Graveyard Child (The Black Sun's Daughter #5) by M.L.N. Hanover

After a good deal of time away chasing demons and dealing with vampires, Jayné Heller is returning to Witchita.  Jayné is going to attend her older brother's wedding and the process hopefully get the answers from her parents that has wanted for a long time.  As with all family gathering things go awry quickly but because nothing has ever really been normal in  Jayné's world, it's not as simple as a drunken relative passing out in the mashed potatoes.  The deeper Jayné  digs she risks unearthing an evil which has been haunting her family for generations.  There is a price to truth and now Jayné  has to decide whether she willing to pay it and in the process save the family which has long rejected her.

From the ending of Graveyard Child, it's not immediately clear if this is the last book in the series.  Hanover did leave himself a little bit of room to continue with  Jayné  and her cohorts and in the process managed to tied up a lot of loose ends in the series.  We discover the purpose of the tattoo which Jayné  desperately sought to hide from her father, as well as what happened during Jayné's lost two days when she was 16. 

The most important revelations had to do with  Jayné's family. From the onset we were told that her father was an authoritarian parent with strong religious beliefs.  These facts did indeed turn out to be true; however, Hanover took great care to imbue a sense of complexity to not only his character but those of the other members of  Jayné's family. This allowed the reader to have a greater understanding of Jayné and to fully appreciate her growth as a protagonist.  It's worth mentioning that I still don't find Jayné to be particularly likeable, even if she is no longer naive. 

Review of Killing Rites by M.L.N. Hanover: Book 4 in The Black Sun's Daughter Series

 

It took three books, but Hanover finally wrote a book that I enjoyed reading. Perhaps it's because Jayné [Gods above how I hate that pretentious faux French name] the protagonist seems to have finally achieved a level of maturity.  After killing an innocent man in Vicious Grace, she is haunted by her actions and questioning whether she is actually in control of her body. Because her powers seem to be increasing, rather than diminishing, Jayné determines that a rider has taken up residence in her body.  

Jayné and Ex head to Sante Fe, leaving Chogyi Jake behind to meet Father Chapin and a group of Vatican approved exorcists that Ex was formerly involved in.  Father Chapin immediately suggests that Jayné seek out psychiatric help.  He feels the fact that she had a controlled childhood, inherited a lot of money from her not gay Uncle Eric, lost her faith in God and Eric, as well as defiled the temple of her flesh [note: nice way to call her a whore for having two lovers].  Though slut shaming is disgustingly sexist, I was not surprised to see it in a Catholic priest. Jayné convinces Father Chapin to go through with the exorcism. She learns that her riders name is The Black Sun's Daughter and it seems as though the demon is somehow related to the desert.  At the moment when the rider is just about to be pulled from her body, Jayné feels another trying to slip in and calls a halt to the exorcism.  Father Chapin with Ex's support believes that Jayné has been overcome by the demon living inside her.

The rest of the novel is essential spent with Jayné looking to prove that another demon was indeed trying to take control of her body.  This however does not mean that it was free of problematic elements.  The following a quote from the book regarding Jayné's feelings on going for an exorcism.

Spunky Agency: Fake Empowerment and not-so-strong Female Protagonists

Spunky Agency is a term that we use quite often on this site.  We have included a cursory definition in the Fangs Lexicon, but because it is in such regular usage, we thought that it would be appropriate to create a post clearly defining what we mean by this term, with an example of some characters that represent Spunky Agency..

A character possessed of Spunky Agency, is one who makes extremely impulsive decisions that often are reckless and put her in ridiculous danger. This, of course, is meant to frame said protagonist as a person of action. Quite often you see the term "strong" used to describe this kind of action when in fact a better descriptor would probably be, “does not have the sense that God gave cabbage.“

These protagonists use their agency in such ridiculous ways that it actually undermines it. Their decisions are so poor we wish they wouldn’t make them at all - these characters aren’t strong because their “strength” is so misapplied. We have so many classic examples in the genre - Sookie Stackhouse has made some incredibly poor decisions, starting with deciding to investigate a serial killing in vampire bars and just getting worse from there. Clary from the Mortal Instruments virtually embodies this trope with her clueless portal jumping without knowing what’s on the other side. Claire from the Morganville Vampires constantly makes decisions that make my head ache (checking out the curious, locked, lightproof room in the library in a town filled with vampires? Really? What did you think was hiding in there? Mushrooms?)

