Summers, Jordan: Scarlet
Scarlet (2009)
Written by: Jordan Summers
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 292 (Mass Market Paperback)
Considering my SF kick of late, this might look like a book that just doesn't fit the mold. It doesn't, but it kind of does. The sequel to Red is actually set in our future, in a rather dystopic setting in terms of landscape, and the paranormal are actually genetically engineered. And because I was waiting on a stack of SF books from Amazon that could arrive at ANY MINUTE, I wanted to read something fast, and this book fit the bill without completely straying from my SF demands.
And I'll be honest, I've been dreading writing up this review. It's been sitting here, waiting for review, since July 6th. If that doesn't tell you anything, I don't know what will.
The premise: after the events of Red, Gina Santiago has settled in the town of Nuria with her werewolf boyfriend, Morgan. She's trying to control her own abilities, but can't, which makes her an outcast in the town of Others. It makes her job of forming a Nurian tactical team even more difficult, but everything goes to hell when Morgan is called away on an important but personal mission he won't tell anyone about but Gina. Now, Gina has to run a town of people that resent her, and what's worse, someone REALLY has it in for her: dead bodies start piling up, and all the evidence points to her. She's got to find a way to clear her name and get Morgan back before something far worse happens.
Review style: stream of conscious, with spoilers. It's taken me six days to actually sit down and review this book, and yet I still feel the need to rant.
An odd thing happened when I read Red: I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the way it fused the horror, romance, and SF genres. However, in my review, I nitpicked the HELL out of it, and for some reason, I'm thinking my nitpicks played a role in how I experienced the sequel, Scarlet. Before buying it, I'd read the warnings on Amazon that it just wasn't as good as Red, but whatever reservations I had about getting it, I ignored. To be honest, I wish I hadn't, and I'll tell you why.
The first chapter has Gina standing out in the middle of the desert, naked, trying to will the change to her body. Morgan is watching nearby so he can intervene in the event she DOES change and gets out of control, but nothing happens except for him feeling really horny. They have sex.
The second chapter has Gina returning home with Morgan, and she has a nightmare of what would happen if the change actually worked. She wakes up, freaked out, and when Morgan tries to comfort her, they have sex.
Okay, I know this book is labeled paranormal romance. I also know that it's found in the romance section of the store. And I ALSO know that the first book was all about them getting together, therefore the sex was saved for later, but really, do we have to have TWO sex scenes in the first TWO chapters of the book?
Here's what bugs me, and it bugged me about the last book too: it's pretty obvious that what Morgan and Gina feel for each other is a really bad case of LUST. I'm not saying that can't turn into love, but at the end of Red and the beginning of Scarlet, I don't believe for a MOMENT that what they feel for each other is love. So during these sex scenes, when they're all over each other and making their declarations of love, I don't believe them. I just don't.
Moving on to the third chapter, we learn that some corporation has developed a potential cure for all diseases and will reverse the signs of aging. Also, we learn that some corporation has released two new clone models: one a woman meant as a pleasure toy and the other a little boy meant for labor in the family. These two clones look exactly like Morgan's long-deceased wife and child.
But we don't know they're long-deceased. Or do we? When I saw that section, I wasn't surprised, which had me wondering if the first book didn't allude to it. Whatever the case, Gina didn't know, and she flips out like an immature little teenager. The problem: she's not a teenager. Admittedly, she's not been in a real relationship before, so she doesn't know how to act in them, but is that really an excuse? She's an adult. With adulthood comes some modicum of experience, and with experience comes a bit of patience. The only people who flip out like Gina did are divas, and trust me, she's no diva.
Which brings me to one of my major gripes of the book: her character. In the first book, I enjoyed her character a lot. She was self-sufficient, logical, and determined. This book, she's all over her boyfriend and her world shatters when he has to leave to destroy the clones of his wife and child.
Again, admittedly, this is realistic: for a lot of people, I know two personally, when they fall in love, they CHANGE. Everything is about their significant other, and everything else falls by the wayside. Some people grow out of that rosy-hued feeling, other people don't. It makes sense that Gina's still in that rosy-hued phase, but let's be real: while true in life, do you REALLY want to read about it in fiction? If so, go ahead. If not, you're going to want to skip this book.
But the blame here doesn't entirely fall on Gina: Morgan is an idiot too. While I understand that seeing clones of his wife and child would freak him the hell out and I understand that he wouldn't want those bodies manipulated in any shape or form, it was STUPID of him to go on this solo mission. He should've taken Gina for back-up if nothing else, but he really needed SOMEONE around as a sanity check. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that the whole thing was a set-up, which made the book harder to read when you're WAITING for the character to figure it out and go home.
At least Summers makes a point, on the part of BOTH characters, to make them realize how stupid they've been because of their feelings. That's all well and good, but it's not enough. I don't want to read a book about a couple who makes stupid decisions due to their feelings and they have to work their way back to the people they used to be. It's boring to me, especially when that is the focus. If the rest of the plot had held together better, maybe I wouldn't have minded, but it didn't.
