Book Review- Dance of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

Title: The Dance of the Red Death

 Author: Bethany Griffin

Series: Masque of the Red Death #2

Published: 4 April 2013 by Indigo

Length: 

Source: publisher

Other info: First book was Masque of the Red Death, which I loved. 

Summary :Araby Worth’s city is on fire. Her brother is dead. Her best friend could be soon. Her mother is a prisoner, her father is in hiding. And the two boys who stole her heart have both betrayed her. But Araby has found herself, and she is going to fight back. Inspired by one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most compelling stories, “The Masque of the Red Death,” Bethany Griffin has spun two sultry and intricate novels about a young woman who finds herself on the brink of despair but refuses to give in. Decadent masquerades, steamy stolen moments, and sweeping action are set in a city crumbling from neglect and tragedy. A city that seeps into your skin. Dance of the Red Death is the riveting conclusion to the dark and fascinating saga of an unforgettable heroine.

Review: We pick up where we left Masque of the Red Death, so  Araby has a dead brother, a dying best friend, and two boys that she loves who have also betrayed her. as people seek shelter at Prince  Prospero’s place and Reverend Malcontent spreads disease, Araby and co must try and save the city, and themselves.

I really enjoyed Masque, but somehow, this wasn’t the same. The world was once again, gorgeously written in its full, crumbling glory. The world is distinctly Poe style, which I liked. The seven rooms in Prospero’s palace didn’t come in until the end though, which is a shame, because that was my favourite part about the story this was based on and I was really hoping that it would feature more.

Lots of things don’t come in until the end, really. There’s a lot of running around the city, but it’s hard to see where it all leads to sometimes.

Araby is a bit more forward in Dance, which I liked. Elliot has a hidden agenda. Will is ok, I suppose. No strong feelings about the boys either way. The love triangle was interesting, in terms of the secrets between them all, but I  didn’t really care about how the love side of it ended up.

What I loved, as in obsessed over for a couple of days after reading it, in Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, was the masquerade ball, and the rooms. I was disappointed with both of these in Dance. It all happens within thirty pages, so it was all crammed together and rushed.

As a  series conclusion, it all felt a bit anticlimactic. I also don’t think everything was fully tied up-there’s room for more in Griffin’s world. Oh well.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a disappointing, but still good on its own, conclusion to a beautifully set gothic series.

Links: Amazon  | Goodreads | Author website | 

Author interview- Bethany Griffin

It's coming up kind of late...oops. Anyway, today, Bethany Griffin, author or Masque of the Red Death, reviewed here, is answering our Halloween questions!

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-Why do you read scary things?

 I don't actually think I seek out scary things, but I seek out real things and reality can be very scary. I like the way normal people become heroes and villains under duress.

-What flavour of scary do you like reading about-paranormal creatures, serial killers, chill up your spine hauntings, or something different? 

 I think I like quests for survival (I don't love zombies, but I like the scope of a lot of zombie stories) another good example of the kind of horror I love is Stephen King's It. I like a combination of discovering what is going on and the quest to fight the horror. I really like darkness--dark settings, dark characters, etc. 

  

-Out of everything in the world, what do you find scary?

 Snakes, alligators/crocodiles/ serial killers/ being trapped in some way. 

-If you could insert yourself into any horror novel, which would it be, who would you be, and why?

 I don't think I would want to be in a horror novel? But I guess (if you count it as horror, Frannie from the Stand by Stephen King. 

  

-Classic (pre-1970s) or modern horror-which do you prefer and why?

  I think that overall I like more modern horror, because it's what I'm more familiar with. (Anything Poe is obviously an exception). 

-What's the scariest thing you've read to this day?

 The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It is just so bleak, and so hopeless, and it shows the darkest depths that people are capable of. Certain scenes still haunt me. 

-What books scared you most as a child?

 I read The Exorcist in middle school. I don't think I slept for several weeks. 

-What do you do to celebrate Halloween? 

Well, this year I'm co-hosting a Poe-inspired Masquerade ball with author Kelly Creagh (Nevermore) but usually I take my kids trick or treating and also go to a costume party with some of my best friends. I imagine we'll do the same thing this year. 

