YouTube video of Slade’s COFTN

Sorry for wasting time with this, but Gmail won’t let me in so I’m bored. If I don’t see “Loading…” again when I die, it’s still too bleeding soon.

I have to admit, I didn’t like Slade at first, because he “cheated” on Runa with the two female vamps. But that was before I knew he was a Seminus demon and his nature. Even when I knew, it was hard for me to take. I think I didn’t like him much in book 1 either. But as I read on, I could see Slade changing in terms of how he thinks of Runa–not just a female he has to have sex with, but as someone he loves/could love, and may even give up his life for. Actually, the way I read the book, his seeming callous comments to and about Runa are his ways to cope with/deny his growing feelings for her, that maybe, she’s not just a female to f—, but someone he could love and have a relationship with. Even then, he’s trying to resist, because of the curse which would lead to eternal, unending torment for him. (We all know about self-preservation.) Isn’t that the same with almost every hero that we read about?

I have a review coming up for Desire Unchained in The Raving Readers, which will open on Dec 21, but here’s a snippet on how I felt about Slade:

“Shade’s secret longings and curse were also revealed, and I couldn’t help but like him, even rooted for him to have his HEA with Runa. Shade’s eventual strong feelings for Runa could have been because of the bond, but I like that Ms Ione clarified for us that no, Shade already felt something for Runa even before, which was why he ran like hell from her. I like that toward the end, Shade’s nature as a Seminus warred with his own feelings for Runa…”

And well, guess what? The book got the highest rating from me because of…yeah, Slade. That said, I’m actually eager to read about Wraith. He’s the baddest of the bad boys, and I guess I’m eager to see if he’ll be redeemed in my eyes.

Yes, the villain is evil to the max and enjoys rape and more.
Yes, the hero in this book started out like alot of young men (and young women) in human society – pushing the envelope, believing it’s their right to do what they are, because dang it, it’s the way they were born.

It’s when those people and characters rise above “the way they were born” that makes us say YES, that character (or person) IS redeemable!

1. We must care about the characters, and it’s the writers job to depict them in such a way that we do. This requires that the reader is given insight about a character.

Absolutely. If you read the first book in this series, you’d already have a relationship with the hero in this book, though not so much the heroine. You’d already know the pain he’d been through that brought him to this point. But, it’s a great author who starts with a character who’s irredeemable and turns him into someone you can care about.

2. The violence must be inevitable, given the plot and circumstances. Art orders and shapes. The violence has to make sense within the narrative.

I had no problems with the violence in this book. Yes, it is probably more than most people see in real life, but this is paranormal, bordering on horror. You will see more and more descriptive violence in these genre’s. If you aren’t interested in seeing where this develops, than it’s not the genre for you. That’s fine. There are genres I don’t like.

One of the comments was made about the couple having sex the first time they meet. I was reading a book by a well known contemporary author, (Admittedly several years back) where the heroine meets the hero and in less than 10 seconds he has her flat up against her house, kissing her, his hand under her skirt. To me, this was too much. It was unbelievable. She didn’t know his name, or if he was a killer or anything else, but was ready to go at it against the outside of her house with everyone watching? At least in paranormal’s, there’s something added, like magic or something more. I no longer read this author’s work. Others found it titillating and exciting. It’s their choice.

3. Tension: the violence must be challenged by an equal and opposing force. There must be conflict. The violence in the story must serve the creative force, the meaning-making force, which is what it means to be alive.

The one thing I found in this book was huge amounts of conflict. The heroine who was so taken with a man, then finds out he isn’t what she wants. She blames him for her circumstances. He blames himself for her circumstances. Then there is the “Race issue” so to speak. How can two such different people overcome?

The entire concept of any “mixed race” book, be it human, human/demon, human/vamp or human/shifter is overcoming their differences and continuing despite the judgment of others. If Shade hadn’t grown, he would have killed her, at his brother’s suggestion. Which he didn’t. If Runa didn’t accept him as what he was, then neither of them could overcome their own conflicts.

I guess I don’t understand the problem with the book as mentioned by the reviewer. Yes, everyone has their own tastes. Larissa has created a dark, and intricate world which entwines some of humans darkest secrets, only put in “characters” who aren’t human.

It’s a mirror of sorts.

Funny, I have less problem reading about demons who are evil or not as evil as everyone thought, than I do about the new trend: Angels, who are not as good as we thought.

Jill Sorenson :

Hmm. I still want to read these. I was just talking about characters with questionable morals on my blog. I’m sure that many readers consider Ione’s heroes redeemable, and find it very satisfying to see a man who believes himself incapable of emotion fall in love. This element played a part in my enjoyment of Anne Stuart’s Ice series.

I can’t find fault with a demon killing, as it follows logic that they would. As far as rape, it seems that you forgave Gaffney’s Sebastian for this act, on the page…

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I like morally flawed characters, as my like of Sebastian in To Have and To Hold reveals. The issue for me in this book is the lack of countervailing good. In Black Ice, the heroine represents that goodness, as does her family, and others. It isn’t the fact that the hero in Desire Unchained committed rape, but that he views his victims only though his own eyes and his own needs (as apparently do many readers). Sebastian comes to see what he did as grievously morally wrong and spends half the book making up for it.

Mandi :

The demon brothers are seminus demons…their entire existence is based on sex. The other female demons are slutty because they need sex like they need air to breathe. Shade can’t help but to screw every female.