Of course, bad plans are not the only element of Spunky Agency. How many times have we seen a group make a plan and then the Spunky Agent decides she’s going to sneak off and do her own thing instead? Yes, I`m looking at you Elena from the Otherworld series. How many times will she pretend to agree then go against everything decided? The Spunky Agent decides she knows better than her fellows and feels she can discard their input on a whim.

Similarly, the Spunky Agent will often refuse to accept any other input. She presents a fait accompli, a “my way or the highway”. Her agency is only realised by dictating to the others - even when they are often more experienced and knowledgeable than she is. Elena from Vampire Diaries frequently forces Stefan and Damon to accept her ridiculous plans. Jayne (oh thee of faux french names) from the Blacksun’s Daughter Series knows she should not be in command and yet still leads around the experts; making reckless plans that needlessly risking other people’s lives.

Another common element of Spunky Agency is poor impulse control - or outright random violence. Keillie Riviere from The Hoodoo Series so epitomises this that we’ve actually named the trope after her. To prove how strong and confident and determined she is, she punches people. She even punches Augustin, the leader of an international police and governing body. While she may be the most in need of anger-management therapy or some jail time, she’s hardly alone. How many times has Anita Blake got up in someone’s face at the slightest provocation?

Review of Unclean Spirits by M.L.N. Hanover: Book 1 of The Black Sun's Daughter

 

When I finished reading  Unclean Spirits, I found myself staring at the cursor on my computer screen, not sure about what to say about this series.  I certainly am not overwhelmed by the story, but the book sorts of leaves you with a blank feeling.  

It begins with Eric Alexander Heller, sitting in a dive bar attempting to hire a few low lives to do a job.  He seems to have a sort of special sight that allows him to determine if someone is really human or, nosferatu or loupine. Apparently, these creatures implant themselves in human bodies, and the owner of the body is forcibly removed or exterminated. Yep, a sort of new take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He agrees to go with the men to another location, but quickly realizes that they are not who they originally appeared to be, and ends up dead.

Eric's niece Jayne, pronounced zha-nay (a point of which we are reminded about ad nauseum) arrives in Denver to settle his estate. She is met at the airport by Aubrey, who is a friend of her uncle.  We learn that Eric was never close to her parents, but that he always took time to be there for Jayne.  Out of the blue, Jayne says to Aubrey, "I just want you to know, "it's okay with me that he was gay."  Aubrey is shocked and tells her that he did not know that, and Jayne rethinks her assumptions.  It seems that she believed that Eric was gay because he did not get along with her religiously conservative parents. For a major part of this story, almost every time Jayne brings up Eric it is to inform the listener that he is gay.  It's like being hit over the head with a battering ram at times.

When Jayne meets with Eric's lawyers she learns that he is rich, which of course surprised her again because he was gay.  Can't think of how to respond that you have inherited millions of dollars, claim a gay uncle. When Jayne decides to visit one of Eric's apartments in the city she meets, Midian, a vampire with a penchant for cooking.  He spends most of his time worrying about what kind of food he is going to serve Jayne, Aubre, Ex, and Chogyi Jake; all of which are associates of Eric.  While in the apartment, some riders break into the apartment and attempt to kill Jayne (yeah the name does not get less irritating, and someone should tell Hanover that it's not a French name)  She of course goes all ninja, though she has never thrown a punch in her life. 

Back at Eric's Jayne determines that she has to kill Coin, the entity responsible for killing Eric.  Keep in mind that as a team she only has Aubrey, Ex, Midian, Chogyi Jake, whom she has known for a few days. This is spunky agency at its finest.  She is surrounded by strangers and has no skills but hey, it's off to kill the bad guys.

But before she can go off to kill the bad guy, of course she has to find to go out on a date and have some sex.   Having found Aubrey attractive since meeting Jayne decides to ask him out on a date which ends with the two of them having sex, because worrying that you might die soon does that to people.  When she wakes in the middle of the night she ends up going through his things and discovers that Aubrey is married and so of course she feels betrayed.  And what do you do when you're betrayed and someone is trying to kill you, you disappear for hours, telling no one where you are.