#consecrated ground

[mybookstorecarlovinghusbands]

Y/n: Two years ago, I married my best friend.

Y/n: Aziraphale is still mad about it, but me and Crowley were drunk and thought it was funny.

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: Consecrated Ground by Virginia Black

This randomly came up today, and actually, it goes really well with the season.

(The book cover, showing a crow.)

Consecrated Ground is an independently published horror novel. In its world, vampires have taken over everything, and are kind of holding humanity hostage for their blood. Opposing them are witches: Binder witches spell the earth to protect it and keep vampires from entering, while battle witches travel around and actively fight the monsters.

Joan Matthews comes from a long line of binder witches, but defied all tradition when she left her home and became a battle witch instead. Now, many years later, she returns to her hometown to bury her father. What she finds is a town besieged by vampires, the magic barricade failing in unheard of ways, and the leaders of the town fighting among each other. She also finds her ex-girlfriend, Leigh Phan, who has her own secrets. Using all her magical knowledge, Joan throws herself into the fight, trying to protect the town she was born in.

It is a well-written book, with a good writing style, and a story that keeps you captivated. Often, independent books are so wonderfully imperfect (affectionate), but with Consecrated Ground, I had at no point the feeling that anything could be changed to improve the quality. The story goes some rather dark places and has this overlying tone of quiet despair and claustrophobia, as the vampires close in on the little, mostly deserted, town.

I have done a review of this book for Queer SciFi, which you can find here. The book is available on Amazon.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Hey, love. Could you (or anyone in the notes) tell me why Crowley was able to walk in Heaven without any pain, but not in the Church? I'm sure that Neil explained it already, but I can't find the answer and don't want to bother him and I'm sure you can help me out. x

Hiya! :) The floor in the Church is consecrated, the office building in which are Heaven and Hell is not - it's Neutral ground :).

[lazulibundtcake]

*bolts upright in bed*

What is the first word out of Crowley's mouth when he sees Aziraphale after the holy water fight?

Sorry.

[cute-little-ali-cat]

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

[lichen-soup-scribe]

Book review: Consecrated Ground by Virginia Black

Cover blurb: "Like her father before her, Joan Matthews is a witch. For generations, their family of binder witches has protected Calvert, Oregon from vampires by strengthening the land with spellcraft. Pushing back against tradition, Joan defied her father and left town to become a war witch, one who fights the monsters hand-to-hand. But when her father dies, Joan returns to find her hometown assailed by a vampire lord’s endless attacks—and the answers lie with the one woman who chose a rival over Joan."

My review:

This is a strong debut novel -- and I think its key strengths come from Virginia Black's background in writing short stories. We open on action, immediately (and it's well-written action, to boot). The world is presented to us as-is, from the POV of someone who already inhabits it, and with very minimal exposition. Its characters largely have existing relationships to each other, so we skip over tedious getting-to-know-you scenes. This efficiency and confidence is often something first-time novelists struggle to achieve, but short fiction writers are used to working with a limited word count and making, well, every word count. That said, this economy worked against the book at times. Calvert lacked distinguishing characteristics, which made it hard to tell why Joan felt drawn to stay there -- especially given most of the people who once made it home for her are now gone. It wasn't entirely clear to me why Joan was romantically drawn to love-interest Leigh, aside from having grown up together. And I would've liked to hear a bit more about how the world ended up in the state it finds itself in now. The existence of familiar places like Portland as fully developed cities and the way Calvert seems to have gone downhill recently seems to suggest that there was greater stability in the past (so maybe humanity hasn't always been under siege by vampires?) but then some vampires are implied to be centuries or even millennia old… maybe they were less common in the past? On the other hand, going into world history would've slowed the book's pace, and it wasn't exactly relevant to the characters' current plight, so I can't hold its absence against the author. The book had me intrigued from the first page, and I suspect that any sequels will expand on all of the above. I'm definitely down to stick around and find out.

[nzbookwyrm]

Consecrated Ground is a multiracial lesbian paranormal tour de force that will leave you wary of the shadows and absolutely breathless.

Like her father before her, Joan Matthews is a witch. For generations, their family of binder witches has protected Calvert, Oregon from vampires by strengthening the land with spellcraft. Pushing back against tradition, Joan defied her father and left town to become a war witch, one who fights the monsters hand-to-hand. But when her father dies, Joan returns to find her hometown assailed by a vampire lord’s endless attacks—and the answers lie with the one woman who chose a rival over Joan.

Leigh Phan once believed her heart was safe and her future was set. When Joan left town, Leigh’s choices led to ruin and unintended consequences. Now Leigh harbors a dark secret forcing her to live a moment-to-moment existence. Her only hope of survival lies in trusting the war witch who left her behind.

Now it's up to Joan to fight for a town she left behind, while Leigh faces a destiny she never imagined was possible. With Calvert on the brink of total destruction, Joan and Leigh join forces and face inconvenient truths in order to save their town—and each other.