"Wicked as they Come" by Delilah S. Dawson
The novel I've chosen to review is "Wicked as they Come" by Delilah S. Dawson. I have a very large soft spot for steampunk and when I found this, I knew better based on the tag line: "Step right up! Test your mettle- and your heart."
I took it out anyway.
I should probably say now that I am not a writer, and this is my first review so I'm more than a little shy.
The book begins with Letitia Paisley, called Tish and she works with the elderly and takes care of her darling Southern stereotype grandmother. The novel begins when she accidentally steals a locket from the estate sale of a woman she cared for, then she whines about a man named Jeff who apparently dislikes her musical taste. She goes to bed, wakes up naked in a strange place and there is a handsome man and they begin a witty banter. And she is bitten by a bunny.
Oh, but it is not a regular bunny...
But forget about being bitten by a herbivore, a caravan has come into view! And it's old-timey and fun, yet there are no animals (at this point, you have to prepare yourself for being beaten about the head with foreshadowing) And it belongs to the snappy gentleman who calls himself 'Criminy Stain' (rhymes with Jiminy Cricket).
For some reason the local police show up and call Criminy 'Bludman', but fear not for Tish, she's been made invisible but the bludmares can smell her. Thankfully the police, despite saying that 'bludmares are never wrong', choose to leave the circus without incident.
Yeah, it's vampires. Although Criminy has never heard of "Victorian England" or "vampire" but apparently vampires Blud.. people? Can be made or born, and THAT'S why the bunny bit her! Oh and non-Bluds are called "Pinky" because of their pink complexion.
But their witty banter must come to an end because it's dress up time!!! Frothy black skirts and a black stain corset, where she has a flashback about this Jeff again. When it comes time to lace the corset, she thinks about Scarlett O'Hara and "The first yank on the lacing was still shocking, and the tugging didn't stop until I felt as if my lungs were going to explode. Little bars dug into my stomach and pressed against my chest." Sorry, but speaking as someone who has worn a corset on a regular basis... even my first time laced in I did not have any feelings close to 'explosion'.
"The dress was snug against every inch of my skin until it met my hips, where it flared out and in like a mermaid's tail. A waterfall of ruffles cascaded off my bum."... "I had been transformed into a curvy Victorian bombshell. Or Gothic bombshell, maybe, because even for a garment that covered every inch of skin, there was something decidedly dark and sexy about the thing."
'Gothic' should not be capitalized, it's a music/fashion subculture and I doubt she meant a Visigoth bombshell...
Oh and the boots are really high too, her hair is unruly but made tame with hairpins and sexy tendrils, fascinator and when it comes to makeup time she refuses the white face paint because it is made from chalk and belladonna and our nurse is a clever boots! But she allows eyeliner and rouge to be put on.
Then she accidentally touches the woman who dressed her up and had a vision! Turns out she can touch people and know their future, but first she has to dance about with Criminy and think mean thoughts about Jeff again because he called her 'Tish', while Criminy calls her 'Letitia'. (Just as an aside, 'Letitia' is one of my favourite names and this Mary Sue does not deserve such a lovely name).
We meet the other members of the caravan: The woman who dressed her, a bored girl on a unicycle, some guy with a puppet, a sulky mermaid who really wants Criminy's attention, a strong man, a two-headed boy, an Abyssinian sword swallower who has skin that is "indigo-black", a lizard boy and two contortionists. She gets her own caravan because she's a "fortune telling gypsy" now. With a turban!
And finally some details, turns out there is an unsteady relationship between Blud people and humans, Blud people are second-class citizens and money is in coin and vials of blood and best of all? There are no diseases here. Nothing.
Letitia tells Criminy about the magical place she comes from, where vampires are story book monsters and there are great buildings called 'hospitals' and there are diseases left and right.
And then she faints and wakes up in her own world, where she accepts a phone call from her Grandmother, then falls back asleep and wakes up in Criminy's world, where they take a walk, she kicks a bunny and cries. Turns out, Jeff is a bastard who treated her like a child and hit her and she really likes 'Sang' but she HAS to go home because without her, her grandmother will simply up and die because Letitia is her raison d'être. But more witty banter and flirting!
A quick mention of "clockwork" animals, which are elaborate robots in the shape of monkeys, polar bears etc.
But now: ANOTHER love interest who has eyes only for Letitia! He's a pinky from her world, and he's one of her patients. "It was amazing, the difference between a pale, wasting, inert body and a living, breathing man. The Mr. Sterling I knew had a shaved head and scrawny arms and drooled. But the Casper before me was tanned and gorgeous, like a poetic version of Robinson Crusoe."
