Horrorotica is hardly a new thing. It’s been done ever since humans realized sex with the mysterious was a kinky, fun way to spend an evening. Recent spates of it in the erotica world have tried to pretend that they invented something new and exciting – sex with Bigfoot, pounded in the ass by various things, kinky alien abductions involving high tech sex. Okay, that last one may be new. Not sure. I’ll be writing it, though, so back off.
Anyway, sex with stuff. The problem with most of those books is they wind up being nothing more than cheap word porn or, in the case of the Bigfoot book, Sasquatch raping underage girls. No story beyond what was bolted on the increasingly tedious and cringe-inducing sex scenes. If that’s your bag, go with it. Let your freak flag fly. I’m planning on wring alien abduction erotica, so I’m not one to judge. But, for me, I want a story to go with the wild cryptid nookie.
Now, if you read some of the reviews of Fuller’s Until Death Do Us Part, you’ll see a lot of people mentioning the erotica portion of it. I guess that’s a normal thing. Horror and sex go together like peanut butter and ladies. Traditional horror movies make use of sex on a regular basis. A pair of teens go into the wilderness, fuck each others’ brains out, and are immediately killed by an axe-wielding maniac. Kind of a morality play at work there: Enjoyable sex equals death. To that extent, the spate of various horrorotica books are a breath of fresh air because no one dies just because they had sex and enjoyed it. It was just nookie, not an affront to a vengeful god who smote his creation.
But that’s other people’s opinion of Until Death Do Us Part. In my opinion, the sex scenes were less important than the core of the story which is a welcome twist. They show that the characters still have some humanity left even after they’ve embraced their personal monsters. Anyway, bottom line, there is some sex in this story. There’s also a lot of violence, blood, and muscle cars. In other words, this book has everything.
Now that we’ve got the 800lb gorilla in the room out of the way, let’s talk about the story. This is a raw story. A literary version of cracked teeth with exposed nerves, full of untamed fury and wild, explosive power. Lots of people write antiheroes these days, but Fuller fills Conner with a single-minded intensity that almost makes him difficult to like. Which, frankly, is exactly what we’re supposed to do with an antihero. They’re not supposed to be likeable. They’re supposed to be huge jackasses who accidentally do the right thing – often for all the wrong reasons. And that’s what we get with Conner; a guy who’d set the world on fire to get what he wants and then light a cigarette off the glowing embers of civilization. And woe unto any vampires that get in his way because Conner has zero fucks left to give.
This is not a long book. It’s really more of an introduction to the rest of the series, but it has an intensity that leaves you wanting more. Fortunately, Fuller is a prolific writer, so there are more books to finish off this story as well as a whole whack of others. If you like your stories dark, kind of twisted, and filled with enough grit to sand down rock maple, he’s your guy.
A very enjoyable read about some less-than-savory goings on. Highly recommended.
Plus, hey, it’s got some sexy scenes in between the explosions and bloodshed.
What was supposed to be a lustful night of passion and sinful, sexual thrill turned bloody in a way he could never have imagined, revealing a predator that plagued the night and feasted on the living…
Fuelled by the bleakest of hope and the haunting images of the past, Conner cleaves a path of retribution through the midnight world of vampires; dangling his morals and life in the balance to retain what little he has left of his former self, praying each step will bring him closer to finding ‘her’ and the one that took everything from him…
Get your copy on Amazon
Follow James on Twitter
Check out his T-shirts