Author Archive
True Blood Season 4 Ep 10: Burning Down the House
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The latest episode of True Blood starts out with total pandemonium as Antonia commands the vampires to kill the king. Eric and Bill are fighting each other to the death and he’s about to kill Bill when Sookie throws a double fairy whammy on him and all his memories shoot back. Antonia realizes that she lost control of him and as she surveys all the dead people, she’s shocked at what she’s done.
Sookie and Eric stare at each other, trying to evaluate what’s going to happen now. They are sitting on the sofa talking and he tells her he remembers everything. When she looks kind of sick, he demands to know what the problem is. She tells him that when he was about to kill Bill, she could not imagine a world without Bill in it so she was able to send a huge jolt of magic into him which broke the spell. He finds this hard to believe but she states that she loves them both. “Lovable, isn’t he?” Eric snidely says as Bill makes plans to blow up the emporium and kill everyone inside. Looks like the true Eric is starting to show.
Alcide is racing Tommy to the hospital but he knows he’s dying. It’s really hard to watch, he keeps shifting back and forth, legs and arms at unnatural angles, it’s like a horror movie. He begs Alcide to take him home. Sam zooms in and holds Tommy’s hand. He tells him the story about people seeing a white light and feeling peace when they die. Tommy says there is no heaven and hell is a dog fight. He tells Sam he’s sorry for everything and then he dies. What a short horrible life. Sam promises that he will kill Marcus.
Jason is having a major guilt attack over having had sex with Jessica. Jason can only talk about Hoyt and Jessica doesn’t want to hear it. He blames it on drinking her blood and he wants her to glamour him into forgetting that their sexcapade happened. She leaves in disgust.
Terry and Arlene confront Andy about using V. Terry takes him to their old treehouse from when they were kids to get him clean. A lot of old family tensions come to the surface – arguing about who had it the worst when they were growing up. They start fighting and Andy hits rock bottom, he’s worried that the V ate his soul, but Terry tells him that a man without a soul could not cry. The two of them hug and it looks like Andy has made it. Terry needs to go into the intervention business. He could give A&E a run for their money.
Jason drives to Sookie’s house and she asks for his help to stop Bill from killing Tara and the witches. They go to Lafayette and Jesus to recruit them as well. Jesus is going to try and reach Marnie and get her to push Antonia out. Little does he know that Marnie is the one holding on to Antonia, she actually convinced the ghost to re-possess her after Antonia tried to leave.
Jesus approaches Marnie at the emporium but she has spelled a very painful shield around the building. She tells him that he’s got to get through the shield and it does not look like he is going to make it. But then he turns into some kind of demon which surprises her and they chat about his new powers. Jesus asks to speak directly to Marnie and Antonia allows it. He tells her she’s possessed and she says “you think this is against my will?” which has Jesus send a telepathic message to Sookie telling her that Marnie is in league with the ghost witch.
Tara and another witch try their hand at escaping and they get outside where Sookie and Lafayette rush to meet them. Antonia catches everybody and transports them to another place. Now Antonia has Sookie…
Marcus is at Debbie’s house looking for Alcide. Debbie talks about how Alcide ignores her and her need for children and the way it looks, she and Marcus are going to hook up. Maybe they can make babies. Meanwhile, Sam and Alcide show up at Marcus’ shop and they beat up one of the guys who killed Tommy.
Eric and the vampire crew are driving to the emporium to kill themselves some witches. It’s quite a hot looking group as the four of them walk up to the building carrying weapons, dressed in black and ready to kill. They look they are straight out of some summer blockbuster action flick – terminator flashback anyone?
True Blood Season 4 Ep 9: Run
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Bill is at his house trying to give Sookie his healing vampire blood because she was shot on last week’s True Blood. Alcide is pissed off – why would Bill let her go to that fight? She recovers but since her first words are asking where Eric is, that’s it for Alcide, he leaves. She thanks Bill for the blood.
Tara wants to know why Antonia threw Bill’s olive branch back in his face. Tara challenges Antonia’s power when she finds out Antoinia plans to use Eric to ‘show’ the world the true face of the vampire. As the witches try to leave – they didn’t sign up for this – she locks them in with a spell. No tyrant wants to lose her subjects.
Luna tells Sam that she does not want Marcus to be a problem for him, he needs to leave. He talks her into going camping together instead of making him go back to his place. Marcus won’t be able to find any of them.
Debbie is sitting up in bed watching TV when she sniffs out Alcide. She keeps sniffing so I suspect she can smell Sookie on him. He walks naked over to his side of the bed and snuggles up to her but she pretends she’s asleep even though her eyes are glowing.
Nan, Bill and Jessica are all chained in the basement and Bill and Nan spend all their time bickering. These two can’t stand each other.
