I am greatly indebted to Ann at Inkpots 'n' Quills for kindly and graciously giving me this award. I'm quite sure I don't deserve it. Really. As though I would ever be "creative" in my blogging...

But I digress. In receiving this award, I am obliged to post six untruths about myself, plus one half-truth; and you, the reader, get to guess which one is the half-truth.

Then I nominate six other blogs to receive the award, and they must in turn post six untruths/one half truth. And so on.

Without further ado, my nominees are:

@alisonwells

@rebeccaebrown

@cathryanhoward

@mruku

@writersamblake

@SarahSiddons

And *drumroll, fanfare* here are my untruths/half truth. Have fun guessing! Answers in the comments, pur-lease.

1. I pride myself on being a good Catholic. I attend confession at least once per fortnight, and receive the Eucharist weekly.

2. I'm really quite sporty. I swim long-distance, used to ride competitively, and am big into orienteering.

3. I once won the Lotto (Irish National Lottery) jackpot.

4. I take great pride in my personal appearance, especially in the area of grooming. My eyebrows are threaded, my moustache electrolosys-ded, and my bikini area waxed, regularly and without fail. There is no excuse for neglecting these basics.

5. I am allergic to peanuts.

6. My home reflects my OCD tendencies - it is perpetually neat, I cannot bear for it to be any other way. I'll prioritise cleaning and tidying over anything else.

7. I have secretly always wanted to be an actress.

Right, there you go. *Sings* "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not quite the same...."

"Jane Bites Back", a review

It was with some trepidation

that I started reading

"Jane Bites Back" by Michael Thomas Ford.

At first glance, it seemed to be the perfect book for me; a crossover between my two favourite genres, bloodsucking fiends vs. pelisses and petticoats.

However... such crossovers are notoriously difficult to pull off. There may be a current fashion for bastardising Jane Austen's life and works with added zombies and sea monsters, but in my opinion very few are successful.

Still, I embarked on "Jane Bites Back" with good will and an open mind. I stormed through the entire book in a day, which is one thing that I can say in its favour, since not many books hold my attention so fully at the moment when I am constantly in the middle of half a dozen at any one time.

As a vampire novel it is quite delicious. Jane's vampire sire/suitor is absolutely perfect, everything one would want; and her nemesis (whose identity I guessed straight away) made me laugh out loud.

However, as a Jane Austen related book it falls decidedly flat - Janeite purists will not enjoy it! I found the character of Jane to be interesting, as long as I thought of her as Jane Fairfax - but Jane Austen she was not. There was no wit, no cutting remarks (all of those came from her assistant, Lucy), no savvy, no fire. She was ignorant of custom and etiquette in certain facets of modern life, in a way that I feel sure Jane Austen herself (she who was a stickler for manners) would never allow herself to become.

As a novel generally, the ending was also rather rushed and pat. It smacks of "buy the sequel", but without making that quite an enticing enough prospect.

While puzzling over this book last night, and trying to put my finger on what my issues with it were, I came to this final conclusion:

This book is about a modern day vampire, who just happens to be Jane Austen.

It is not about Jane Austen in the modern day, who happens to be a vampire.

It's a subtle difference, but an important one.

So, as a vampire novel I would award it three stars out of five; but sadly as an Austenesque work, only 1 out of five.

Have you read it? What's your opinion?