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Margaret L. Carter

Auteur van Embracing Darkness

40+ Werken 262 Leden 5 Besprekingen

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Bevat de naam: Margaret L. Carter

Werken van Margaret L. Carter

Embracing Darkness (2005) 37 exemplaren
Transformations (Anthology 3-in-1) (2006) — Medewerker — 21 exemplaren
Dark Changeling (1999) 15 exemplaren
Crimson Dreams (2003) 15 exemplaren
Sealed In Blood (2001) 10 exemplaren
Shadow of the Beast (1998) 9 exemplaren
Prince of the Hollow Hills (2006) 8 exemplaren
Child of Twilight (2003) 8 exemplaren
From the Dark Places (2003) 8 exemplaren
Wild Sorceress (2004) 7 exemplaren
Dragon's Tribute (2003) 7 exemplaren
Tall, Dark and Deadly (2006) 6 exemplaren
Maiden Flights (2005) 5 exemplaren
New Flame (2003) 5 exemplaren
Night Flight (2001) 4 exemplaren
Blood Hostage (2011) 4 exemplaren
Horror-Love (1973) 3 exemplaren
Chocolate Chip Charm (2021) 2 exemplaren
Spooky Tutti Frutti (2020) 2 exemplaren
Tentacles of Love (2007) 2 exemplaren
Windwalker's Mate (2008) 1 exemplaar
Song from the Abyss (2010) 1 exemplaar
Her Own Blood [short story] (1985) 1 exemplaar
Heart Diamond (2008) 1 exemplaar
Bear Hugs (Curve Appeal) (2013) 1 exemplaar
Heat in the Night 1 exemplaar
Passion in the Blood (2018) 1 exemplaar
Sweeter Than Wine (2009) 1 exemplaar

Gerelateerde werken

Free Amazons of Darkover (1985) — Medewerker — 520 exemplaren
Four Moons of Darkover (1987) — Medewerker — 391 exemplaren
Sword and Sorceress V (1988) — Medewerker — 363 exemplaren
Renunciates of Darkover (1991) — Medewerker — 323 exemplaren
Towers of Darkover (1993) — Medewerker — 280 exemplaren
Sword and Sorceress XX (2003) — Medewerker — 201 exemplaren
The Time of the Vampires (1996) — Medewerker — 105 exemplaren
Sword and Sorceress XXII (2007) — Medewerker — 71 exemplaren
A Taste of Midnight: Sensual Vampire Stories (2000) — Medewerker — 36 exemplaren
Ellora's Cavemen: Legendary Tails II (2005) — Medewerker — 36 exemplaren
Sword and Sorceress XXVI (2011) — Medewerker — 29 exemplaren
Midnight Treat: Ellora's Cave (2008) — Medewerker — 25 exemplaren
Gifts of Darkover (2015) — Medewerker — 25 exemplaren
Dark Dreams (2005)sommige edities20 exemplaren
Sword and Sorceress 33 (2018) — Medewerker — 14 exemplaren
Realms of Darkover (2016) — Medewerker — 13 exemplaren
Masques of Darkover (2017) — Medewerker — 12 exemplaren
Jaelle Her Book (2013) — Medewerker — 7 exemplaren
Things That Go Bump In the Night II — Medewerker — 7 exemplaren
Flesh Fantastic (1995) — Medewerker — 3 exemplaren

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Foxfire by Margaret Carter and was essentially the story I bought the anthology for. I loved the idea of a paranormal story featuring a kitsune, because well, you just don’t see it done very often, if at all in romances. So I snatched up this anthology.

After getting yelled at by her sister, Tabby takes refuge by walking on one of the trails that run by her house only to run into Kenji and after staring at each other for a bit Kenji ducks behind a tree and starts dancing with himself while Tabby collapses on the trail and does the same thing. The story redeemed itself a bit by explaining why they both had the sudden urge to masturbate in the middle of the woods, but it still felt like the scene was just thrown in there. Aside from that this was a pretty sturdy story.

I was probably most impressed with how Carter was able to weave great backgrounds for Tabby and Kenji and keep it interesting in such a small amount of a page space. The writing was good enough that I would’ve been interested to read a full story involving the two characters and to have seen a more elaborate plot line brought in. In fact, I was a little sad to see this story end so quickly. I’ll be looking into some of Carter’s other books.

Survivor was the worst story in the anthology for me. David is a pilot in a squad that sounds a lot like the Blue Angels, except it’s called Screaming Dragons. He’s been having wet dreams of this dragon chick in another dimension for years and after crashing while doing some training he finds himself actually in that dimension and he can now transform into a dragon.

I found myself skimming after reading 50 pages of this story, because I’ve seen this plot done before and world David was thrown into didn’t interest me. Neither really did the characters. The part that I got the most into was in the very beginning and had to do with David’s flight team. They were interesting characters and there were also aspects of David’s personality being explored in that small space of time, but those seemed to be dropped after he ended up in dragon land. The writing itself wasn’t bad; I just couldn’t get into the plot or characters.