-Any fun Halloween stories you have to tell us? 

Three years ago I cut off all my hair, and dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween. It was a pretty darn good costume, if I do say so myself. I still have the stuffed Hedwig l (for some reason it wouldn't attach to my robes so I had to sort of carry him under my arm, which wasn't very dignified for him). I had a light up wand that my kids promptly "borrowed" and never returned. I attached a picture. 

-Why did you choose to write a horror novel? 

I think for the same reason that I like horror, I like to explore heroism and the nature of evil. I like to imagine how characters would handle extraordinary (and horrific) circumstances. 

-What's the scariest thing you'd write about? 

There is a suggestion in Masque that people might have been sacrificed to crocodiles. I remember reading a horrific news story about someone who fed a mother and a child to alligators in Florida. The thought completely horrified me in every way. But it came out in Masque as just a rumour, nothing detailed. I think those are the sorts of human possibilities that haunt me and those things are the scariest things I'd consider writing about. 

-How much inspiration do you take from other horror writers? 

 I think Stephen King shaped certain perceptions about characters for me, and I read his books repeatedly at a fairly impressionable age. Other than that, if you consider Anne Rice horror, I am very inspired by her. 

-Why were you attracted to The Masque of the Red Death in particular, as opposed to any of the other Poe stories? 

I think because Masque seemed a timely story to retell because of the state of the world, and because the themes seemed fresh, and because I felt it had a lot of possibility since the story had no antagonist, to create my own antagonist in Poe's world. 

-Kind of similar to what we had earlier, but if you could put yourself into any of Poe's stories or poems, which would it be and why? 

I don't think it's a very good idea to put yourself into ANY of Poe's stories or poems. I wouldn't mind a quick tour of The House of Usher, as long as I didn't get trapped there! 

-Any other spooky books you want to share? 

 My favourite horror book is Shadowland by Peter Straub, Another favourite is It by Stephen King, I recently really enjoyed Ashes by Ilsa Bick, and I really liked the Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy. 

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 Bethany can be found at her website, twitter and facebook. Masque can be found at Amazon and both Masque and Dance are on Goodreads.

Waiting on Wednesday - Dance of the Red Death

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where we show off books that we want to read but have not been published yet. 

Title:  Dance of the Red Death
Author:  Bethany Griffin
Release Date: 23^rd April 2013
Link to / Summary from Goodreads: Araby Worth’s city is on fire. Her brother is dead. Her best friend could be soon. Her mother is a prisoner, her father is in hiding. And the two boys who stole her heart have both betrayed her. But Araby has found herself, and she is going to fight back. Inspired by one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most compelling stories, “The Masque of the Red Death,” Bethany Griffin has spun two sultry and intricate novels about a young woman who finds herself on the brink of despair but refuses to give in. Decadent masquerades, steamy stolen moments, and sweeping action are set in a city crumbling from neglect and tragedy. A city that seeps into your skin. Dance of the Red Death is the riveting conclusion to the dark and fascinating saga of an unforgettable heroine
Why I want it: I kind of loved Masque. I really love Eggy Ally. I think I’ll enjoy this.  Sadly, it’s a conclusion, but hopefully it’ll be an awesome one! Would it be too much to hope that the cover designer will make matching ones for all of the “rooms”?

What are YOU waiting on this week?

This horror-y Waiting on Wednesday was posted as part of The Month Before Halloween 2012!

Guest Post- Bethany Griffin on Creating the World of Masque of the Red Death for a Modern Audience.

I'm pleased to welcome Bethany Griffin to Death Books and Tea today! I really enjoyed Masque of the Red Death (review can be found here) and this is a great post on reimagining Eggy Ally's story for readers of today.



Creating the World of Masque for a Modern Audience

I love creepy gothic literature and I love modern YA literature, and I love doing what I can to combine the two. The world of Masque, (both mine and the Poe short story) is VERY dark. I don’t think anyone would want to live there, but there’s also a faded romantic beauty to it (I mean, once you get past the corpses in the street).  I like accessible literature, so while I love Poe,I do think that sometimes modern audiences struggle with his work…and my goal was to expand his very short story, to add characters the reader could sympathize with and to make the story move fast and have some action and adventure.

