Ok, “Dragon Slayer Virgin, Game Hell Whore” is not the real title. It’s
Keishon’s Feburary challenge was a virgin hero, and we have one in Colin Wescott, Earl of Haverwood. The book has a great prologue: it’s Colin as a boy finding out his father was not the old Earl — who has brought him to the Old Bailey to witness a hanging — but the man about to be hanged, a rapist named Black Jack Cady. The sight of his father’s death coincides with the realization that his blood is tainted. The old Earl raises Colin to believe he has “the rutting blackness inside you”. Colin creates an alter ego, the Dragon Slayer, to fight the dragons he believes are in his heart. As he grows, the Dragon Slayer gains a kind of reality: Colin becomes a spy for England.
The old Earl left one more nasty surprise for Colin in his will: he’s have to marry by the time he turns 28 or lose the orphanage he owns (??????). Forced to choose between ruining some innocent virgin and forcing a gaggle of orphans into the street, Colin chooses the former. His butler Giles (one of those insubodinate butlers who is more of a friend than servant) plans to round up a bevy of available women for a dinner party (????). But Colin has a chance encounter at the opera with Sarah Banks, daughter of a (dead) disgraced gaming club owner, who has always dreamed of a man with amber eyes, and decides right away Colin’s her fate.
Colin wants Sarah, but he is afraid he will hurt her. He is determined to marry another. But as luck would have it, someone keeps trying to kidnap Sarah. Colin has to be near her to protect her: he can’t stay away.
So there’s a kind of parallelism in their imaginary friends. But while Sarah abandons her amber eyed dream man when the real thing enters her life, Colin relies even more heavily on his. Colin constantly thinks of himself as his alter ego, in the third person, as in
What kind of a gentleman was he? He was supposed to be a Dragon Slayer for God’s sake!
in the middle of a diner party, which had me giggling. Or when they finally make love, he thinks
Right now she could be carrying his child. The child of a Dragon Slayer.
My husband and I had some fun with this last night. As in, Him: “Dinner’s ready.” Me: “Dinner for a Dragon Slayer????!!!”, or Me: “Can you let the dogs out?” Him: “The dogs of a Dragon Slayer!!!“.
Nothing much becomes of the kidnapping plot. And if I tell you that in the middle of the book Colin rescues, at knife point, an orphan prostitute and dumps her at Sarah’s house, and later the Earl gets punched in the stomach by the girl orphan’s boyfriend, you will see this is a bit of a crazy book.
The setting is not well realized. And the writing is pretty clunky. For example:
He forced a polite smile on his face, which he feared would appear like a pained grimace.
Or
He followed her to the foyer, watching the swing in her hips with the most dissolute lust raging in his heart.
It’s O’Reilly’s first novel, and IMHO, it shows. But this is not a horrible book, by any means. I enjoyed it, perhaps a bit less than the two contemporary trilogies I have enjoyed by this author. But the story is gripping from the first page (anyone who doesn’t like prologues should read this one to see how effective they can be), and the tortured virgin hero/no-nonsense, semi-outcast heroine, reminiscent in some ways of Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star, is one I like in all its variations. The relationship between Sarah and Colin was very touching and believable.
Oh, and just FYI: Many of us know about AAR’s list, but in writing this review I discovered that Good Reads has a similar list. (although it may be less reliable: it includes Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten, which I just read, and Clay is no virgin).
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#1 by Sayuri on February 17, 2010 - 12:16 pm
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Man, I think I want this.
Virgin Hero. Check.
Kathleen O’Reilly. Check
Crazy plot. Check.
Off to see if it’s available in e-format. If not, Bookmooch here we come.
#2 by Jessica on February 17, 2010 - 12:38 pm
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@Sayuri: I know, O’Reilly even writes bad books well.
#3 by Wendy on February 17, 2010 - 1:59 pm
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I’m hardly a member of the historical accuracy brigade, but your review was certainly….interesting. Yeah, let’s go with that. Interesting.
But like Sayuri (and you) I can’t seem to say no to a virgin hero and semi-outcast, no-nonesense heroine. For that particular trope, I’ll read just about any wacky, crazy plot an author can dream up
And yeah, this one is buried, somewhere, in the TBR. I have a friend who read it eons ago (oh. like back when it was first published) who loved it – hence, I bought it.
#4 by Tumperkin on February 17, 2010 - 5:04 pm
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Oh wow. Self-aggrandising pomposity is delightful enough but when you add in the mythical aspect, it takes on a slightly unhinged quality that makes it all the sweeter.
Tempted to read this, actually.
#5 by willaful on February 17, 2010 - 8:52 pm
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By no means the only error on that list.
#6 by Rosario on February 18, 2010 - 2:30 am
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I read this one some years ago and I really, really wanted to like it. I loved the idea of the plot and virgin heroes are totally my thing. But the writing drove me mad. Very, very clunky.
#7 by Jessica on February 18, 2010 - 7:27 am
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@Tumperkin: I wish I could send it to you, but it’s on my Kindle. Grrr. ebooks!!
@willaful: I suspected that.
@Rosario: I know. I used to think it was a bit pompous when reviewers wrote things like I did (“It’s her first book and it shows”), but after reading O’Reilly’s 2008-9 categories, it is just so obvious that she wasn’t as polished a writer in 2001.
#8 by jmc on February 24, 2010 - 3:30 am
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Bitten’s Clay as a virgin hero: he’s no longer a virgin in that book, but in the formerly free, prequel novella, he is/was a virgin. It’s been taken down for editing and proper publication in an antho, but the story of Elena & Clay meeting showed them both as damaged individuals who were both virgins.
#9 by Jessica on February 24, 2010 - 7:43 am
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@jmc: I would love to read that prequel. Thanks for the info!
#10 by RfP on February 28, 2010 - 6:34 pm
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The Bitten prequels are important backstory. I believe the story JMC mentions is about to be published in Tales of the Otherworld. Clay’s early history is already out in Men of the Otherworld.
#11 by Jessica on February 28, 2010 - 6:38 pm
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Type your comment here@RfP: I can see that, and it;s a story I want to read.
But you know what? The moment she thinks to herself “You bit me” — putting the missing pieces into place for the reader who has maybe guessed but not known that history — in Bitten was one of the finest dramatic moments in my reading of romance literature.
#12 by RfP on February 28, 2010 - 8:24 pm
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I agree, that revelation of his betrayal is dramatic. At the same time, I didn’t feel that the characters’ motivations quite added up until I read about Clay’s childhood (his genuine savagery) and Elena and Clay’s early relationship (his bookish side and her always-suspicious nature).