Lafayette shows up at Hoyt’s house with baby Mikey and he points a gun at Hoyt to get him to leave. Jason is at the Bellefleur house interviewing Arlene and Terry when Hoyt calls to tell them that Lafayette and the baby are there. Terry looks like he’s about to flip out.
Sookie wakes up to a knock on the door. You know it’s a dream because she’s wearing this red lingerie number with black pumps, and Eric is at the door during daytime. Bill appears to her right and both her men are in her dream. They are about to start fighting but she stops them, after all, it’s her dream. Her bottom line is, she either loves both of them or neither one. They don’t look to happy about sharing her but in the end, they give in. She wakes up with a thoughtful look on her face.
Marcus comes to Merlotte’s looking for Sam and he finds Tommy instead who gives him a lot of attitude. He tells Tommy to have Sam come meet him that night.
Andy is banging on the door of Hoyt’s house and he breaks it down. Lafayette shoots at him, and Andy and Jason race out. Terry tries to rush the house but Andy tackles him and pins him to the ground. Jason looks on in amazement as Andy completely subdues Terry and he realizes that Andy is high on V. Jesus shows up to save his man and he’s able to communicate with Mavis, the ghost. She tells them that she and her baby are buried ‘out yonder, under the tree’ as she hands the baby over to Arlene.
Alcide and Marcus are at his shop waiting for Sam to show up. When he does, he starts mouthing off to Marcus and the gang starts to kick and punch him. Lying on the floor, he turns back into Tommy and Marcus is shocked. Alcide pulls them all off of the boy and takes him out of there.
The gang finds Mavis’ baby’s bones in Hoyt’s backyard. Jesus gives her the baby’s bones to hold and he tells her that it’s time for her to go. You see her leave his body and she’s holding a beautiful little baby. She tells Lafayette thank you and he says ‘ you got it bitch’ in his own special way.
Debbie takes some V and then shows up at Antonia’s to pledge her allegiance to her cause. In the meantime, Sookie sneaks into the back of the shop and tries to get Eric to leave with her. Eric is non-responsive. Surprise, surprise, Debbie has delivered herself as a diversionary tactic for Sookie’s break-in. Then Sookie gets caught by Tara who tells her telepathically to charge her and she escapes. Debbie drives her to the hotel to warn Bill about Antonia’s attack.
Hoyt makes Jason deliver a box of things he packed up bto Jessica and they stare awkwardly at each other. He won’t go in but they end up having sex in the bed of his pickup truck.
Nan and Bill are sitting on the stage at the tolerance rally and they are still bickering with each other while others speak to the crowd. Eric acts as a decoy to lure the other vampire sheriffs to Antonia who puts them under her spell. She uses them to kill Bill’s guards as Sookie yells Bill’s name. Everybody in the halls starts to run as the bloodbath begins.
True Blood Season 4 Ep 8: Spellbound
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We left the last True Blood episode wondering if we were going to lose one of the main characters as Jessica opens the front door and emerges into the daylight propelled by the spell. Jason saves her and they share “a tongues down the throat” kiss on the floor before he takes her back down and re-wraps her in chains.
Eric tells Sookie that he needs to feed in order to recover from the damage the silver did. She lets him feed but only after exacting a promise from him that he won’t lose control and go into a vampire frenzy. He stops feeding to have her take some of his blood. He says now they are one. They are both lost in their lover’s world. There’s a weird shower scene where it starts to snow on them and they emerge into some woods where a bed awaits them and the sexin’ begins. Is this some kind of hallucination because they shared blood?
Luna’s ex is Marcus, the pack leader of the Shreveport pack. He’s in leadership mode, telling his pack that they need to stay away from the vampires. He wants nothing to do with the witch/vampire war. A young pup challenges him when he says that the vampires are more powerful than the werewolves but Marcus shuts him down – he’s a strong leader.
Sam goes back to visit Luna after he kicked Tommy out of his life. She’s still angry about having had sex with Tommy while he was shifted into Sam. She wants to know who he killed in order to become a skin walker and he tells her that Tommy killed their parents but it was no great loss. And Sam gains the okay to come back into the household.
Hoyt and Jessica break up when she tells him that she wants to move out. She does not want to live with him anymore because she can’t control her vampire hunger. You can see his heart break as he starts to cry. He blocks the door and won’t let her leave. She ends up killing him and walking outside covered in his blood – a sight that turns on Jason, who’s waiting in his truck for her. They are about to have sex when a blood donor wakes her up from this disturbing dream.
Vampire goo is all that’s left of Buela Carter. Andy gets down on his hands and knees and starts licking his lips at all that V lying there is a big mushy pile. He wants the V bad, he’s a true addict. Andy looks pathetic.
Bill calls Antonia with an apology and a proposal – meet at the cemetery at midnight, in peace and unarmed – and avoid a lot of useless death on both sides.