UNF ladies. UNF.
And since there is no Beethoven or Mozart in Sang, he's a GENIUS because he plays their music and calls it his own. Line up ladies, line up.
And it continues where she lives between worlds, reads fortunes and bewitches every man who crosses her path and nothing happens beyond witty banter and Letitia complains about Jeff and thinks about how Criminy makes her knees weak for some time.
Locale names are all 'zany' as well:
France= Franchia
Spain= Vane
Someone steals her locket, which allows her to move through the two worlds and Criminy readily abandons his caravan and they go on a bizarre tear through Sang to get the locket back from some sort of evil man. But before getting the locket back, they have sex.
The bad guys shows up toward the middle of the book, and he lives on an island full of non vampire animals and the mermaid from the beginning and her name is Tabitha and she is helping the bad guy because she loves Criminy and wants him all to herself.
They meet a random woman named 'Madame Burial' who steals 5 years of life from Letitia for reasons I don't know.
They track down the villain who wants to eliminate all the Blud people from the world, and his plan is to make Letitia go back to her world and... get a disease and bring it back to Sang. That's the brilliant plan. And if she doesn't agree to this plan she will lose Criminy forever, but while she is very concerned about this, she also finds the time to gripe about her outfit, which isn't as pretty as her "Gothic bombshell" clothing.
She goes back to her world and kills the bad guy, because it turns out, he's comatose as well, just like the guy in love with Letitia! So she drives to his house and murders him, then comes back to Sang and waits for him to die in Sang world.
Then Criminy tricks her into thinking he's dead, he's not and she lives in both worlds and waits to turn into a vampire.
Aside from the obvious Mary Sue-ness of the whole thing, one of the parts that bothered me the most was that any time something goes wrong, gets difficult to navigate or just becomes difficult... Letitia cries. She cries and thinks about herself primarily and sometimes thinks of her wonderful grandmother, but it always comes across as an afterthought.
And every time she changes her wardrobe, it's given to us in great detail and by the end she complains when her outfits are not as pretty as she likes, the worst outfit is the man's clothing she has to wear. It's ugly and has pants.
So I did read the whole book and by the end I just sighed and returned it happily to he library.
Hopefully you enjoyed what I wrote, and please don't punish yourself with this book.
I took it out anyway.
I should probably say now that I am not a writer, and this is my first review so I'm more than a little shy.
The book begins with Letitia Paisley, called Tish and she works with the elderly and takes care of her darling Southern stereotype grandmother. The novel begins when she accidentally steals a locket from the estate sale of a woman she cared for, then she whines about a man named Jeff who apparently dislikes her musical taste. She goes to bed, wakes up naked in a strange place and there is a handsome man and they begin a witty banter. And she is bitten by a bunny.
Oh, but it is not a regular bunny...
But forget about being bitten by a herbivore, a caravan has come into view! And it's old-timey and fun, yet there are no animals (at this point, you have to prepare yourself for being beaten about the head with foreshadowing) And it belongs to the snappy gentleman who calls himself 'Criminy Stain' (rhymes with Jiminy Cricket).
For some reason the local police show up and call Criminy 'Bludman', but fear not for Tish, she's been made invisible but the bludmares can smell her. Thankfully the police, despite saying that 'bludmares are never wrong', choose to leave the circus without incident.
Yeah, it's vampires. Although Criminy has never heard of "Victorian England" or "vampire" but apparently vampires Blud.. people? Can be made or born, and THAT'S why the bunny bit her! Oh and non-Bluds are called "Pinky" because of their pink complexion.
But their witty banter must come to an end because it's dress up time!!! Frothy black skirts and a black stain corset, where she has a flashback about this Jeff again. When it comes time to lace the corset, she thinks about Scarlett O'Hara and "The first yank on the lacing was still shocking, and the tugging didn't stop until I felt as if my lungs were going to explode. Little bars dug into my stomach and pressed against my chest." Sorry, but speaking as someone who has worn a corset on a regular basis... even my first time laced in I did not have any feelings close to 'explosion'.
"The dress was snug against every inch of my skin until it met my hips, where it flared out and in like a mermaid's tail. A waterfall of ruffles cascaded off my bum."... "I had been transformed into a curvy Victorian bombshell. Or Gothic bombshell, maybe, because even for a garment that covered every inch of skin, there was something decidedly dark and sexy about the thing."