In Masque I created a world that had not just been devastated by plague, but was still in the grips of it. Characters have to wear masks everywhere they go. Death is always a possibility. I tried to paint that bleak world as realistically as possible because history was bleak and this book is, at heart, speculative history.

A huge theme in Poe’s story was the division between the rich and the poor during a time of plague, the idea that the rich would try to escape from the horrors. In my story there is definitely a separation between the rich and the poor—they live in different parts of the city, the poor cannot afford the protective masks, and in book 2 the poor will not be invited to the great masked ball to forget about the ugliness outside. One of the main setting of the book is a gentleman’s club called the Debauchery Club. It’s been opened to girls since most of the original members died, but it’s that classic upper class club, very exclusive, but with teens who are trying to forget the horror of the outside world.

Masque’s setting is inherent to the story, they are completely inseparable, this story couldn’t take place anywhere else, so as I decided what type of story I wanted to tell the world was always in my mind. I think this sort of bleak world is fascinating to modern audiences. So many great stories focus on bleak futures…and I love reading those, but for this particular story I was captivated by the idea of creating a bleak alternative past.

I think it’s definitely a world with appeal to modern readers. At least I hope so :D

Book Review- Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

Title: Masque of the Red Death

 Author: Bethany Griffin

Series:  Masque of the Red Death #1

Published:  2 August 2012 by Indigo

Length: 336 pages

Warnings: drugs, romance 12+

Source: publisher

Other info: Bethany has also written a YA contemporary, Handcuffs. Book two will be called Dance of the Red  Death.

Summary : Everything is in ruins. A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them. So what does Araby Worth have to live for?
Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all. But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does. And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

Review: This was not what I expected. It’s not a straight retelling of Eggy Ally’s (Edgar Allan Poe’s) story; instead it takes the original and builds a fuller world around it. Here, there’s not that much to live for. Araby Worth lives for nights at the Debauchery Club, where dresses, makeup and drugs help everyone to forget about the people dying outside. Here, she meets Will, owner of the club. There’s also her best friend’s brother, Elliot, nephew to Prince Prospero. And Araby gets to learn all their secrets.

While it wasn’t what I expected, the world building was smooth and created a world that’s beautiful in a decaying, rotting kind of way. Corpses are everywhere and have to be collected off the streets, everyone wears masks to keep out the disease, the poor and children either stay inside and die. The Debauchery club, in stark contrast, is full of glitz and glamour, but Araby and everyone else are still a bit mindful of the plague that could easily kill them.

It takes a fair bit of time to get going. Yes, I get that learning more and more about both Elliot and Will are meant to be plot developments, but that only really occurred to me that they were the plot points when I was nearing the end of the novel. At the time, it was all a lot of character development  on everyone’s parts.

Elliot and Will are both lovely in their own rights, each with their dose of bad-boy in a refined manner. Araby isn’t the whole badass girl like Katniss or the girl from Strange Angels, but she’s also smart and compassionate and likeable. The love triangle doesn’t have a clear outcome, so it’ll be interesting to see who she ends up with. Her best friend April is annoying. The supporting characters are good and the children are really sweet.

The whole fear of everything, dependence on the masks, the things people do to try and block out the world of pain and suffering, comes through really well in this. The writing isn’t always that of a teenage girl, but it’s descriptive, full, and really nice.

 It’s interesting that it’s an unnamed plague that’s keeping everyone in these masks and fear. The Red Death that I’m more familiar with only makes its appearance about half way through, and its emergence is an important plot point.

It ends with Prospero, a minor character, believing he can escape the Red Death and Araby, Will and Elliot wondering what to do next. The ending is quite sudden, with me believing that there’s meant to be something after what is actually the last paragraph. I really want to see what happens next. And I really hope Araby gets to Prospero’s masked ball.

Overall:  Strength 4 tea. Slow start, but really quite beautiful extension of a story I love. Definitely want to read the next in this series.

Links: | Goodreads | Author website |