Let's see: Roark, the over-ambitious politician from the first book, is basically out to get Gina and Morgan for what they did to him. He hates all Others anyway, so he wants to wipe out the town of Nuria too. While I noticed it in the first book, it was painfully clear in this book that Roark is one of those one-dimensional villains who's only around to make the heros' lives more miserable. Don't get me wrong, Roark is developed enough that he thinks what he's doing is right, but really, he's not someone who scares me as a reader, and getting his point of view is painful.
Also painful is Gina's attraction to vampire Raphael. Sure, he's a vampire who's the only one treating her like a human being, of course she's attracted, but I think it goes too far. Especially in light of Catherine, aka Chaos: Raphael's completely smitten with Gina UNTIL Catherine comes along, which makes his point of view, as well as the romantic conflict, kind of moot because it's not there organically, but to cause complications for the heroine. Once it's not needed, it's easy to drop.
And don't get me started on Raphael's interrogation of Catherine. Was that really supposed to be sexy? Are vampires so powerful good-looking and such awesome kissers that if one ties you naked to a chair and starts ravishing you as a method of interrogation, you're just going to let him? You're going to let him take you to bed for the fuck of your life? Those chapters border close to rape, and I'm disgusted that Catherine falls for it. I'm disgusted that it's presented in such a way that's supposed to be sexy and seductive, whereas in real life, this would be one of those most horrible experiences a woman could go through. But hey, if it works for you, good for you. Just don't go recommending books to me, like, ever.
Really, this whole book annoyed me. Several times I thought about putting it down and not finishing it, but for whatever reason, I kept reading. Perhaps because the pages turn really fast, so you know you can get through it quickly. I finished it in a day, despite the melodramatic, soap opera-ish plot and subplots and annoyances that had me rolling my eyes at least every other page. What's so frustrating is that the stuff I liked from the first book just aren't available here. I didn't buy that Catherine was the sleeper agent that killed BOTH men. The first, yes, but the second? No. Not after getting Brannon's POV right before and the first-person POV that came after clearly related to Brannon's POV. Also, what's the point of Brannon being brainwashed if he's not used in this book? Maybe in comes to play in the third, but guess who won't be reading to find out? That's right. Me. The small-town mentality, hatred, and gossip of Gina was also tough to swallow, because it seemed to be there to give the heroine a hard time. Never once did I buy it as an organic part of the story. All of it just felt simply contrived.
I missed the honest-to-god horror elements. I missed the tough Gina. I missed the fact that the first book seemed aware, except maybe at the end, that was was happening was serious LUST, but this book forgot all about it and tried to label it LOVE. Which canceled itself out anyway, because at the end, even Morgan suddenly said that the reason he left for his past was because he didn't trust what he had in the present. Whatever. I was glad when the book was finally over, and now you know why I dreaded writing this review. I honestly couldn't think of a good thing to say, but I will say this: I liked the guys on the Nurian tactical team, when they weren't trying to flirt with Gina. That's about it.
My Rating
Waste of Time & Money: yes, it was that bad. What I loved about the first book, Red, wasn't even remotely present in this book, and so much about the plot and character motivations seemed contrived, not an organic part of character, setting, or story. The romance was obnoxiously labeled as love when it was obviously lust, and Gina is not the same character from before, which is frustrating as hell, because I don't want to read about a moping heroine trying to cope with her missing boyfriend (wait, isn't that what New Moon is about?). Too many POVs litter the landscape of 292 pages, and the story is nothing if not predictable. Certainly, it's a transition to the third and final book in the trilogy, Crimson, but I have no interest in reading forward, this book bothered me so much. I would've stopped reading if it hadn't been such a FAST read, and frankly, I wish I had. There's a scene towards the end that reminds me of what I've heard my romance-reading friends complain about: you know the trope where the "hero" rapes the heroine, and until the rape scene, she hates him but suddenly loves him because the "rape" is so good? No, that specific scene is NOT in this book, but there's a scene that very much reminds me of that trope. Consider that a warning to those readers who are fed up with rape or anything alluding to it in genre fiction.
At any rate, if you enjoyed the first book for its gritty horror elements and solid, tough-as-nails heroine, don't bother with this one, because neither element is present. Don't get me wrong, there are points in the book where it TRIES to bring those elements back, but not enough and far too late. Save yourself and skip this one, or if you must read it, I'd try borrowing it from somewhere.
Cover Commentary: it's not my favorite Chris McGrath cover: Morgan looks like he's wearing a babydoll tee at first glance, which always makes me giggle. But hey, at least here's no shirtless guy in the moon, as there was in the first book. :)
Next up: a little treat and a break from SF: The Homeless Moon chapbooks.