It's like the gay romance novel I always wanted
It's not often that my search of the internet brings me goodies, but when it does, they are always the best goodies. I found a link to what was being touted as "original vampire slash" on delicious.com. Given that I am a masochist sometimes, I clicked on the link and started reading.
About two pages in I see the word "Carpathian." Wait. I know that word. It's from a series of truly terrible romance novels by Christine Feehan. I am dying laughing now because when I say these books are terrible, I mean they are bad.
How bad? Well, the whole plot device is you have these "Carpathians" who are immortal, have fangs, must drink blood from other humans to live, and turn into ash if they go out in the sunlight. Hmmm... why does this sound familiar? Oh yes! Because they are vampires. Only in the romance novels vampires are the insane "Carpathians" who have gone crazy because they haven't found their lifemate - their one TRU LURV. If they don't find their lifemate, they become color blind (i.e. start losing colors), and then one by one their emotions shut down. When they eventually go batpoo crazy, it's up to the other "Carpathians" to hunt them down. Which is just an excuse for an angst fest "Oh nos! My friend for 800 years has gone round the bend because he can't find his ONE TRUE healing vagina. Now I must kill him. But since I am emotionally constipated as well, it won't hit me until later in an epic dramatic scene."
The problem is that "Carpathian" (I absolutely refuse to use that term like it's a real word. They are fucking vampires! Or possibly aliens. I don't want to read all the series to find out...) women are a rare and special breed. So when one pops out, ever single sexy "Carpathian" (and they are all sexy and beautiful) wants her like burning. "Carpathians" can't mate with regular women since they are super special. But they can mate with women who have some sort of power, like clairvoyants, mind-readers, etc.
I tried to read one of these books, and couldn't get more than a quarter way through it. The writing was horrendous, the characters were one dimensional, and oh god, that plot device. SHOOT ME. My mom, on the other hand, loves them. So much so that she proceeded to tell me about the various plots in them for at least an hour. Which is the only reason I know so much about this series.
I also know that Every single title in this series begins with "Dark." Dark Curse, Dark Peril, Dark Prince, Dark Sympathy... you get the idea. There's something like 20 of these books, so I wouldn't be surprised if eventually she's going to start running out of title ideas and we're going to see stuff like Dark Cock, Dark Humor, Dark Horse, etc.
Anyway, back to the story I found. At first I thought "Someone stole this terrible plot idea and claimed it at as their own?" After I stopped laughing, I found the main page for the author. I think the author puts it best in her summary.
So there's this really awful series of romance novels featuring a vampire-esque race called the Carpathians, a race with a truly tragic shortage of females. "I see an obvious solution to this," I said, and so together with my roommate we, ah, fixed it. Gay, about the length of a Harlequin novel, it got out of control and turned into an actual decent story instead of a parody. Knowledge of the series is not a prerequisite to reading, just treat it like gay vampire romance (-_-;;) original fiction.
And I thought to myself "This is brilliant." Even the name of the story, Dark Deviance, cracked me up. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. It was all the good and bad things that I love about trashy romance novels rolled up into a gay relationship. It was the gay sushi of romance noels. I was seriously crying I was laughing so hard at parts and you can definitely see some of the parody in it. It also helps that the sex is smoking hot and doesn't happen every 3 pages (hello, I'm looking at you 95% of the ebooks I read). The plot is... well. It's a stereotypical romance novel plot, but you get the impression the author wants it to be that way. The writing is like 1000% better than the original books.
I stayed up late and got up early just to finish this story. If I found out this author was published, I would throw money at them like crazy because they can write. After searching and searching for something like this story, I cannot recommend it enough.
TL:DR version = DARK DEVIANCE IS WHAT I WISH ALL THE GAY ROMANCE eBOOKS I BUY/READ ON THE INTERNET WERE LIKE. CHEAP, TRASHY ROMANCE NOVELS WITH A SIDE OF HOT MAN SEX.
About two pages in I see the word "Carpathian." Wait. I know that word. It's from a series of truly terrible romance novels by Christine Feehan. I am dying laughing now because when I say these books are terrible, I mean they are bad.
How bad? Well, the whole plot device is you have these "Carpathians" who are immortal, have fangs, must drink blood from other humans to live, and turn into ash if they go out in the sunlight. Hmmm... why does this sound familiar? Oh yes! Because they are vampires. Only in the romance novels vampires are the insane "Carpathians" who have gone crazy because they haven't found their lifemate - their one TRU LURV. If they don't find their lifemate, they become color blind (i.e. start losing colors), and then one by one their emotions shut down. When they eventually go batpoo crazy, it's up to the other "Carpathians" to hunt them down. Which is just an excuse for an angst fest "Oh nos! My friend for 800 years has gone round the bend because he can't find his ONE TRUE healing vagina. Now I must kill him. But since I am emotionally constipated as well, it won't hit me until later in an epic dramatic scene."
The problem is that "Carpathian" (I absolutely refuse to use that term like it's a real word. They are fucking vampires! Or possibly aliens. I don't want to read all the series to find out...) women are a rare and special breed. So when one pops out, ever single sexy "Carpathian" (and they are all sexy and beautiful) wants her like burning. "Carpathians" can't mate with regular women since they are super special. But they can mate with women who have some sort of power, like clairvoyants, mind-readers, etc.
I tried to read one of these books, and couldn't get more than a quarter way through it. The writing was horrendous, the characters were one dimensional, and oh god, that plot device. SHOOT ME. My mom, on the other hand, loves them. So much so that she proceeded to tell me about the various plots in them for at least an hour. Which is the only reason I know so much about this series.
I also know that Every single title in this series begins with "Dark." Dark Curse, Dark Peril, Dark Prince, Dark Sympathy... you get the idea. There's something like 20 of these books, so I wouldn't be surprised if eventually she's going to start running out of title ideas and we're going to see stuff like Dark Cock, Dark Humor, Dark Horse, etc.
Anyway, back to the story I found. At first I thought "Someone stole this terrible plot idea and claimed it at as their own?" After I stopped laughing, I found the main page for the author. I think the author puts it best in her summary.
So there's this really awful series of romance novels featuring a vampire-esque race called the Carpathians, a race with a truly tragic shortage of females. "I see an obvious solution to this," I said, and so together with my roommate we, ah, fixed it. Gay, about the length of a Harlequin novel, it got out of control and turned into an actual decent story instead of a parody. Knowledge of the series is not a prerequisite to reading, just treat it like gay vampire romance (-_-;;) original fiction.
And I thought to myself "This is brilliant." Even the name of the story, Dark Deviance, cracked me up. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. It was all the good and bad things that I love about trashy romance novels rolled up into a gay relationship. It was the gay sushi of romance noels. I was seriously crying I was laughing so hard at parts and you can definitely see some of the parody in it. It also helps that the sex is smoking hot and doesn't happen every 3 pages (hello, I'm looking at you 95% of the ebooks I read). The plot is... well. It's a stereotypical romance novel plot, but you get the impression the author wants it to be that way. The writing is like 1000% better than the original books.
I stayed up late and got up early just to finish this story. If I found out this author was published, I would throw money at them like crazy because they can write. After searching and searching for something like this story, I cannot recommend it enough.
TL:DR version = DARK DEVIANCE IS WHAT I WISH ALL THE GAY ROMANCE eBOOKS I BUY/READ ON THE INTERNET WERE LIKE. CHEAP, TRASHY ROMANCE NOVELS WITH A SIDE OF HOT MAN SEX.