Taking Shape was the middle ground story in all of this for me. Nick is a shape shifter, but in the sense that he can change into anything. He’s kind of like Mystique off of X-men… well, except he’s not blue and can change into animals and inanimate objects as well humans. Anyway, Nick and the rest of his family who can also shape shift run a private investigator business. The most recent of cases that Nick takes on is to find out if a woman is embezzling money from the company she works for. Tally is, of course, innocent and Nick ends up getting attached to her which presents several problems seeing as he’s been hanging around her bedroom in several different forms without her knowing who or what he really is.

This was just a fun story. Nick takes a bunch of different shapes from Tally’s dull boyfriend to a rubber ducky shaped vibrator in order to spy on her. It’s funny in parts and while the mystery is a no brainer, it’s still great to watch the story unfold and to see the different situations Nick gets himself into. I’ll be checking out more by this author.
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Gemarkeerd
Book_Minx | Jan 24, 2015 |
Reading this book was an education into the supernatural world of vampires. This is only the second book I have read about vampires, and I found DARK CHANGELING exciting and very suspenseful to read.

Dr. Roger Darvell is a psychiatrist that was raised as a Catholic (with all those guilt complexes) who does not feel just right in his body...then he is asked to profile a serial killer who is suspected of drinking his victim’s blood. The trouble is he is trying to analysis his own desire to drink blood. There lies the conflict.

After meeting Sylvia LaMotte, an admitted vampire immortal, he begins to understand about the world of vampires and she helps him understand his past and somewhat his future.

Moving to Maryland, he embarks on a new medical partnership with Dr. Britt Loren and also a new romantic relationship with the doctor. Sylvia is on the run from the vampire serial killer and informs him of the killer’s intent to kill Roger’s patient and new lover.

Book moves along very quickly and keeps you on the edge of your seat. I would recommend this spine tingling book be read only during the daylight hours.
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Gemarkeerd
memasmb | Jan 1, 2011 |
As a dedicated Lovecraftian, Windwalker's Mate is a book that came out of left field for me. Every few months I go on the Cthulhu mythos community at Amazon.com and troll through the products to see if there is anything I may have missed. Last time I did this there were two novels by Margaret L. Carter on the list. Well, I've pursued more flimsy leads through lulu.com (don't even get me started on Cybermind) so I did a little exploring. Ms. Carter's website indicates she writes occult and paranormal romances, somewhat along the lines of the Sookie Stackhouse books I guess. Not my cup of tea, but what the hey, not exclusionary either. I then checked out the publisher Amber Quill Press. They are not a self publication site and, in fact, are pretty selective about which authors they publish. From the Dark Places, her other novel on the list, had a pretty cool tentacle on the cover. Like I said, I've thrown away more money for less, so I ordered the one with the more mythos-ish title. Anyone who likes the genre will immediately think Ithaqua when they see Windwalker in the title of a story, so with a bit of trepidation I began to read.

Windwalker's Mate is a decent 165 page trade paperback that costs $15.00, a bit high perhaps for the page count but not out of line; text starts on page 1. Editing was good; I did not note any glaring typos. Cover art by Trace Edward Zaber is a shirtless man and partly clad woman embracing.....hmmm, not very Cthulhish, much more romance novelish. No worries! By page 16 we find out that the male lead character has a pet snake named Yig. To preview my bottom line, this is really a romance with supernatural elements, written by someone who has read her Lovecraft and likes some of the concepts and imagery. Some minor spoilers may follow so skip the next paragraph if that bothers you.

Shannon is a (very attractive) young single mother, raising a 4 year old boy, Daniel, who seems to have the ability to control the wind; he says his father is actually a wind dragon. Compelled by uncomfortable occurrences at his daycare and at home, she contacts his father, Nathan for help. Gradually some information comes to light. She originally met Nathan when she was a troubled teen. It turns out she and he both have psychic abilities; he can read and object's aura and tell what happened to it in the past and she has some telekinesis. Nathan's father, Hugh, has gathered several teens with psychic abilities and is trying to instill in them a belief in a cult. Ancient entities once held sway on the earth and now are trapped in some inexplicable dimension. When the stars are right, with the help of human servitors, gates may be opened to allow them back into our world where they will have dominion once again. This requires cryptic formulae, symbols, chanting and rituals from ancient accursed tomes. The entity that Hugh seeks to appease is known by various names including the Windwalker, Wendigo, Ithaqua and...Hastur. Well, what's in a name, anyway? Hugh drugged Shannon and Nathan, and they performed a sex act while the cultists chanted away. At consummation both Nathan and Shannon were possessed by the Windwalker. In horror over what had happened, Shannon broke away from the cult and has had no contact at all with Nathan. Four years later it seems that Shannon's child is also partly that of the Windwalker and he will be able to open the gate. The bulk of the novel concerns Hugh trying to steal Daniel away, and Shannon and Nathan coming together to save him. This being a romance, there was a lot of internal dialogue between these two (very attractive) young people, who only eventually (but inevitably) become a couple. In an altogether completely telegraphed twist, it turns out if they have hot, steamy sex they will link mentally and their respective psychic powers will be enhanced. Will they find Daniel? If they do, will he refuse the Windwalker's blandishments? Will Shannon use her love to save Nathan's soul, as he is still tempted by the cult after all these years? What do you think?

