Well, about a year after publishing Closer Than Family, I think I’m about done with the research phase of Hellhound. I hope. I still don’t have what I would consider a proper outline, but I’m about to start on that, and I’m putting my thoughts down here as part of getting ready to do so. So, this is what I’ve done so far.

I read (and re-read) five different romance-ish books, two by Ali Hazelwood (Love, Theoretically and Mate, and no I did not read Bride, my advisor / friend described it to me and I have little interest in doing so); two by Kerrelyn Sparks from her Love at Stake series (the first two: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire and Vamps and the City), and finally one by Sara Wolf, Heavenbreaker. I will probably also re-read The Wolfen by Whitley Streiber one more time before I get too much farther, but I’ve already read it at least 3 times, so I’m not committed to that, it’s just something I’d like to do before I really tackle Hellhound, because Wolfen was one of my core inspirations for how I handle werewolves (even though the Wolfen are, in fact very different from my approach).

So okay, what did I think of these books? What did I learn? What will I use?

The first thing I learned is that I need to find more of Sara Wolf’s work and read it after I finish Hellhound because Heavenbreaker was the best damn thing I have read in ages. I’m going to try not to dwell on it too long, but I heartily, unreservedly recommend it. I said multiple times reading it, but Heavenbreaker was so good it makes me angry. It unfortunately didn’t demonstrate a full romance arc (which was the main purpose of my research) but I wouldn’t say the time spent reading it was wasted by any means, because there certainly is a romantic tension, and the character work is phenomenal. So, for that matter, are the worldbuilding, plotting and prose. I would call it a ‘master class’ in speculative fiction writing. I could easily write ten thousand words just on Heavenbreaker, but that’s not what I’m here for, so I’ll just say again, it’s a very good book–and if you like my characters, especially Becky, you’ll probably like the main character Synali, because they have quite a bit in common, personality-wise.

Okay, let’s talk about those other books. My admittedly limited experience with Ali Hazelwood does make me want to stay away from her para-romance type books, because I know she makes very different choices than I would as regards supernatural nonsense, and it distracts me from the story. Mate was fine, not badly written, but like I mentioned last time, the worldbuilding and specifically werewolf related decisions bothered me. (Plus I wasn’t wild about the MMC, Koen’s, speech patterns, but partway through I recognized it was a character decision. Still.) Overall, there were a lot of details that got under my skin and made it hard to enjoy the story for what it was. In at least Love, Theoretically and Mate, the FMCs (Elsie and Serena) have a ‘helpless’ vibe that also gets under my skin. They both have some physical problem that seriously impairs them throughout the narrative, which is dramatic, but it can feel like ‘drama for drama’s sake’. (Actually several of the ‘turns’ in Mate felt that way, at least to me.) They’re written interestingly enough that it wasn’t obnoxious reading them, so I didn’t hate the books (although I’d probably not choose to read Mate again, even though I would read Love, Theoretically again), but I would have preferred different choices. It’s not that they don’t serve a purpose in the plot: they totally do. I just feel like there are better ways of fostering drama than giving the FMC what amounts to a disability. (Especially in Mate, where what the doctors think is a terminal illness turns out just to be a ‘heat’ so her biologically mandated mate Koen has to bang her like a screen door. Oh, how terrible, they have to knock boots with each other, nothing they can do about it! Beleagured sigh.) I liked Serena better on a personal level, but I was more annoyed by her physical drama, while Elsie slightly annoyed me personally, but her physical drama was less egregious. Again, these aren’t terrible books by any means, but in a lot of cases, Ali Hazelwood does make very different choices than I would. It’s a testament to her writing that I liked both books as well as I did, despite things that irritated me or just didn’t resonate. For example, I have virtually no interest in academia as a setting, but Love, Theoretically made it transparent and benign enough that it felt natural. I probably will check out more of Ali’s work, though I make no guarantee on reading anything in particular. (And again, I definitely have no intention of reading Bride.)

Oh boy, Love at Stake. If you like romance, and especially para-romance, and you haven’t checked out Kerrelyn Sparks, you need to read at least How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire. This book is a hoot. This is a case of some ‘physical drama’ being imposed on the FMC (Shanna) where I didn’t find it annoying. An attack by Russian mafia that resulted in her friend’s death left her with PTSD that manifests as a fear of blood, which is a problem for a dentist, and especially when a sexy vampire (Roman Draganesti, possibly my favorite vampire name of all time) needs a tooth reattached by morning, lest his natural healing close the wound while he sleeps and make him a lopsided eater for all eternity. How he lost the tooth is a story in itself, which you see in the first chapter of the book and I’m not going to spoil it, except to say that I’ve read this book three or four times, and this whole sequence is funny every time. Also, Shanna gets over her physical drama (with Roman’s help) in the course of the story. Character development! (I guess Serena does in Mate too, to be completely fair to that book.) How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire has fun characters (some a little cartoonish, but you can tell the book doesn’t take itself entirely seriously so I don’t feel that they’re tonally dissonant), tight plotting, entertaining worldbuilding, breezy prose, and plenty of laughs. This book was my favorite romance as such that I read (Heavenbreaker, again, didn’t have a full romance arc, the implication is that it will go farther in the next book(s).) Vamps and the City follows on, with some of the side characters that pop up in the first book, although the alpha couple in this case don’t cross paths until the narrative of their actual story gets started, which is as it should be. Darcy is an interesting case in not having any true ‘physical drama’, except that she is a vampire, and doesn’t want to be (as part of that, she hasn’t developed her vampire powers much, which causes some problems over the course of the story). Her MMC, Austin, is a CIA agent, and though (as you would expect) he’s a highly trained fighter (and a strong telepathic talent to boot), she can overpower him physically–so in Vamps and the City, the alpha couple are actually pretty closely matched as to their ‘power levels’. (Heavenbreaker makes clear that Synali is almost certainly no match for her MMC Rax in the ‘saddle’, jousting with the giant fighting robots called ‘steeds’, where they both spend a lot of time throughout the book, nor physically, but this doesn’t feel like a mismatch somehow. Maybe it’s because Synali has so much burning determination as part of her character makeup that you think she could overcome just about anything by sheer willpower.) Anyway, Kerrelyn Sparks has a real talent for comedy writing and even though my friend who reccommended these books to me said the later ones aren’t as good, I might check them out just to see, because there are some genuinely laugh-out-loud lines and situations throughout both books, and I kind of want to see if she can keep it up.

It’s not a wide sampling, but I’m hoping the notes I’ve taken will give me enough fuel going into Hellhound to turn it into the story I know it can be. I know I’ve got the components for a really good conclusion to what I’ve built so far, but I need to develop it more and (once again) make sure I don’t end up needing to start over once I’ve finished a first draft. To wrap up, here are some rankings.

Overall, descending order of favorites: Heavenbreaker, How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire, Love, Theoretically, Vamps and the City, Mate. Descending order of FMCs: Shanna, Synali, Darcy, Elsie, Serena. Descending order of MMCs: Roman, Jack, Rax, Austin, Koen. Boy, looking at this, I guess Mate really did irritate me, it comes last in every category (although MMCs are a much closer ranking overall in this case. The only thing I didn’t like about Koen specifically, as a character, was that he tends to sound like he’s in junior high). Also I guess I’m not a fan of how Ali Hazelwood writes women, at least in these two stories, though I already touched on that up above.

Alright, that’s enough for tonight, Merry Christmas everyone, hopefully my next post will be to let you know I’ve finished an outline and am working on the writing.