Got a splinter from the pulp on this one.

 Once again, it's October, and I'm trying to read spooky stuff for the season, particularly spooky stuff I have in my library I never got around to reading. Which brings us to The Unforgiven, by Patricia J. MacDonald, who it looks has had a decent career in spite of this pulpy mass market rack book. 

This doesn't do full justice for the cut out face behind the cover.

We open on one Maggie Fraser, who is currently serving 12 years in a women's pen for allegedly murdering her married lover. While Maggie claims innocence, her mom's nun buddy Sister Dolerita insists that Maggie needs to confess her sin unless she wants to burn in eternal damnation. Maggie is also being harassed by the other women in the prison, which might explain why our introduction to her ends with Maggie drinking a bottle of disinfectant to try to kill herself. 

Sadly, she survives, and we join her on a ferry to Heron's Neck, a city and island in the Massachusetts Bay. Seems she's been corresponding with the owner of the local paper, who wants her to come work for him after she gets released. We get more of an impression of her wilting violet impersonation as she sees two kids torment a tortoise as she disembarks. She gets to the paper office the next day to find out the man she's been talking to is out of town on business, but Jess, who runs the paper, keeps her on and puts her to work over the objections of Grace and to a lesser degree, Evy. 

Most of the first half is Maggie finding a place to stay, lying to everyone about her background, and getting serious about Jess, who wants to date her. We do know someone is stalking her, but for the most part, there's very little interaction there. A moved perfume bottle, someone staring at Maggie trying on dresses, a missing pocket book... Enough that you expect this is a gaslighting tale from 1981. Not so. About halfway through, we find out who the stalker is, although it takes a bit longer to find out the motives. (It should be fairly obvious, since there's really like only one other character who could have conceivably put razor sharp glass in the apple pie.) This does mean we spend the first half of the last half waiting for everyone to catch up with the narrative. 

Eventually, everything gets resolved, although the resolution after the climax felt a bit hurried and abrupt. Like there are some major plot threads that got resolved by a sentence in a telephone call, and frankly, the killer's motives wind up making even less sense when a left field reveal happens during the climax.

While this does fall more under thriller than horror, it was a fun distraction. Not great, but amusing.

When ideals collide

 So I recently found out Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman released another new DragonLance novel, and while it's not listed as part of a planned trilogy, it could be. 

War Wizard is focused on Huma (Hero of the 3rd Dragon War) and his adopted brother Devon Aynshire, who about a quarter of the way through changes his name to Magius after an ancestor who worked with the Legendary Vinas Solamnus ti defeat the Ergothian horde. (Yeah, we're actually in fairly early Krynnish history here. Plus somewhere, I missed a dragon war, since I thought Huma won the Second War.) Anyway, we see Magius grow up with his adoptive brother and get trained in magic by the Neutral Goddess of Magic, Lunitari (which appears to be a change. Most published history starts him off in Black robes, moves him to red, turns him renegade, then dying in white.) 

Any rate, Solamnics are bred to fear and distrust  Arcane Magic (they take no issue with divine magic in this era), so Magius is fighting an uphill battle to get traction with the Knights of Solamnia (basically freakin' paladins). 

Quite a bit happens, from supportive adoptive parents fighting for him, his close friendship with Huma, and his betrothal to his adoptive sister. Magius takes his test at the Tower of High Sorcery (named back in AD&D before sorcery became it's own thing) the same time that Huma takes his spurs and becomes a knight. So, Fiancee ends up dying thanks to Huma's at this time arch nemesis (he eventually pissess of the Queen of Darkness), and Magius tries getting the Device of Time Traveling to go back and save her. Thankfully, he changes his mind, because frankly, given how many canonical time edits characters have made in this setting over time would end a game of Chrononauts with the universe exploding. 

We end with Magius creating his famous staff a later wizard uses quite famously.  

Anyway. 

The interplay between Huma and Magius is really similar to that between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, giving them a really queer subtext.  On the other hand, when Greta and Magius are betrothed and sharing a camp bed, nothing happens because they're waiting for marriage. (Guessing that was a Tracy thing, given he discusses his opinions on saving it for marriage in the Annotated Chronicles when it comes up with Goldmoon and Riverwind). 

Will they write another one? Probably, the books sell well and Hasbro near as I can tell hasn't yet squeezed  all the possible profit out of the franchise as of yet. (Forgive me, but they currently own WotC, and keep releasing unrelated to the main storyline Magic the Gathering sets based on Hasbro properties.) But, honestly, I kind of feel like they're now paying Hickman and Weis to go back and retell stories already told by others rather than tell an original story. (The last trilogy had an original story, but kept screwing with a timeline they created in the first place. Should they continue this out, one is left to wander if they plan to redact those changes.) 

SMUT alert

 So, I picked up Salt Kiss by Sierra Simone because somewhere along the line, someone made a show out of it that I kept getting ads for in Facebook Reels. (Based on what's in the reels, the show deviates from the book a few places. I'm also not paying for the app to watch the show.)

We start meeting Mark Trevena and his twin sister at their younger sister's wedding to a military man. We get the impression the siblings are hip deep in shady practices, and then we switch to our narrating character, Tristan Thomas. Tristan is a 30 year old virgin, recently discharged from the Army, following some hinted around at events playing bodyguard for an unpopular foreign leader. Mark hires him to be his bodyguard at Lyonesse, an exclusive high end kinky sex club on the Potomac in DC. We learn Mark is former CIA and the memberships at Lyonesse are paid for with information, more than money. 

We get to go through Tristan's shock at seeing kinky sex on the reg,  and eventually, he admits that he wants to be Mark's submissive, which in turn leads into smut. 

Eventually, during an "open house", Lyonesse gets invaded, Mark gets stabbed. Which means Mark has Tristan go to Ireland to pick up Mark's heretofore unknown female fiance and ride a yacht with her from Ireland to Manhattan. After a few chapters of Tristan whining about not feeling right submitting to Mark when he's engaged, Isolde and Tristan board the boat, and Tristan learns all about kinky hetero sex. 

In the end, they arrive in Manhattan and it's suggested there were cameras on the boat, so Mark is aware of what his sub and his fiancee were doing once they passed the Azores, leaving us a cliffhanger for the next book. 

Based on the information I could find, the trilogy is a modern take on the 13th century Tristan and Isolde, which, after digging through several folklore sites, has several different versions, from chaste forbidden love to King Mark killing Tristan for sleeping with Isolde after accidentally taking a love potion. So, I can't really complain about taking the basic story and making a modern version, even though the medieval versions skipped King Mark tying Knight Tristan to a table and dripping hot wax on his privates. Further investigation shows where the legend got wrapped into Arthurian Legend, which is where Lyonesse comes from, basically an English version of Atlantis. 

I mean, it's readable, and honestly tame compared to some Erotica I've read on occasion.  If you like MMF erotic lit, give it a go. Just understand most men aren't blessed with the refraction time men in erotic seem to have.