Guest Blog and Giveaway with Tate Hallaway

HEA and Iron Man

Last weekend I went to go see “Iron Man 2” with a friend. I’m a long-time Marvel fan, having devoured much of my cousin’s collection (actually begun by his father in the 60s) since I was old enough to read. Comics are epic. Not just cool, which they most defiantly are, but also in the original meaning of the word: long, sprawling stories that span generations.

Extrapolating from Marvel’s well-publicized bankruptcy, I have to imagine it’s difficult to get readers to commit to a long-term relationship. As a long-time reader, I’m irritated by what I see as gimmicks to mix things up, re-booting and re-telling origin stories for favorite iconic characters.

But Americans seem to crave the shiny. We like even our detergents to be “new and improved.” Not one of us would probably pick up a can of beans labeled, “old and stable.” It should be no surprise, then, that we also like our romances to be first blush. Who doesn’t enjoy the heady rush of discovering someone new and falling head over heels in love? The entire chick flick/romantic comedy movie industry is built on the idea that Americans will pay a lot of money, over and over again, for the same kind of new.

I committed a cardinal sin against the shiny in my series. I married my heroine and my hero. Foolishly, I didn’t see that as “the end.” As someone who has been in a relationship (not just with my comic books, either!) for the last twenty-four years, I knew for a fact that the fun BEGINS after “I do.” But, to most readers since the time of Shakespeare, a wedding signals HEA, the happily ever after, that no one actually experiences – it just goes soft-focus and misty and then the credits roll.

I’d kind of hoped to try out a grand experiment, not unlike the one Marvel is attempting on the big screen. I wanted to see if readers would follow along *after*-HEA. Could I continue to tell a romance after the wedding? After the honeymoon was officially over?

I’ll never know.

Many of my readers (“the numbers” to the bean-counting part of the publishing industry) didn’t even make it to the wedding, much less the honeymoon. Perhaps I didn’t tell the right story in the right way or at the right time, but, regardless, I’ll be watching Marvel with interest. Can Iron Man really launch the Avengers Initiative? Will the movie-going audience actually hang out for a longer story? Will we still be interested in Iron Man after we’ve seen him three or four times? After a while the suit is going to lose its ability to impress us with its steampunkish whirs and gears and we’ll be left with just plain, old Tony Stark, like that morning after when you realize that handsome knight on a white steed is just some schlub you agreed to be with for the rest of your life….

Or at least until you can trade him in for the new and improved version.

Would you like to win a copy of

Honeymoon of the Dead

by Tate Hallaway?

One commenter will win a copy of Honeymoon of the Dead

be sure to include email address

Open to US Shipping

Contest Closes Tuesday May 25 Midnight EST

Winners Announced on Wednesday May 26

+5 entries for being a Fang-tastic Books Follower

+5 entries for blogging about this contest

+5 entries for including a link to this contest on your blog, twitter,or Facebook

+5 for being a @RoxanneRhoads twitter follower

A Review of Honeymoon of the Dead by Tate Hallaway

5 Fangs for Honeymoon of the Dead

It seems all good things must come to end, this is another wonderful series that ended at book five.

If it doesn't end at 3 (making it a trilogy) the magic number seems to be 5. If it can go past 5 then it has the chance to make the long haul (which means it could go on forever).

Honeymoon of the Dead is the 5th and final book of Tate Hallaway's Garnet Lacey series.

After dealing with a zombie ex-wife and a moody eternal teenager at her wedding, witch Garnet just wants to have a nice, normal honeymoon with her vampire husband Sebastian.

Too bad normal suddenly seems to mean that Garnet sees gods and goddesses everywhere she goes and has run ins with the police at every turn. Wow talk about a honeymoon from hell!

Garnet has to deal with the police, FBI, Homeland security, the Austrian consulate, a kidnapping, crazy cultish vampire hunters, two quarrelling goddesses, supernatural crazies that seem to have in for Garnet, her old coven members that have not forgiven her past indiscretions, and an immortal husband she still has so much to learn about...

This is not exactly what a new bride hopes her honeymoon will be like.

I love this series and I am totally bummed this is the last book. A witch with great power Garnet just wants to do her own thing- but nothing, nothing ever seems to go right for her especially when after putting out a call for help she gets stuck with the mother of all demons inside her, Lilith. Why couldn't she get a nice Goddess full of light. Nope she gets bloodthirsty Lilith- which Garnet has come to think of as her own personal curse. Until she also ended up with the feminist, man hating Goddess Athena inside her.

Amid everything else she has to deal with on this honeymoon gone terribly wrong Garnet has to decide which Goddess to keep and which one to ask nicely to leave because the two of them duking it out inside her is making Garnet physically ill.

This book had parts that were so funny I laughed out loud (love that in a book) along with a few ultra sexy parts and the mandatory soul searching that Garnet has to do so she can come to terms with who and what she is.

This was a fabulous book and a great way to end an awesome series.

I will miss Sebastian the alchemist/college professor/car mechanic vampire (love that, really do). He is the embodiment of everything I imagine a vampire would be- completely multifaceted, ageless, adaptable, willing to experiment and change often without ever loosing who he is, sure of himself but not so sure and haughty that he forgets how to be silly. When I think of all the vampires in all the books I have read, Sebastian has to be one of the most well rounded and well adapted individuals. He is loving and kind, sexy and dangerous, both teddy bear and grizzling bear, and totally- totally freaking hawt! His main drawbacks have to be the zombie witch ex-wife and the eternal moody teenager (of course the son, Matyas, has his good moments).

For all of you Tate Hallaway fans do not fear, she also has a new series coming out- also YA

(I am sensing a trend here- thanks to Twilight-everyone's going YA- it's where the hopes of big money and massive book franchises currently dwell)

Anyway the new book is Almost to Die For: A Vampire Princess of St Paul Novel which will be out in August. Looks like it is going to be another YA series featuring vampires.

Rescheduled Tate Hallaway and Another Review Quote in a Book

So Tate Hallaway was tentatively scheduled to guest here today but I guess wires got crossed (happens when you are working through a publicist and dealing with a million guest blog and appearances :-)

So now she'll be here next week.

Which is good because I just got the chance to pick up my review copy Honeymoon of the Dead last night.

And what did I find on the first page of review quotes?

A piece of my review from Dead if I Do!

I think it is so awesome when I pick up a book and find one of my review quotes on it or in it. (Do you ever read all those review snippets on books or do you skip over them?)

So I started reading Honeymoon of the Dead last night and it totally sucked me in. I didn't get to bed until almost 2am because I lost track of time reading it (that's a sign of a good book). I am sad that this is the last book in the Garnet Lacey series but I am really eager to finish reading it because it's good.

Once I'm done I'll post a review.