Blood & Fog: Week 1 (chapters 1-3)

[Plasma]

Summation on Chapter 2: Okay. Really dislike the opening. It reads really poorly, and I think a lot of that is how it feels clear that Holder can’t really write in that time period. Also Darla and Angelus’s raw sexual energy is just too much lmao. Don’t need to have them want to drop their underwear every five sentences

As it goes on, it gets much better. Once we shift to Elizabeth, it pulled me back in. I really loved the ending where Spike and Dru were trying to get into the house. Felt like the only genuine “yeah this is how these people would react/act” moment in the entire chapter, sadly.

 

[Taake]

Me, reading Chapter 2 where Angelus and Darla want to have sex at like every turn, wondering if Nancy Holder has a fetish for them:

Like, seriously lol. They almost get dusted by some Eldritch demon and Darla tells him that they should strip down and do it right then and there. 💀 Or like five pages earlier they start shagging after seeing one of Dru’s vamps die.
.

It’s also weird that Spike is on the cover of this book, yet this segment was more from Angelus’s perspective than anyone else. Why? This would’ve been a great opportunity to put us in Spike’s head, but it’s like Holder would rather be writing Angel.

Lol, you’re in for a bumpy ride. Willow isn’t in the cover, but there is a lot of her perspective as well 😉

What should’ve been on the cover is a more shadowy, mysterious creature somewhere in the background, to suggest Jack. The yellow doesn’t do it for me, and the backdrop makes me feel like it is going to be a time travel book. I don’t know, it just feels like zero thought went into it.

I actually thought Angelus and Darla were very true to character, I feel like they’re always getting their kit off in the show. Like when they’re hunted by Holtz and stuff, they’re like, oh but let’s take a break for some fun times. I think its their kink.

But the opening chapters are rather rough, I agree

 

[Plasma]

I’m just more astonished that 92 pages in, the villain has done nothing except run away and get unknowingly shot (maybe?) by Buffy.

He doesn’t feel all that intimidating. It’s more like someone had an idea for a book about a bad guy from Spike’s past coming to Sunnydale and then they just threw in the Jack name because it worked out time-wise.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Yeah. I wish they’d really used the Jack the Ripper thing instead of trying to make it about faeries.

 

[Plasma]

Absolutely agree. I think Holder felt she had to do some magical thing, but she really didn’t. Feels too over the top, even for a Buffy book.

 

[HarleyC13]

I tried to read this one and didn't get very far. It looked interesting, but I ended up DNF-ing it pretty quickly. I'm going to copy and paste the review I wrote on storygraph. You should know that I...uhm...got very annoyed and maybe a bit pedantic, but when I said "the last straw," I meant it. I'd had other problems that I tried to ignore.

Anyway, here's my review from storygraph:

I don't know what page I stopped on and don't have the book with me, but I didn't get very far. I tried because the plot sounded interesting.

However, the writing was absolutely terrible.

I'm not sure the woman who wrote this book - Nancy Holder - has ever even watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though I couldn't say definitively one way or the other.


The last straw for me was when there was a mention of the Romans celebrating Christmas. (It wasn't even a character saying this! It was regular text. It was to give background about something. I don't know what, because I immediately stopped reading as I had had enough).

THE ROMANS DIDN'T CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS! They were the ones who supposedly killed Christ! They didn't start celebrating Christmas in 0 AD!

The Romans celebrated something called Saturnalia. The author knew about Samhain but thought that the Romans celebrated effing Christmas.