I am in shock.

I’m sitting here and I can’t believe it.

Cursed Legacy: Naiche — is finished.

Book 1 in a series of God only knows how many are in my head, and it’s finally, finally finished. Others are in the works, in various stages of progress, but this one is the start of it all. And it’s FINISHED.
Well.
Until the edits, that is. Those will take forever, no doubt, and there are going to be things I will have to fix, lots of them. So chances are I’m going to rewrite the lot of it during edits, but the first draft is finished.

Thanks Amanda for the word sprints today, we did bloody good.

So now I get to pick another one to write and that alone feels sooooooooooo good, I can’t even describe it.

Tags: Finishing, Naiche, WIP

Acheron
(Dark Hunter Series)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
ISBN 978-0749908669

Blurb

Eleven thousand years ago a god was born. Cursed into the body of a human, Acheron endured a lifetime of hatred. His human death unleashed an unspeakable horror that almost destroyed the earth. Brought back against his will, he became the sole defender of mankind. Only it was never that simple…
For centuries, he has fought for our survival and hidden a past he never wants revealed. Now his survival, and ours, hinges on the very woman who threatens him. Old enemies are reawakening and uniting to kill them both.

Review:

Finished reading the book. Now… I have mixed feelings about it.

First, let me tell you about it.

I have wanted Ash’s story for a long time. Now that I have it… In a way I wish I didn’t.
Not because I didn’t like it. It’s a heartbreaking story and one worthy of him, but… It brought a character who was larger than life down to the realm of mortals. I don’t get tired of Sherri’s writing. It’s sassy and out there, it always has been and I’ve loved everything she’s ever written, even before this series was ever born. I’m biased where her writing is concerned, that’s why — although I truly love her books — I don’t usually put my thoughts about them to paper. (Or screen, in this case.)
With that in mind…

I read the book, all 700+ pages of it, in (almost) one setting. Us mere mortals have to sleep when our eyes start to droop. It starts before Ash is born and continues through the horror of his childhood. If you’re squeamish, this isn’t a book for you. If you want to know what makes Ash tick, it’s a book you should read. The betrayal, the pain and suffering that have shaped the character are laid bare in a horrendous chain of events. You get to see Ash’s soul, his pain, his lack of self-worth. It’s there, in brutal detail. You get to see Artemis and how their unfortunate relationship starts and develops into supreme hatred. But to hate something, you have to love it first.

I loved to read about the interactions between Ash and his DH’s, loved seeing Talon miss at basketball. As heartbreaking as the story is… I think I grinned as much as I cringed.

I won’t tell you the story, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. But I can tell you that, while I liked the heroine, I hated her at the same time. Because she takes Ash out of the equation. I’m happy for him, but that doesn’t mean I like her.

I guess we have to get used to Savitar and Jaden as being larger than life in place of Ash, and that’s why I have mixed feelings about the book. No, he’s not any less powerful or potent, he’s just different now. The book changes him from the Ash we know and it’ll take a while to get used to that thought. I’ll reserve judgement until I read some more books first. I want to see where Sherri goes with this. I know she can do it, I’ve always believed in her, even way back when, when she didn’t really believe in herself. Sherri, if you ever trip over this, let me tell you — I see you in Ash. A lot. You’re a survivor. Don’t ever change that.
And for what it’s worth… one day we will meet up and then I’ll give you that hug I wanted to give you 11 years ago, when you told me some dimwit told you that you’d never get published, that what you write isn’t publishable. The woman was wrong. I told you that then and I’d love for you to know that you’re my heroine. Because you gritted your teeth and did it anyway. By any means you could. And I truly, truly want you to know how good it makes me feel to see you go from strength to strength and leave that dark time behind.
Back then, when everything dropped around me, and I hit rock bottom… I didn’t think I’d ever write again. Then I saw YOU rise from the ashes. And you made ME believe it can happen. Thank you for that.

I have a few gripes though. (When do I not?)

There are a couple inconsistencies. (Sorry, I read books not just as a reader, in my mind I crit the dang things and edit…) There are bits the editor should have caught, but I can forgive them. The book is very long. Things get missed. Or maybe I missed it and skip read, but I re-read the previous pages and it was still there. It’s the hospital scene after Tory wakes up… I won’t elaborate, but… hello. She just woke up. When did she get a chance to speak to her friends? It’s a little thing, but it made me go "Huh?". A couple of others, too, but really, I can live with it and fill in the blanks.

Overall, it’s a riveting read. It’s not like the other DH books, but at the same time it is. It’s a lot darker, more painful. It took guts to write that. It’s a story of survival.

Most of all, it’s a reluctant keeper. Reluctant, because of what I said above: Ash is out of circulation now.  We need a new mysterious badass to root for and worry about, now.
(So get on with it! Chop chop, back to that keyboard, break time is over!)

