereotype or cultural appropriation to me, although it's certainly possible that the author did her research and I'm the one who is ignorant. I also didn't like the too-sudden transformation of the Psycho Bitch From Hell side character into a Devoted Mother. But otherwise I found the ending generally satisfying.

Folks who have read other Liu, do the books in her own series feel different to you than this one, which is set in another writer's series?

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

And that the werewolves obligingly chain themselves to the bedposts during the full moon so they won't rampage through the city killing everything in sight. (Who lets them out of their chains?)

They do, when their paws turn back into hands and they can manipulate the key / combination lock / doohickey that requires opposable thumbs? I dunno. And yes, I know that wasn't the main point of your review, and I apologize for side-tracking.

[firecat]

:-)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The plot here is more contained than in her other books, where she has freer reign. The Dirk & Steele books are basically "if the X-Men were (A) detectives (B) in romance novels (C) mainlined some manga, too."

As much as I get giddy and bouncy over a female alpha werewolf, I do prefer the D&S books, where things like "and then he ran off to join the circus" are perfectly normal.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

A lot of that is Crimson-City-specific, although other series have variants in terms of "not eating all the humans." I do think this book feels different than her other books--I actually like it better, probably because I enjoy the setup of the Crimson City books and liked most of the ones I read by other authors.