Debbie and Alcide are enjoying the evening when Marcus stops by and says how glad he is that Alcide is there. They break up a fight and Debbie is so proud of her man. Marcus tells Alcide that he’s an honorable man, he’s got alpha in him.
Mikey is sitting in the playpen with the nasty baby doll and Arlene and Terry are arguing over the fact that he’s got the baby in the kitchen with him. The ghost comes in and is singing to him when Lafayette comes in. The ghost glares at him and he backs out.
Hoyt and Jessica really break up this time and his reaction is not like it was in the dream. He doesn’t fall apart and beg her to stay. Instead, he’s very angry and he totally turns on her. He takes back her invitation and throws her out of the house.
Eric and Sookie are lying in bed talking about running away. It still sounds so weird to hear Eric say ‘my king’ all the time. Sookie wants them to go see Bill and pledge their support. Eric just wants to be with her forever. He’s so needy.
Lafayette dreams about the ghost and we learn her story. She’s bringing a baby doll home when she sees a car parked in her driveway. A white man comes out of her house and he says her baby is gone. She accuses him of killing her baby and it looks like he kills her too. When Lafayette wakes up, the woman is standing in his house and she possesses him. And she uses his body to go to the Bellefleur’s and kidnap baby Mikey.
Sookie and Eric pledge their support to Bill in his fight against the witches. It’s a cute moment when Eric says ‘my liege’ and Sookie says ‘my…my…my…Bill’.
A jealous Marcus stops by and it’s on. This guy has a serious anger issue which is not helped when Luna threatens to call his parole officer. Sam tries to be the peacemaker but there is no pacifying Marcus.
The witches and the vampires meet in the cemetery and everybody lied – they all brought backup and when Sookie hears Antonia casting a spell in her mind, the fight is on. Eric is acting like a total animal, ripping people’s hearts out and tearing out their throats. When he and Antonia come face to face, she utters another spell which drops him to his knees. He is totally hers and she smiles a very satisfied smile.
True Blood ends with Sookie getting shot and both Bill and Eric sense her distress. As she collapses to the ground, Alcide shows up and picks her up to take her to safety while Debbie watches him. Now all her jealous suspicions are confirmed.
New Young Adult Fantasy Book – Delirium by Lauren Oliver
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Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Pages: 448
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “Pain. They wanted to make my mother submit to a fourth procedure. They were coming for her on the night she died, coming to bring her to the labs. But instead she had fled into the dark, winged her way into the air. Instead she had woken me with those words—I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”
What if being in love was a crime punishable by imprisonment, or even death? That’s the dark premise of Delirium, a Young Adult fantasy by author Lauren Oliver. In this follow-up to her bestselling debut novel, Before I Fall, Oliver creates a post-apocalyptic, dystopian vision of the United States. In the locked-down, carefully controlled world of Delirium, every type of love – romantic, familial, even affection for family pets – is regarded as a dangerous, infectious disease. At age 18 citizens are forced by the government to become inoculated against the love disease—called the deliria—by undergoing a painful treatment called “The Cure”.
Writing in the present tense (an unusual but effective choice), Oliver quickly draws the reader into the life of Lena Haloway, a 17-year old girl who is about to undergo The Cure. According to plan, once she’s cured of the potential for love, Lena will be assigned an appropriate mate, get married, and then live out a well-planned, well-ordered (if emotionally empty) life. Just before she takes The Cure however, Lena falls in love with a renegade boy named Alan. Alan is a member of a resistance group called the Invalids, an underground movement that challenges the loveless values of the society they live in.
Lena’s own mother committed suicide when Lena was six years old. Despite undergoing three rounds of The Cure, her mother never stopped loving her daughters; she took her own life before the government could punish her. Years later, as Lena discovers her own awakening emotions for Alan, she arouses the suspicions of her caretaker family; they’ve been monitoring Lena for years, just in case she exhibits any signs of the deliria. Like mother, like daughter, they figure.
This story kept me turning the pages quickly. Oliver does an excellent job of getting us inside the head of Lena. She vividly conveys the topsy-turvy, out-of-control feeling that adolescents experience when they first develop feelings of love and attraction. There’s a strong element of fear throughout the novel, too—because at any moment, any expression of love or emotion could subject Lena to terrible reprisals. This is a strong, well-written Young Adult fantasy. I really enjoyed it!
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
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Title: Her Fearful Symmetry
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Release Date: September 29, 2010
Pages: 406
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “She felt as though her soul were attempting to climb out by way of her esophagus.”
In Her Fearful Symmetry, author Audrey Niffenegger has penned a story that exceeds the already-high expectations set by her blockbuster 2003 debut novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife.
