The Taste of the Night by Vicki Petterson

[meganbmoore]

The Taste of the Night is the second book in Petterson's Sign of the Zodiac series.  Zodiac is about JoAnna Archer, a photographer who's been looking for the man who raped her and left her to die in the desert when she was  a young teen.  When she turns 25, she learns why that happened to her:  Her mother, Zoe Archer, was a member of the Zodiac of Light, a group of supernatural warriors who protect the world from the Zodiac of Shadow.  Why yes, it IS half urban fantasy/half superhero comic homage, why do you ask?

Zoe ARcher was a deep cover agent...so deep that before she was discovered, she became the lover of Tulpa, the head bad guy.  She fled after being discovered, without Tulpa realizing she was pregnant, and hid herself right under his nose...by marrying one of his human flunkies and passing JoAnna off as his daughter.  Neither side tracked her down until her 25th birthday, when JoAnna gained the powers inherited from both her parents.  Unfortunately, the bad guys found her first and killed her sister, Olivia, in the crossfire(then got killed by JoAnna themselves.)  Since everyone who knew Olivia was dead was a good guy, they gave JoAnna plastic surgery to make her look like Olivia, and now JoAnna is living her sister's life.

This first book was good but very rough, with much of the dialogue feeling forced.  The second book was much better with far smoother dialogue.  Unlike most books with comic book send offs, this doesn't mock comics or it's fans, and the mythology is interesting.  And, for once, it's an urban fantasy with no signs of werewolves, vampires, or demons.  In addition, JoAnna's strength and modernness isn't constantly thrown in our face...she's extremely damaged(being raped and left to die in the desert @ 13-14, almost immediately abandoned by her mother, then learning years later than it was your biological father who sent your rapist, and learning that on the heels of your sister's death and your being forced to take over her identity? Not fun.) and very hard, but the author never uses it as an excuse for JoAnna screwing up, much less always being right, and no character makes exceptions for it.

Her love life isn't exactly fun, either.  She's been in love with Ben Traina, a cop, pretty much since birth, but pushed him away after her rape, only to reconnect with him right before her "death." So there he is, pouring his heart out to "Olivia," who he'll only ever see as his girlfriend's little sister, with JoAnna wanting to scream something along the lines of "Figure it out already!" at him.  Meanwhile, JoAnna has bonded(literally) with Hunter, another member of the Zodiac.  There's an interesting theme in their relationship...with the possible exception of JoAnna herself, Hunter doesn't really care about anyone but his daughter, who only JoAnna knows about, and even that is only because of when their minds joined.  Meanwhile, JoAnna learned she was pregnant after her rape and gave her daughter up for adoption, assuming she was fathered by her rapist, and refuses to acknowledge her.

I have to say that, while I like Ben, I prefer JoAnna with Hunter.  Yes, she still loves Ben, and he's a great guy, but he's too pure...he'd never be able to survive her life, or to accept her as she is now.  Hunter, OTOH, is the only one to fully accept all sides of JoAnna.  Or, more specifically, he simply doesn't care.  He does his job and expects JoAnna to do hers.  She chose to be a good guy and he expects her to be one and, unlike everyone else, doesn't hold her parentage over her head.  When everyone else gives up on her because she messes up, he follows her and helps her because he knows she's the one who will be able to figure out what's going on and stop it.  He and JoAnna both stick by their own and don't let biases and games and tradition get between them and what needs to be done.  They're both grey area characters, and work better together than either would with a "White" or "Black" character.

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I read an ARC of The Scent of Shadows (and alas, got some hate mail when I pointed out that the romance between Joanna & Ben was boring, dull & nonexistent but what can you do?) and remember thinking Joanna was far more interesting with Hunter.

I just got The Taste of Night in the mail today and we'll see. This is the make or break book for me since I had some major issues with the first one that were part-preference differences and part-this is kind of stupid eyerolling. We'll see.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Really? Link to post?

I like Ben as a character and I don't mind that it's taking a while to get past that since it IS such a big part of her life, but I can't see it lasting(actually, I have him pegged as dying in book 3.) Ben is, quite simply, incapable of dealing with what she and her life are. I think the author is banking a little too much on the "First, true love" bit, but she seems to realize it can't last. JoAnna/Hunter are far more interesting, and fun.

I think Taste was a lot better...the first book had a lot of "First time asuthor" mistakes and forced dialogue, but this felt much smoother and the dialogue wasn't nearly as corny.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

http://magicnoire.livejournal.com/99840.html

That post phrases things more tactfully than I normally would, given that it was an ARC. More true, accurate opinions have been voiced elsewhere.

(And given that I got disapproving emails for my comments about the romance and a friend got raked over the coals for the negative comments she made about the cover, I'm glad I exercised caution for once. I am disappointed though that the UF community chose to take a "circle the wagons" approach to things.)

