My first book of the year... needs to be something good.
What's my least favourite genre? Romance.
What's my least favourite subgenre of romance? Paranormal romance.
I know what would be a good book to start the year... a paranormal romance novel by someone with a silly name like Temple Drake.
And goddamn it's a really good start to the year. Temple Drake is a pen name for Rupert Thomson. If Rupert Thomson wrote a diary of how often he put the bins out I would read it. He has one of the most hypnotically readable, eloquent and beautiful styles of any writer I know.
And his writing is in full force here. It needs to be because the story is admittedly a bit thin.
Zhang Guo Xing is a wealthy businessman in Shanghai. One night in 2012 he runs into Naemi Vieno Kuunsela, a beautiful blond Finnish girl, in a nightclub. They embark on a passionate affair.
Alternating chapters give his and her viewpoints on events from the start to the end of the affair. However, she isn't your ordinary woman you might meet in a nightclub. From the prologue we know she was born sometime around 1550 and is some type of ghost or vampire. The story covers his gradual realisation that there is something not normal about her.
That's pretty much it for the storyline. There are no vampire wars or werewolves to battle, It's a love story between a man and a 460 year old blood drinking ghost. She's not a danger to anyone, especially not him. He's probably a far less pleasant character than she is - this starts for him as just another in a long series of affairs before it turns into a genuine love story, whereas she has her own obvious reasons for not wanting to get involved but finds she can't help herself.
The exotic setting is evoked perfectly by Thomson's extraordinarily lucid prose. He really is such a good writer it makes me wonder why I bother trying to write anything of my own because I could never reach his standards. The relationship between the two leads is similarly brilliantly done. The obsession on both sides provides more than enough drama to move the story along. Thomson has always had a particular skill at making burgeoning romances something interesting to read, to his skills are on top form here.
For me to read a paranormal romance is remarkable. For me to already be thinking this might be in the top 5 books I read this year, despite the genre, is even more unbelievable.
A great start to the year. Go out and buy it, you won't regret it.
Available from all good bookshops, and probably a few bad ones too.
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