And BTW… I want Styxx’s story. Yeah, he’s a bastard. A total and utter… yeah. That.
But something tells me he’s not quite as bad as you paint him and that he’s saveable. You hinted at it. Grr. Something tells me there’s more to him, and that while he was a total and complete vindictive, evil bastard to Ash… he had his reasons. Everyone had it in for Ash, yet there were still some who rooted for him.
Who did Styxx have? That waste-of-space father of his, who wouldn’t know love if it bit him? The mother who more or less abandoned him, too?
I might be wrong. I might have him all wrong and he’s supreme evil. I might have completely misunderstood. But…
It makes me wonder.
No one is born evil. We’re all the product of the events that shape our lives, the product of the actions of other people toward, or against us.
So yeah… Make me like him, I dare you.

Highly Recommended — if you can stomach the torture.

Tags: Acheron, Dark Hunter, Sherrilyn Kenyon

I went to the doctor today.

When I told her I took Aspirin for pain, she looks at me and goes "Oh you should take Paracetamol, Aspirin is dangerous."

Err… what?

Not what I’ve been told. Well, okay, if you overdose on Aspirin it’s dangerous. Obviously. That goes for any drug. But if you overdose on Aspirin, they can usually save you. If you overdose on Paracetamol… bye bye.

In Germany you can’t get Paracetamol. At all. It’s classed as a dirty, dangerous drug. Because of the overdose issue. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I was told by a nurse. That if you overdose on Paracetamol, there is nothing that can be done to save you.

Never mind.

Then she says that you can’t give Aspirin to children. By law, you can’t give Aspirin to anyone under 20 years old.

Riiiiiiiiiight.

That brought us to talking about kids. I said what do you give them then if they hurt themselves and are in pain? Paracetamol.
Not that kids today are allowed to hurt themselves. Period.
They’re not allowed to climb trees, because they might fall off. (Duh!)
They’re not allowed to play chase because they might fall. (Duh!!)
They’re not allowed to ride their bicycle because they might fall off. (Or get run over…)
God forbid they pick up a creepy crawly, or (gasp!) a slug.

Basically, kids aren’t allowed to do anything anymore. And people wonder why there are so many hyperactive, gone wild, out of control brats??? They aren’t allowed to exhaust their bodies. They’re not allowed near any germ, houses get hoovered and cleaned so much, the slightest germ will give a kid a hell of an infection now. Asthma is rife — not because the world is so terribly dirty, but because our homes are so terribly clean now.
When I was growing up, my dad used to say "Every human needs three pounds of dirt, per week."
I think I wallowed in my, my brothers, and twentyfive other kids allowance per week. At least. I fell off my horse. I fell off trees. I fell off my bike. I got wet. I got dirty. I got hot and sweaty. I scraped my knees, arms… every bit of skin on my body. You know what? It didn’t kill me. None of it did.

I think it’s about time parents took a step back and allowed their kids to play again. So what if they get the sniffles? So what if they scrape a knee? That’s what being a kid is all about.

When was the last time you saw kids play football in a field not dedicated to it, watched over by adults?
What’s wrong with picking up a slug? A worm? To build a dam in a stream, to fall in and laugh? To find a frog and catch it to have a closer look? Lick a toad? Catch grasshoppers and keep them in a jar? Get bitten by ants?

Yeah, they’ll get up to mischief, all kids do. What’s wrong with sticking a frog through your neighbors letterbox? I did it. My friends did it. My neighbors from back then still remind me of it to this day. "When you were ten, you put a frog in my letterbox," they’d say (Grannies now) and laugh heartily. Then they’d go all wistful and say "I thought you kids were terrible back then. But look at them now. A frog in my letterbox is the least of my worries. These days they just steal the letterbox…"

So here is a word from me to those parents: Take off the leash. Stop being so damned overprotective! Let them have their three pounds of dirt and let them get an immunity to germs. They’ll be happy, exhausted kids at the end of the day. Kids who will remember their childhood with a smile, who won’t get sick with everything. Kids who won’t be hanging around streetcorners, smoking, drinking beer and stealing my granny neighbor’s letterbox.

And if they do wrong… Punish them. Not by taking their internet away, but give them a slap. Teach them manners.
I’m not advocating you beat up children, but a slap has never failed to make me see the error of my ways. Nor did it harm my brother. Or my friends. This whole nonsense about "mustn’t slap a child" has to stop. Sorry, if you’ve done wrong, then the punishment has to be there. Today those kids know if their parent lifts a hand against them, they can run to the police and scream child abuse. And the parents know it too.

That’s just wrong on so many levels. It’s wrong because those kids have no respect for their parents, and the reason for it is that the punishment the parents are allowed to dole out are so negligable, the kids don’t respect the punishment either.

It has to change or we’re headed for disaster.

But again, part of the problem here is that those kids who get out of hand do so because they have no outlet for their energy.

So yeah, take off the leash. Do it. I dare ya.

Tags: Childhood, Kids, Overprotective Parents