Roag is slime and evil, and he is the villain. The good prevails at the end

I adore this series btw!! Can ya tell? I think they are very entertaining and witty!

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I understand this argument but it does not persuade me. It’s interesting that the Seminus demons are morally blameless for what they do since it is “in their nature” but the females who sleep with them are “slutty.” This is not enjoyable reading for me because it replicates too closely a dynamic that in real life disempowers women who either refuse sex with aggressive males or who seek to have mutually beneficial and respectful casual sex without attracting moral disapproval.

I get it that the Seminus demon has to have sex to stay alive. I have to eat to stay alive. But I have a choice as to how I acquire that food, and the Seminus demons also have a choice as to how they acquire sex.

Again, I see nothing at all wrong with a book that portrays characters with terrible flaws, but for me there needs to be balance, either in other characters in the book, or hopefully within the flawed character him or herself. Everyone has to decide for herself where her tipping point is. Reading is a kind of relationship, and that alchemy works differently in different readers’ encounters with the text. What I am saying here may say more about me than about the text.

I have to think more about this, but it occurs to me that I might not be as bothered by this in a different type of book (my view may not be quite as encompassing as Harrell’s). However the HEA is not a mere description of the way a romance has to end. That is, when I read a romance, the fact of the HEA is something I don’t just know about but have to want. For a romance to be successful, the reader must actively desire the HEA. And that requires believing that on some level the two partners deserve some measure of happiness.

I want to thank Larissa Ione for coming here and explaining her viewpoint and process. It is helping me to see other perspectives on the book. (and yeah, I am just postmodern enough to see the author’s point of view as one more perspective).

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Nice job.

*waves to Jill*

OMG, I LOVE Ann Stuart’s Ice books! I find the heroes to be utterly fascinating. I don’t usually like them for the first half of the book (even if I’m fascinated by them,) but I end up swooning when they fall for the heroine. Sigh.

About the rape (I hate to sound like a defensive jerk author, but since you brought it up…*g*) When Shade did it, he was in a life and death situation. He was crazed, and if he didn’t get what he needed, he’d die. He didn’t even fully realize what he was doing at the time. Now, I realize that doesn’t make a difference for some readers, and it’s perfectly understandable! But I did want to point out that he didn’t go out and rape just for fun.

BTW, I have your first book in my TBR pile and can’t wait to dig in after this next deadline!

AQ, really great questions!

Okay, to answer the first…some of the inhabitants see the world as we do; it’s just the world. They don’t know anything different. But the inhabitants are also very different themselves. There are a LOT of different species that live in the world, some who live entirely in the demon part of it, and some who live amongst humans. All have different moral codes, ethics, etc. Some are truly evil (in fact, there’s a scale of evil in the books, which is explained in the compendium included in Passion Unleashed (and is actually offered as a free read on my site.)

So, for example, a level 5 demon is one who takes great pleasure in causing pain and killing. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he gets off on it. But another demon that eats its prey alive might be a level 1 — because he’s just doing what he does, without any inkling that what he’s doing is “wrong.” Sort of like how hyenas will sometimes start feeding on a wildebeest before it’s dead. That’s not evil — it’s horrible, yes, but hyenas are only doing what they do.

Now, the demon heroes of these books are all very different — raised by different parents even though they all had the same biological father. So each has his own distinct moral code. In Shade’s case, he’s actually a pretty decent guy (I realize this is a matter of interpretation! *g*) Deep down, he wants a family and babies — lots of them. But he was cursed to a fate worse than death if he ever feels anything for a female. So he’s got to keep his distance, is very callous in his actions not because he WANTS to be, but because he HAS to be…and he hates himself for it, even if he can’t admit that until the end of the book.

Again, those aspects of him are subject to personal interpretation — some readers saw it in him, and others either didn’t, or his behavior and deeds were bad enough in their eyes to cancel it out. (And there are actually readers who think these guys aren’t bad ENOUGH!)

As for how difficult it was to balance the good vs. evil element in the characters…well, in some ways it was very difficult, because these are demons, and creating likable demons? Not so easy…not because I didn’t include likable ones in the world (I’ve even got some vegetarian demons!) but because most people just hear the word, “demon,” and automatically start thinking “evil.” That’s our world, how we’ve been conditioned.

So I had to try to get past that first hurdle and make the world one where there are a lot of shades of gray. I had to make our own world very gray too, because I didn’t want the humans being the “good” guys and the demons being the “bad” ones. I wanted good and bad on both sides, with both sides thinking THEY are the good guys.

So just as we think our world is what it is, so do the demons. But because there are so many different species, so many places they live, they all have different perspectives on just how evil their world is. Some think humans are lowlife, evil scum. Others think that of their own kind.

Yes, balancing was, at times, challenging…more so when writing the main characters than in writing the world. To me, the world came fairly easily, but the heroes, especially Eidolon, a demon doctor, were hard to write at times.

Shade was hard because he is very dark, and he had to do things that I knew was going to make him unlikable to many readers.

Wraith was hard because he’s so damaged, and deep down, he hates himself…though oddly enough, his book, the third one, turned out to be the lightest and least violent of all of the books. It’s also most readers’ favorite.

Anyway, I don’t know if my rambling response answered your question at all, but if you’re curious about the types of demons and their evil scales and stuff, the link to the compendium ishere. (Scroll down to Free Reads.)

Thanks for the questions!

I can’t find fault with a demon killing, as it follows logic that they would. As far as rape, it seems that you forgave Gaffney’s Sebastian for this act, on the page…