The best parts of the narrative were the descriptions of the Windwalker's manifestations. These were very skillfully drawn and provided excellent Lovecraftian imagery. For the Cthulhu mythos fan these bits are what make the book worth reading. I did not like the dialogue of Daniel, the four year old. It was written in an on again, off again, babyish way that did not ring true for a 4 year old. Four year olds may say childish things but "She bited my bunnies" doesn't dovetail with my experience. Also, it was inconsistent. Another thing that almost always falls flat is when the eldritch entity has dialogue with a character it ends up seeming anthropomorphized, mundane, too comprehensible. Talking to these things drove the mad Arab, well, mad. Here Ithaqua tells Shannon, "Yield my son to me and you will not be harmed." This hardly seems like something an inscrutable, immensely ancient, unhuman thing might do. Along the lines with the rest of Ms. Carter's output, there is an emphasis on the supernatural aspect, with all the psychic powers. She puts a crucifix on Daniel as a charm and he finds it intolerable (though to be fair, it is not clear why this is so, perhaps just because she is opposing the Windwalker's influence). Later a prayer to St. Patrick seems to be beneficial, where it would be so much wasted breath in Lovecraft.

I actually was reasonable entertained throughout, all though the big final confrontation was something of a let down. The beginning and middle were better than the end for me. Windwalker's Mate is clearly a much better mythos read than The Iron Maiden, The Dark Destroyer, The HP Lovecraft Institute or The Returner: The Book of Planes. I probably liked Moore's Deeper better than this, and liked this better than D'Ammassa's Servants of Chaos or Curran's Hive (although this last is a tough call). Lovecraftian collectors and completists need a copy. Those of you who only want the upper echelon of Cthulhu mythos novels can probably give it a miss. I liked it well enough that I am going to try From the Dark Places.
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Gemarkeerd
carpentermt | Sep 21, 2010 |
When you start exploring the byways of mythos fiction you end up in some pretty disparate places. One risk is that more often than not these obscure books aren't so good, yet somehow I feel compelled to finish them to have an informed opinion. This ends up taking forever and means I end up reading less than I otherwise would. Alas From the Dark Places was pretty weak and holds nothing of interest for mythos fans. This was one of two books the author listed on the Cthulhu mythos community at Amazon.com. The other, Windwalker's Mate was pretty obviously mythos and well written enough that I looked forward to exploring From the Dark Places. This book is from Amber Quill Press, the author's favaored publisher I guess; it is a 268 page trade paperback that lists at $17.00. Editing was pretty good; cover art by Trace Edward Zaber was a very promising tentacle in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately, in this second book I began to note a uniformity of prose, characters and plot devices. The heroine is a (hot) young widow with a 4 year old daughter; they both have unsuspected and untapped psychic powers. This makes them a target of the Ancient Ones, aliens from Outside, a different dimension. They manipulate dim witted cultists to try to cross over to our dimension. OK, this is Lovecraftian enough. Again unfortunately, except for a few extremely brief descriptions of tendril-like manifestations of power, this is the absolute only thing close to resembling mythos. It turns out that the Ancient Ones are intrinsically evil and are the forces opposed to God and heaven. They can create human avatars but then adopt human emotions and weaknesses, and can have melodramatic pathetic sounding dialogue. This doesn't necessarily make this a bad book, but for me it took it out of the realm of mythos or Lovecraftian. It is the same kind of wrong headedness in Coach's Midnight Diner: The Jesus vs Cthulhu Edition. Some stories in that book were pretty darned entertaining...but they were most definitely not mythos.

What made this book barely readable was the pretty weak prose. There was a lot of description of testing for paranormal abilities and astral projection. The dilemma of the protagonist, its time course and plot, and her interminable internal self doubt and dialogue, were all so similar to those in Windwalker's Mate it was like a cookie cutter. I did not find the characters interesting. The scenes where they were in danger did not seem really like much of a threat; there was always a deus ex machina occurrence where a friendly ghost or even more unsuspected psychic powers turned up, either in her male interest, her daughter or a cat. I was so bored that by the time I got to the final confrontation, where there was a semi-predictable tragedy, I didn't care and was relieved to be done.

A Carter fan would probably like this better. Outsiders accuse all mythos tales of being retreads and maybe it seems that way to outsiders to romance books. Some horror or paranormal thriller readers don't want their heroines *too* threatened. All I can say is readers looking for a mythos fix are advised to go elsewhere. If any of her other books end up being listed as mythos I think I'll let someone else I trust read it first and let me know how it is.
… (meer)
½
 
Gemarkeerd
carpentermt | Sep 21, 2010 |

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Statistieken

Werken
40
Ook door
22
Leden
262
Populariteit
#87,814
Waardering
½ 3.6
Besprekingen
5
ISBNs
42

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