Bleurgh!

I hate it when a plan doesn’t come together.

There I was on Friday expecting to spend a happy night curled up on the sofa with my book and a couple of glasses of wine. Unfortunately, I spent the evening with my head over a bucket being sick as a very sick dog and trying not to pass out from dizziness instead. No idea why. I thought maybe food poisoning at the time, but after excessive sleep and a feeling of nausea all day on Saturday and continuing into today along with a headache which is only just beginning to fade it makes it more likely that I had a bug. Still fragile today, I have the dubious pleasure of feeling like I spent all day yesterday doing abdominal crunches where my muscles have seized up after all that retching.

Still on the bright side I’ve finished the book and finally know what all the fuss was about (yes of course I checked out the furore as soon as I was done with it, although I’m saving the podcasts for when I go back to work). Not being religious or extremist and being perfectly well aware that vampires don’t really exist, at least not in the way the Cullen’s are portrayed, I actually had little problem with the book.

For me it was every bit as enjoyable as the previous three and the story was just as unlikely as any of the prequels. I can’t really say much without giving away spoilers, unfair for anyone who is yet likely to read it, but I’d have said the story was pretty much predictable for anyone who has a basic grasp of the characters and their motivations. This sounds like a criticism, but it really isn’t. For me the series read exactly like what it was, a teenage romance that just happened to involve supernatural characters.

As I said before I’m a sucker for vampire stories and also for romances, so it fit perfectly into my reading schedule. It reminded me in some ways of the fantastic Freda Warrington vampire series – ‘Taste of Blood Wine’; ‘A Dance in Blood Velvet’ and ‘The Dark Blood of Poppies’, although Freda’s books are far better written and much more adult in tone. I know these books seem to be rare as hen’s teeth to get hold of but if you prefer less teen romance, more classic vampire seduction then definitely check out these books. They are firmly in my top three favourite vampire series of all time, along with Brian Lumley’s ‘Necroscope’ series and of course the quintessential vampire stories by Anne Rice.

In retrospect I don’t regret buying ‘Breaking Dawn’ at all. Yes I was weak-willed as Mrs H3 so kindly pointed out, but I needed to know what happened and now I do and am very happy because of that. And now I look forward to ‘Midnight Sun’, the retelling of ‘Twilight’ from Edward Cullen’s perspective; mainly because I feel it will be interesting to see how the author deals with the vampire side of things properly and I won’t be able to resist reading romance from Edward's viewpoint.

But what to read next? Well I’m currently reading the new Jeffrey Deaver ‘The Sleeping Doll’, that I started last week before I bought ‘Breaking Dawn’ and I’m rereading all the Harry Potters (currently close to finishing ‘Goblet of Fire’). I really want to read Matthew Reilly’s ‘Six Sacred Stones’, the follow-on to ‘Seven Ancient Wonders’ that I thoroughly enjoyed, as soon as I go shopping in Asda to buy a copy. But I’m now wondering whether it might be time to re-read the classic vampire stories I love, after all it’s been a few years since I read the Freda Warrington, the Anne Rice and the Brian Lumley. Oh and while I think of it, maybe its time to dig out George R R Martin’s wonderful ‘Fevre Dream’ too.