the Harlequin--chapter 42

One of the things I watch out of morbid curiosity are the Amazon boards for LKH's books. There's been a facinating train wreck concerning the next book. First she'd started an Anita Blake book, but that got murdered in its sleep when she (or, more likely, somebody with veto power on her career) realized that everybody wanted the next Merry book, and everybody was sick to death of Anita Blake. This probably became either Shutdown (A god awful short story in which Anita is horrible to Richard's new girlfriend) or Dancing (A slightly less-awful short story in which Anita goes to a barbeque and feels alienated by the handful of people who still like her, and Nathanial teaches everybody ballet because somehow this solves everything) and she got to spend the next six months screaming about how hard she was working on the Merry book. Her deadline was last month. She finished it yesterday. At least 100 pages of it were written in the last week. She's already sent it to her publisher. The release date is in June. May I repeat that she sent in her first fucking draft, a significant portion of which was panic-written over the course of a week, in to her editor with exactly four months before the book drops?

 So basically the next (and probably last for a good long while) Merry book is going to be the last Anita book, only with fairies instead of vampires. And a couple of newborns are going to be involved.

This is not going to be fun.

SO. Current Anita book.

Anita, Edward, Olaf, Micah and Nate all hurry to the Church of Eternal Life. Yeah, half the characters introduced in the latter half of this book? Served no purpose whatsoever. 

 In the December cold it was a bleak little space, or maybe my reaction was partly that the last time I’d stepped on the church’s grass I’d shot a vampire to death with a handgun .

So basically Anita only goes to church when she kills someone. And she gets to criticize other people's faith. She does wax eloquent about how there's no "decoration" in the church because "no religious icons allowed".  Malcolm could have commissioned some kickass gargoyles and bitchin' stained glass. Those aren't "religious icons". Also, obviously neither Anita nor Laurel K. Hamilton has set foot in a modern megachurch. The biggest church here in corpus? No religious symbols on the stage. Ever. (No prayer altar, either. And that's enough of that rant)

LKH makes it real clear that Graham is our designated red shirt for the evening. Of course it's a character Anita isn't attached to.

They walk up the stairs and then we derail the plot by having Anita's leopard try to rise again. GODDAMN IT. PLOT. PLOT IS THROUGH THE DOORS. GO. THROUGH. THE DOORS.

Anita manages to get Damian to block her leopard, and the Harlequin vamp inside the church decides that means the magic contest can begin, and Anita moved first so now it's her turn.

If this were blocked a bit better, I'd totally be loving this right now. As it is, it's just a distraction and a delaying tactic.

And then LKH shows that she does still have a couple good ideas (which, sadly, she won't use) by giving us the thought of the ardeur rolling Olaf.  I am legit creeped out and I hope to god LKH never ever ever fucking EVER crosses that line. Because she won't do it right, and it'll be more the taming of the shrew and less UNLEASED SERIAL KILLER. (If there was ever any prayer of her not treating Rolled!Olaf as sexy fun times, I'd be screaming OH GOD YES PLEASE because 1. it would be legit creepy and 2. it would end with dead Olaf.)

And on that note, the chapter ends.