Sunday 24 March 2013

Blood Oranges by Kathleen Tierney

Blood Oranges by Kathleen Tierney (who is actually Caitlin R. Kiernan) is nasty, brutal and compelling. Nasty and brutal in both terms of story and commentary on Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, sometimes quite explicitly. Twilight gets a fair share of bile aimed at it for example.

Siobahn Quinn is a monster hunter and heroin addict, and after the first chapter, a monster and murder addict. She's both a vampire and a werewolf and has the worst attributes of both. She needs to feed as a vampire every few days and vampires in this world kill every time they feed. As a werewolf, she's the classic werewolf, essentially going furry and then waking up naked somewhere covered in blood and choking up body parts of which there is plenty in this book.

A lot of thought has obviously gone into deconstructing the genre, from the dodgy motives of the mentor figure, to the real consequences of taking out supernaturals and the fact that the murderous activities of Quinn are widely noticed among that community. As far as romance with the monsters, that's barely hinted at, including that vampires over a certain age "are as sexless as ken dolls".

Pack that in with Kiernan's brilliant writing and signature unreliable narrator (but nowhere near as bad as Imp, thank goodness).

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