#iwantobesarahaparkerwhenigrowup

[valeriec80]

To Snap a Silver Stem

Hi hi! I haven’t written a post in a long while. This is going to be a review of the 2nd book in a romantic fantasy series by Sarah A. Parker. I reviewed the first book about a year ago in a gushing fangirly breathless kind of way, because it was all the things! It was my favorite book of the year! I was so looking forward to the sequel! OMG! 

Well, it’s probably inevitable, with that much pressure, that the second book did not live up to my expectations, lol. This review will contain SPOILERS. It will function primarily as an exercise for me as an author to determine elements of story that don’t work for me personally so that I can use these observations to strengthen my own storytelling. It is not intended to be, like, *the* reason why the book doesn’t work. Everyone will have their own subjective experience with the book. Lots of people seem to have liked it. I also liked various aspects of it a fracking LOT, and I’ll detail that at the end.

So, I can’t be sure, but I feel like this is maybe Parker’s, like, fifth book or something. She may have a bunch of trunk novels or some other pen name I don’t know about, but I well know what it’s like to have a first novel of a series that just writes itself and then get to the second book, wherein you have no idea how to even do the thing anymore. As a younger author, I had real trouble learning how to structure trilogies, how to figure out what to do with a stretched-out romance arc, all kinds of things. And Parker is just a better writer than me. Like, I may have written over a hundred novels, but she snows me hardcore. She’s naturally talented in a way I’ll never be. Am I jealous? Oh, yeah. So, bear that in mind too when evaluating this review. There is no wrath like the wrath of a jealous author. Oh, and all authors are jealous and insecure and always think everyone else’s career is better than theirs. (It’s me. I do this.)

Anyway, the second book founders. The first book was a chugging engine, driven entirely around the mystery of who Orlaith really was, why Rhordyn was drinking her blood, why he was such a dick to her, why she was so into him even though he was a dick, just questions that begat questions and the more you read, the more tantalizing they became. It’s about damned near perfect, and the tease of the sexiness, the hint of a possible love interest who would be the opposite of Rhordyn, all of that is just great.

So, in book two, some promises had been made by Parker, I thought. I thought we’d been promised a look at Orlaith in a relationship with Cainon, and that it should be a foil for her romance to Rhordyn, kind of everything that Rhordyn isn’t. Ultimately, I expected Rhordyn to be endgame, but I wanted something sunnier and sweeter for Orlaith, and I looked forward to the pleasure of that.

Unfortunately, Cainon is just Rhordyn-lite. Parker can write one male love interest, apparently, and he’s a flavor I’m just not entirely fond of. It’s a fine line. I do like it when love interests are prickly and even downright asshole-ish, as long as there are some other elements in play. The meaner he is, the more power I want the female mc to have in balance (Orlaith is kinda pathetic, but I don’t mind pathetic female characters). The meaner he is, the more significant she needs to be to him. I guess I want it to make sense. She should make him suffer SO MUCH that I get *why* he’s such a dick? And this... meh... maybe? I don’t know, because Parker is playing so much close to the chest. Maybe Rhordyn *is* suffering because of Orlaith, but I just don’t know enough yet. 

This brings me to my next point, which is that book two is really padded and stretched out, and there are long bits of boring things in there where nothing significant is happening, and when you get to the end of the book, you realize why, because Parker had another big reveal planned, just like the reveal at the beginning of book one. And I feel I would have made a different choice with this reveal. A-the reveal is kinda dumb. Like, in the first book, we don’t know why Rhordyn is drinking her blood, but you can kinda guess, like, probably he’s a vampire. I mean, he’s not. But whatever. It doesn’t matter what you *call* him. He drinks blood because he’s a creature who drinks blood. This is a dumb reveal. Also, like, these kinds of creatures are eeeeeevil. Duh? Okay. I read all the way to here for this? B-by forcing everything focus on this one big reveal at the end of the book, you force all your characters to stagnate, because you’re just marking time until you pull out this big finish, and you’re expecting your readers to stay on board for it, but they don’t know it’s coming, and a book is more than its end. The book is the book. The beginning and middle need to also be good and compelling. You can’t *just* have a reveal, and if you are sacrificing important story elements to preserve your big reveal, deep-six the reveal. The book is the book. No element is so important it should drag down the other elements.

I feel like maybe intuitively, Parker knew this. It got pushed back, the publication date did, and she had a YEAR to write it, so I’m figuring she was stuck. And here’s what you should have done, in my opinion, Sarah Parker, is moved that reveal to the middle of the book, and then said to yourself, okay, what’s that do to my characters? And definitely don’t have Orlaith push Rhordyn off a cliff. Seriously?

Okay, this brings me to my next point. There’s a lot of tension in the book that doesn’t land because it’s not tense. Case in point, there’s a big, big scene with a sea monster in the beginning of the book, and I skimmed the whole thing, because I know Orlaith is not going to get killed by a sea monster. I’m not dumb. That would end the story. And there were other characters in danger, but they were all new people who I cgaf about, so... blah. Similarly, she ends the book with Orlaith “killing” Rhordyn.

Um.

Yeah. I believe he’s dead.

Why would you *do* this?

So, now, Parker is in the position of either having to do this thing at the beginning of book three where she Jon-Snows us all summer and is like, “No, no, he’s really dead” and tries to convince us she was serious. Which will fail. Because we all know he’s not dead. So, I would recommend, like, not doing that. Just--first scene, Rhordyn is alive and, uh, killing him has triggered his evil side, like his humanity switch has been turned off like Damon Salvatore, and then he’s a really real asshole? No, I don’t know how you fix this clusterfuck, to be honest, but... you *could* fix it. It’s doable. I’ll tune in for book three to see what happens. 

Okay, so I think overall what Parker seems to have forgotten is that a book should be about pleasure, and even if your pleasures tend toward watching characters suffer (mine do, no shade), it’s still about pleasure. And the book feels like work to me. There’s few and far between with a feeling that permeates through that she was actually enjoying herself or that I’m conversely enjoying *myself*. And I get that too. Trembling, for instance, the agony that was drafting that book? And it’s soooo terrible, you know. Like Sarah Parker runs circles around my early writing efforts and runs circles around me now.

So, we should get to the stuff I loved, especially if poor Sarah Parker is reading this. (I can’t stop reading bad reviews either! Agh. Go get yourself some chocolate, though, lady, you deserve it.) 

There’s this Kai subplot that is chef’s kiss. Sooo sexy. Love.

Rhordyn... Rhordyn is hawtt in this book. There’s this scene at the end where she like jumps him in the shower and gives him a handjob, and this scene is the best, most sexiest, angstiest, everything-is-so-good scene I’ve read this year. *fans self furiously*

Orlaith loses her virginity to some random dude! Fuck yes. That was great. Wonderful choice. I commend you, Sarah Parker! You are my hero.

I like the worldbuilding, and I like how not revealed it is at all. People talk about it in passing, and you just have to figure it out, and that’s... god, we need more of that. If I have to skim another super boring half-page of exposition about some random thing in some fantasy world ever again it’ll be too soon. But I will. Because not everyone is as brilliant as Parker, more’s the pity.

Oh, there’s this scene with Cainon and Rhordyn at dinner like just gritting their teeth at each other, and I get so wet for men fighting over women. That was great.

I also have had real trouble getting into fantasy books this year. Real, real trouble. And I read this pretty quick. So, whatever with my ripping it shreds. I clearly did not stop reading it, which is saying something.

Anyway, that’s it for me.