No Man's Land by Debra Dunbar

No Man's Land by Debra Dunbar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have several problems with this book, one of which I came in with, one of which was created by assumptions and beliefs acquired from reading the Imp series.

First problem, the one I can into the book with: Kelly, one of the many points of view in this book, and there are many, has previously appeared in two Imp series books (Imp series is different from Imp World, Imp World is basically all stories in the Imp universe, Imp series is the one that stares Samantha Martin, demon, and Imp). One of those Imp series books occurred chronologically before this book, and one occurred chronologically after this book. She was a side character in both of those books, while a main character in this book here. I've read everything in the main Imp series so I've read both of those other books that included Kelly. I had no real like or dislike for her for either book, but I wasn't overly thrilled with the concept of reading a book that included her. No, I read this one because of Jaq and because of the second thing I came into this book with, that belief and assumption I mentioned.

Second problem - Samantha, and the critters in the series, have two things that seem to occur romantic/sex wise - 1) many seem open to switching genders and or flirting with same genders; 2) all end up in heterosexual unions. Still, there's that vibe that neither sex nor gender are binary or firmly stuck in man/woman zone. And the second book that Kelly appeared in seemed to imply that Jaq and Kelly were a couple. Sooo, they had to become a couple somewhere, right? Well, the book they both star in seems like the place that story would unfold, right?

Wrong.

Kelly spent the early portions of the book annoying me and frustrating me, and the vast majority of the book mourning the loss of 'George'. And constantly burning herself on a silver ring, thereby, without needing more information, letting the reader know that 'George' was from Kelly's prior life. Pre-vampire life. That and suffering greatly from what her vampire 'family' did to her.

In a prior book, in the mainline Imp series, Kelly, while a casino manager, yelled at Samantha, a guest at the hotel portion of the casino, and offered to shove Doritos up Sam’s butt (or something like that). Naturally her higher ups were displeased by this display of temper and loss of control. And so . . . they savagely beat her (in this book not in the other book, to start this book off), tore out her fangs (Kelly's a vampire), and left her to die in werewolf territory. Or, more literally, and more flowing with the next part of my comments, dumped her in a trailer a few trailers down from the one Jaq lives in. Jaq happened to see the vampires dumping Kelly. (Jaq says she is, but isn't exactly, a werewolf).

The majority of the rest of the book involved Kelly slowly starving to death while Jaq kept trying to help her. Trust was slow in coming. Why Kelly was having issues, despite all the help Jaq was giving, was slow to be conveyed. And even after the issue finally was broached, Kelly refused, more or less, the options put forth by Jaq to solve the problem (being purposely vague here, though anyone who knows the concept of 'vampires' and what they feed on probably already knows what the issue is).

Meanwhile one of the other vampires that had turned up in the Imp series, the natural born son of the 'Master', otherwise known as 'Prince' or 'Kyle' (the son not the Master, the master's name isn't given), is attempting to create a territory for himself which probably will include West Virginia (which up to now has been something of a buffer state between two different vampire families, Kyle's, or Forimer (spelling?) and the Kincaids; on a side note, unless one family is located mostly in the Northeast, and the other located mostly west of West Virginia, like in Kentucky, or the like, then I'm not exactly sure how West Virginia can play the role of a 'buffer state' when, in the book, one of the families basically has everything north of Washington DC, while the other had everything south of Washington DC. Meaning that West Virginia is, for the most part, out of the way of the fight. But, meh. (another side note, yeah, there is mention of Martinsburg and Winchester - and yeah, that's where there's a buffer, a tiny tiny sliver of West Virginia - not the whole bloody state like seems to be mentioned in the book; and why two vampire clans with massive territories through several states have that as a buffer . . . - it's still not a buffer unless you are driving on Interstate 81; otherwise, use I95 and there's no bloody buffer (or route 1 or most bloody roads)).

I've no fucking clue where I was or what I was attempting to go. Got caught up with West Virginia and the map (did I mention yet that Virginia is both further west than West Virginia, and further south? Is because of a leg of Virginia that stretches out south of West Virginia. But that doesn't matter at all because the entire conflict between two massive branches of vampires is apparently entangled in a state neither of them are actually in - because of treaties with werewolves).

Lost myself again.

Right. Going to pretend I’ve written something massively important above and just move on.

I was interested in seeing if all the flirtations with mixing people of the same gender that was hinted at in prior books would actually occur in this book. I suppose I should have seen all those hints that angels need balance (as in, the many times an Angel would suddenly flip from female to male just because a powerful woman would enter the room, and therefore ‘balance’ requires them to become male . . . and therefore fuck the concept of same sex relationships, right?). So, yeah, I was wrong. Though there’s even more flirting with the concept that same gender people might couple up in this book, though nothing came of that flirtation.

*shrugs*. Fuck it. I’m tired of this book.

ETA: (okay, not really added after the fact, just after I thought I was done typing) – why am I giving this book as high a rating as I am? Because, despite how difficult the book was to get into, it flowed quite well (after that difficult early stage), and became down right intriguing, interesting in the second half. Kept my interest and made me want to gobble it all up.

Rating: 3.65

August 1 2017



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