Granted, I've been left alone since then so I'm thinking I've been written off as that Meaniehead UF Reader.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

UF community?

I don't know WHAT they're trying with those covers, really. There are far worse, though.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Urban fantasy community. It's because so many of the authors are on livejournal.

Well, they kinda took her comments the wrong way. She was coming down on marketing choices, not on the author, but I guess people projected or something. ("Authors have no choices in their covers! You shouldn't criticize them for their covers!") Except, of course, she wasn't.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Sadly, there ARE fans out there who blame writers for the covers, so I guess I can see a little of where they came from...but people need to learn to actually pay attention to the whole message, not a bit of it.

I'm actually kinda curious to see all this raking, just to see why people actually think JoAnna/Ben would work...seems WAY too impossible to me(and not in the "OMG their love is so true but they can't be together" way) And how people could possibly find him more interesting than Hunter.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the entry in question has been made private. But probably for the best since she sold two books to Simon & Schuster and now has to watch what she says more carefully since the genre she writes in (Romancelandia) is so prickly. (Sometimes I wonder if this is why the UF community can be so prickly at times too because there's a lot of overlap with the genre romance readership.)

Well, there are all kinds. Sometimes it just comes down to reader preferences (even if said readers don't see it as such). I was having a discussion with someone about Colleen Gleason's The Rest Falls Away (which is basically Buffy in Regency England) and they were supremely angered by the ending and I couldn't figure out why because I thought the writing was on the wall from the get-go. They said something to the effect of "I wanted this to be about how the heroine and hero work together!" And I was like, "That'd be the dullest book in existence. You've watched Buffy, haven't you? You've noticed how Buffy is completely unable to have normal relationships with normal guys, haven't you?"

Alas, it fell on deaf ears. Because apparently, she took away a different message regarding Buffy and her relationship issues than I did.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

urban fantasy heroines x normal guy = dull as dirt. anytime they try to give the heroine a "better" relationship than her messed up on, it fails miserably(if only i could get the current writer of Witchblade to realize that...) Urban fantasy hero x normal girl can work, but not the reverse...i guess because there's a need to have the guy be the hero and it doesn't work if the heroine is the one who kicks butt. I'm one of the few people who liked Riley in Buffy, but I thought Riley/Buffy was dull. The whole point of them in S5(and then somewhat with Buffy/Spike) was that who she was made Buffy literally incapable of having a normal relationship.

I've been reading romance novels since i was 14 or so, and the fans have always scared me...and some of the things people get all caught up in...

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I've read your commentary regarding the recent issues of Witchblade. That sounds... problematic.

I have the same feelings about Riley -- I liked him but I hated him with Buffy.

What you're talking about there was the main reason why the Blood & Chocolate movie adaptation horrified me. Because the whole point of the book is that the werewolf heroine could not be with the human boy, and also that the human boy could not handle the fact the werewolf heroine was stronger than him. And since they changed the ending to the movie, the werewolf heroine was completely made harmless and wimpy and not at all strong and tough like her book counterpart.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

IMO, Riley would have been REALLY cute with Willow, except they decided she was gay.

With Witchblade, part of it is that I think the writer thinks Ian's fans view him with shojo sparkles or something...Sara/Ian fans like them because they're hopelessly screwed up and don't have a prayer of working out but it's the best either will ever have and still be themselves, not because we expect them to work out and get married and make babies.

what you say about the Blood & Chocolate movie and the point of the OTP sounds like Jo and Ben in the Zodiac books. Except there's a better OTP waiting in the wings.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, Ian with shoujo sparkles? That's funny and so terribly wrong.

Except there's a better OTP waiting in the wings.

That's exactly the case in B&C as well.

We'll see. I'm (slowly) reading Kushiel's Justice so Taste of Night sits in my very scary TBR pile.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

There have been far more wrong things (like Sara/Gleason) Have you read Witchblade, then?

when it comes to urban fantasy, the messed up OTPs are the only ones that really work, IMO.

I have the second Karen Chance book lurking somewhere near the top of the TBR pile, have you read those? The first book has me a touch worried that it'll end up too "OMG! Hot sex with hot vampires!" for me, but I hold out hope.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Several years ago when it was still a "new" series. It's really been a long time; I was kind of appalled in the "Oh crap, am I that old?" sort of way when I discovered it was over 100 issues.

(Sara/Gleason? Ew.)

I haven't read Karen Chance. I knew a couple folks on my flist did and were unimpressed.

that it'll end up too "OMG! Hot sex with hot vampires!" for me, but I hold out hope.

Ha! That was my reaction to the second Mercy Thompson book.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I discovered it when it was in its 50s. I wish they'd put the TV series on DVD.

The Mercy Thompson books will be "OMG! Hot sex with hot werewolves!"

I REALLY wish urban fantasy wasn't so obsessed w/ having the heroine be the object of lust(and lusting after) random werewolves and vampires...it's chased me off series before.