'Gothic' should not be capitalized, it's a music/fashion subculture and I doubt she meant a Visigoth bombshell...
Oh and the boots are really high too, her hair is unruly but made tame with hairpins and sexy tendrils, fascinator and when it comes to makeup time she refuses the white face paint because it is made from chalk and belladonna and our nurse is a clever boots! But she allows eyeliner and rouge to be put on.
Then she accidentally touches the woman who dressed her up and had a vision! Turns out she can touch people and know their future, but first she has to dance about with Criminy and think mean thoughts about Jeff again because he called her 'Tish', while Criminy calls her 'Letitia'. (Just as an aside, 'Letitia' is one of my favourite names and this Mary Sue does not deserve such a lovely name).
We meet the other members of the caravan: The woman who dressed her, a bored girl on a unicycle, some guy with a puppet, a sulky mermaid who really wants Criminy's attention, a strong man, a two-headed boy, an Abyssinian sword swallower who has skin that is "indigo-black", a lizard boy and two contortionists. She gets her own caravan because she's a "fortune telling gypsy" now. With a turban!
And finally some details, turns out there is an unsteady relationship between Blud people and humans, Blud people are second-class citizens and money is in coin and vials of blood and best of all? There are no diseases here. Nothing.
Letitia tells Criminy about the magical place she comes from, where vampires are story book monsters and there are great buildings called 'hospitals' and there are diseases left and right.
And then she faints and wakes up in her own world, where she accepts a phone call from her Grandmother, then falls back asleep and wakes up in Criminy's world, where they take a walk, she kicks a bunny and cries. Turns out, Jeff is a bastard who treated her like a child and hit her and she really likes 'Sang' but she HAS to go home because without her, her grandmother will simply up and die because Letitia is her raison d'être. But more witty banter and flirting!
A quick mention of "clockwork" animals, which are elaborate robots in the shape of monkeys, polar bears etc.
But now: ANOTHER love interest who has eyes only for Letitia! He's a pinky from her world, and he's one of her patients. "It was amazing, the difference between a pale, wasting, inert body and a living, breathing man. The Mr. Sterling I knew had a shaved head and scrawny arms and drooled. But the Casper before me was tanned and gorgeous, like a poetic version of Robinson Crusoe."
UNF ladies. UNF.
And since there is no Beethoven or Mozart in Sang, he's a GENIUS because he plays their music and calls it his own. Line up ladies, line up.
And it continues where she lives between worlds, reads fortunes and bewitches every man who crosses her path and nothing happens beyond witty banter and Letitia complains about Jeff and thinks about how Criminy makes her knees weak for some time.
Locale names are all 'zany' as well:
France= Franchia
Spain= Vane
Someone steals her locket, which allows her to move through the two worlds and Criminy readily abandons his caravan and they go on a bizarre tear through Sang to get the locket back from some sort of evil man. But before getting the locket back, they have sex.
The bad guys shows up toward the middle of the book, and he lives on an island full of non vampire animals and the mermaid from the beginning and her name is Tabitha and she is helping the bad guy because she loves Criminy and wants him all to herself.
They meet a random woman named 'Madame Burial' who steals 5 years of life from Letitia for reasons I don't know.
They track down the villain who wants to eliminate all the Blud people from the world, and his plan is to make Letitia go back to her world and... get a disease and bring it back to Sang. That's the brilliant plan. And if she doesn't agree to this plan she will lose Criminy forever, but while she is very concerned about this, she also finds the time to gripe about her outfit, which isn't as pretty as her "Gothic bombshell" clothing.
She goes back to her world and kills the bad guy, because it turns out, he's comatose as well, just like the guy in love with Letitia! So she drives to his house and murders him, then comes back to Sang and waits for him to die in Sang world.
Then Criminy tricks her into thinking he's dead, he's not and she lives in both worlds and waits to turn into a vampire.
Aside from the obvious Mary Sue-ness of the whole thing, one of the parts that bothered me the most was that any time something goes wrong, gets difficult to navigate or just becomes difficult... Letitia cries. She cries and thinks about herself primarily and sometimes thinks of her wonderful grandmother, but it always comes across as an afterthought.
And every time she changes her wardrobe, it's given to us in great detail and by the end she complains when her outfits are not as pretty as she likes, the worst outfit is the man's clothing she has to wear. It's ugly and has pants.
So I did read the whole book and by the end I just sighed and returned it happily to he library.
Hopefully you enjoyed what I wrote, and please don't punish yourself with this book.