The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout has one interesting idea in its pages: the concept of the blood tie, a BDSM-like compulsion that exists between new vampires and the person who vamps them. The blood tie, like lust, short-circuits the new vampire’s brain, strongly predisposing him or her to submission before his or her maker. The comparison between sexual desire and the blood tie is apt because, at least how Armintrout writes it, the blood tie often occasions hot monkey sex between maker and new vamp.
Besides being a hack of the first order, Armintrout also wouldn’t know consistency if it came up and bit her on the neck. For example, in a truly memorable detail, Cyrus provides fetish shoes for Carrie to wear during the climactic sadistic party/massacre where she’s supposed to escape. Armintrout explicitly describes the shoes as basically pointe shoes with heels or ballet boots. Since ballet boots force all of a person’s weight onto his or her toes and the very narrow heels, they are difficult to balance in, much less walk in for a night, much less run around in while fending off evil vampires. Yet we’re supposedly to believe that she successfully participates in a revolt against the evil vampires, including stabbing Cyrus in the eye, while wearing such footwear. The Turning contains numerous examples of such unrealistic bullshit. Very dull.
It does not help that the photomanipulation on the paperback cover makes it look like dyed paper is coming out of the woman’s neck instead of guts.
Some day I’ll write about the romance novel trope of Requisite Seduction By Frilly Dress, but not now.