After the untimely death of their Aunt Elspeth from cancer, a pair of twin sisters—Julia and Valentina Poole—inherit Elspeth’s London apartment. The gift comes with some strange strings attached, including a requirement that the sisters live in the apartment for a year before selling it.
As soon as they’re ensconced in Elspeth’s flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery, Julia and Valentina get to know the neighborhood. Their neighbors include a number of oddballs, including Elspeth’s lover, Robert. As a tour guide who is writing a scholarly paper about Highgate, Robert knows everything there is to know about the cemetery—including its secrets. As the story unfolds, spirits of the dead make occasional comeback appearances, which means that Aunt Elspeth may not be gone for good.
Partly a ghost story, partly a tale about the intensity of twin sister relationships, Her Fearful Symmetry is a complex novel. Highgate Cemetery is a real burial site that opened outside London in 1839; the way Niffenegger evokes the cemetery’s atmosphere is one of the most compelling aspects of the novel. The cemetery seems to hover over the characters, oppressing them with its brooding, supernatural presence. Questions are raised: Will Elspeth’s human spirit ultimately be released? Or will her psyche be held earthbound, where it will become frustrated, and fester?
If you enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife, you’re certain to fall in love with Her Fearful Symmetry. By any literary measure, this is an extremely readable, compelling book.
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
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Title: Garden Spells
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Pages: 320
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Best Book Quote: “Every smiley moon, without fail, Claire dreamed of her childhood. She always tried to stay awake those nights when the stars winked and the moon was just a cresting sliver smiling provocatively down at the world, the way pretty women on vintage billboards used to smile as they sold cigarettes and limeade.”
The Waverly women of Bascom, North Carolina are special. Each of them is endowed with a quiet but special gift. Claire Waverly can affect people’s emotions through her cooking. Evanelle has a knack for giving people what they need, just before they need it. Five-year-old Bay knows exactly where things belong, including her own mother. Even the apple tree in the Waverly’s back yard has a power: Its fruit reveals selective visions of the future.
In Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen’s debut novel, each of the Waverly women must come to terms with her gift as well as the Waverly family name. After growing up with a mother who abandoned her and her sister, Claire must learn how to trust people again; she must especially learn how to trust her new neighbor, a man who seems determined to love her no matter how much she tries to ignore him. Claire’s sister Sydney, an expatriate who fled Bascom when she turned 18, decides to return to the sanctuary of her childhood home to protect her young daughter when the outside world grows too dangerous. Before she finds a peaceful future, Sydney must reconcile shadows from her past while discovering the nature of her own special power.
Author Sarah Addison Allen does a superb job at creating the cozy, comforting fantasy universe that the Waverly women inhabit. The world of the Waverlys is a highly appealing one, from Claire’s garden and kitchen to the apple tree that hurls fruit like a benign version of the trees in The Wizard of Oz.
If you’re in the mood for a gentle, uplifting tale of magic, one that entertains while reinforcing the healing power of family ties, you will love Garden Spells. Highly recommended!
Intriguing Fantasy Book: Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti
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Title: Amazon Ink
Author: Lori Devoti
Release Date: May 26, 2009
Pages: 372
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “Tatooing is a sacred business for Amazons – one exclusively performed by women, for obvious reasons. Men just don’t have the same spiritual depth. I found it endlessly funny that in the modern world men had come to dominate the art. Of course, it also explained why most tattoos today no longer possess the power they should.”
Amazon Ink is an urban fantasy with a new twist. In Book One of the Amazons series, Lori Devoti introduces us to the world of the Amazon warrior in modern society. She details, with great skill, how the mythical tribe of female fighters lives in today’s world and how they exist without giving away any of their secrets. She introduces us to Melanippe Saka, a shamed Amazon warrior who left the tribe ten years earlier to give her daughter a normal upbringing. Even though Mel has left her tribe behind, she is always watched by her warrior mother and priestess grandmother – the tribe plans to keep an eye on her. Mel wants nothing more than to forget the pain that her tribe has caused her.
Mel has built herself a very successful tattoo business because of her unique magical skills in tattoo creation. She is doing just fine without the tribe and she wants it to stay that way but, unfortunately, that is not to be for Mel. Suddenly, dead bodies have started to show up on her doorstep. These bodies are Amazon tribe girls that in any normal circumstance could not be captured, let alone killed. Mel hides the bodies while she tries to solve the murders before somebody starts to blame her.
Add in a sexy tattoo artist named Peter who knows a whole lot more about the murders than he should and you’ve got the makings of an excellent urban fantasy. The character of Mel is engaging as she skillfully juggles the many problems that have arrived on her doorstep along with the dead bodies. Lori Devoti has given fantasy readers a true treat with this action filled mystery that has a twist of romance added in for fun. For the fantasy reader out there, this urban fantasy book is one that you will certainly enjoy.
