Reading While Black

Whoot! I am literally counting the days until July 10th. Why, you ask? That’s when L.A. Banks‘ The Cursed is officially released!

I’ve followed this series since 2005. I’d become hooked on urban fantasy in its infancy (you know, back when it seemed only Sookie and Anita existed) and for some reason, I kept passing the first book by, never occuring to me that it was a black woman on the cover. Duh!

My library had the first three books in the series in stock, so I checked them out and settled back to enjoy a “hip-hop” Buffy (blindly adore BtVS, btw) . Needless to say, I was less than impressed. The combination of the slang, the purplish prose, and the sudden leap into the action before I knew who the hell these characters were turned me way off. I read to book Two (The Awakening) and stopped. But I still had book 3 left on the floor.

Ugh. Due to my anal need to finishing everything I borrow or purchase, I was not looking forward to reading The Hunted.

The book was due in a week so I figured, “what the hell?”. But all of the sudden, something clicked–the prose, the slang, the character of Carlos, everything fell together in such an awesome way in this book that I was floored, literally lying on the ground due to Banks’ masterful plucking of my emotions. The Hunted was where I feel she hit her stride and the action, sex, violence, familial love, and mythology of the Vampire Huntress came together.  From then on, I was on a roll, and the bi-annual releases from Banks became highlights of my year (and Banks and the Sookie Stackhouse series are the only books I’m willing to pay HC/TPB prices for).

I just couldn’t get enough of the VHL series and as a result, I braved a re-read of Minion and The Awakening, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. In fact, for the past eighteen months, I fall in love with the series all over again with each new release and re-read the series from start to finish all over again. The Cursed is book 9 out of Banks’ planned 12 book series, and I’m going to miss Carlos, Damali and the gang, but thankfully, Banks is beginnning a new series featuring werewolves this fall entitled Bad Blood.