Sorry it’s a day late, things were very busy last night.
Carrying on with the Strange Brew anthology reviews, this week it will be P.N. Elrod, and Charlaine Harris.
Helcate’s Golden Eye by P.N. Elrod.
Set in Chicago, June 1937, P.I Investigators Jack Fleming and Charles Escott are hired to find and retrieve the Helcate’s Jewel, a beautiful pendent which is rumoured to kill any man that touches it. Luckily for Jack Fleming, being a vampire already makes him the undead.
This is a pure mystery story and to be honest, I found it somewhat boring. I derived no personality from the characters and the story itself was quite mild in nature. I wasn’t sure at first if the characters were newly created, but looking the author up (google), Jack Fleming is the main character of the Vampire Files. I admit, I’m not knowledgeable in vampire mysteries, so forgive me. I did like the background setting of Chicago in the late 1930’s, but for me there was just no oomph in this story.
The jewel itself I’m guessing had magic, but we saw none of that. Just sly winks from the jewel itself. The people who stole the jewel were not very villainous, and I found Jack to be pleasant for a vampire. He didn’t have the ruthless quality that I thought a vampire should have. Over all, it was just a very nice, albeit boring, read.
I give Hecate’s Golden Eye 3 out of 5.
Bacon by Charlaine Harris
Dahlia Chivers is out for revenge. Her werewolf husband was killed by another member of a werewolf pack, and she’s determined to find out what happened that fateful night, and what-else or who-else contributed to his murder.
So far, this is the only story that I have disliked in this anthology. The heroine was completely unlikeable, and I didn’t feel any sympathy for her. I felt no pain or emotion from Dahlia regarding the death of her husband. She was ice-cold and I think she was the same when he was alive. Dahlia admitted she wasn’t very popular with her husband’s pack.
This story was just full of hateful revenge, which is understandable when your husband was murdered, but perhaps I could have enjoyed the story if there was any heartfelt emotion shown by the heroine.
The secondary characters weren’t particularly interesting and I found myself reading this story very fast so it would finish. There was nothing wrong with the writing itself, but Dahlia was simply a horrible character. The title of the story is very apt for the ending, which I found to be very icky.
I give Bacon 2 out of 5.
Strange Brew can be found in The Book Depository.co.uk and The Book Depository.com
The main problem I have with anthologies is that you never get a good feel for the characters-everything just seems rushed. I hope the other ones you read are better!
I agree, I'm not a big lover of anthologies as I'm always left wanting more or not getting enough.
Strange Brew, overall, is one of the better ones out there.
I totally agree with these reviews. I thought "Bacon" was dreadful and just for those reasons. I've actually stopped reading the anthology, I've lost interest. Thought maybe it was genre burnout. I might pick it up again later.