BLOOD INK BY DANA FREDSTI: BOOK REVIEW

 
I’ve spent my whole life being late to the party, and my reading habits are just another manifestation of this general failing. I’ve not read a huge amount of Paranormal Romance or Urban Fantasy, despite both subgenres having been around so long that people are now muttering darkly about the markets being oversaturated. Moreover, the book I’m about to review, Blood Ink by Dana Fredsti, is in fact a sequel to 2017’s Spawn of Lilith, and I haven’t read that either. You may by now be wondering why I asked to review this book at all! Well, there are two reasons: i) I fancied a change from my usual reading material, and ii) I was attracted by the way Fredsti has managed to put a new spin on an area of fantasy which is, if not saturated, at least well- populated.

The heroine of Blood Ink, Lee Striga, is a young stuntwoman living and working in LA. In Fredsti’s world, Lee’s chosen profession is dominated by “supernaturals” – people who appear more or less ordinary on first inspection, but who turn out to be werebeasts or hemidemisemigods or what have you, and draw on their supernatural talents to excel in their jobs. Putting aside the unlikeliness of these “supe” stunt teams managing to keep their secret natures safe from the general population (this isn’t Ken Loach gritty realism after all), I was intrigued by the opportunity to learn about the life of a stunt performer, especially as the author is herself a B-movie actress who has done her own sword stunts in the past.

Things get off to a promising start. In lieu of conventional opening chapters or a prologue, Fredsti has made the unusual move of beginning the novel with two chunks of scripts from different films Lee has been involved with. These sections are interspersed with Lee’s own thoughts, and in the process we learn a bit about her backstory – she’s now recovering from injuries sustained on the disastrous film shoot featured in the first book. This is done in a way that flows well and doesn’t feel too much like an info dump.

Lee is finding it hard to get work after killing a producer, like you do, though we do get to see her perform a human-torch fire stunt, a scene full of interesting detail. After that things do start to wander a bit, however. The main action in this book is meant to be set in New Orleans, but it actually takes a surprisingly long time for Lee to touch down in the Big Easy. This absence of action is bad news for a novel of this kind, which should be quick off the blocks, pacey and full of pulpy thrills, though this state of affairs is perhaps partly explained by Lee’s underemployed status – the job she’s hired to do in New Orleans is not a very desirable gig, so some time has to be spent screwing her up to the right pitch of desperation to take it. On the plus side, Lee’s story is intercut with some suitably hideous scenes featuring victims of a dodgy occult tattoo artist. The poor saps’ sufferings are conveyed in deep third person in a way that should be nasty enough for most fans of horror, let alone fantasy.

The relative lack of hi-jinks in the first half of the book also gives the first-time reader a chance to become acquainted with Lee. In some ways she’s a very average urban fantasy heroine, with the usual propensity for ass-kicking and wry quips. On the plus side, some of these jokes actually hit the target, which is by no means always the case in this type of fiction, and she does have some likeable qualities. She’s a lot fonder of food and drink than you might expect from a Hollywood professional, and her attitude to the endless procession of buff paranormal studs draped throughout the book is reassuringly non-stupid. This is not the sort of book where endless scenes of otherworldly bonking are deployed to mask a lack of plot, either, and the reader will finish the book mercifully uninformed as to whether or not love-interest werewolf Randy is the proud possessor of a lupine knot.

But what of Lee’s friendships with other women? This, in my experience, can be a stumbling-block for some paranormal romance writers. In my opinion the field is too full of heroines who are presented as “tomboys” (despite being very conventionally feminine-looking), a condition which is then used as a springboard for slut-shaming the other female characters and engaging in all sorts of plain old misogyny.  I won’t deny that I  feared the worst when Lee announced that she’s always found it hard to form ties with other women, but fortunately Fredsti includes some welcome character development which has Lee both deepening an existing female friendship (as a bonus, her friend is the sort of character who’d probably get whacked with the slut-hammer in a less feminist book) and even making a new mate once she hits New Orleans.

In fact, apart from the opening chapters, Lee’s burgeoning friendship with the hard-up young tattoo artist Tia is probably the best thing in the book. While Fredsti’s evocation of the touristic delights of New Orleans is not going to be costing James Lee Burke any sleep, there is a scene where Lee visits Tia’s makeshift home that feels very real, and it offers some much-needed ballast in a novel where things eventually start getting very supernatural indeed. Fredsti is going for a full-on Lovecraftian Elder God thing – in fact the word “Lovecraftian” is used twice as a descriptor – and there are great quantities of squamous, rugose beasties and revolting occult/human hybrids for those as want them.

Personally, although I enjoyed Lee’s original use of a plastic coffee-shop knife in her fight against the slobbery-tentacled forces of evil, I would’ve liked to see more of the stunt stuff and less of the cosmic horror elements, which I find often work best when used sparingly. Considering Fredsti’s background there are surprisingly few details about film-making and stunts. “Write what you know” is a dreadful cliché, but I honestly think she should make more use of her knowledge of this fascinating world. It’s certainly a strategy that works when she puts her experience of cats to hand! (Fredsti is a cat charity advocate, and one of the book’s most lifelike scenes involves some werekittens tumbling about in an endearing manner while inadvertently switching back and forth between their human and feline forms.)

All in all, though, I’m pretty sure ‘Blood Ink’ will satisfy lovers of writers like Charlaine Harris and Lilith Saintcrow. Although it has some pacing issues it’s not a hard slog, and is in fact the kind of easily digestible, escapist fiction that is often described as a good “beach read”. Though rest assured, the beach in this case would definitely be writhing with the abominable spawn of the Great Hydra Mother and drenched in the blood of sunbathers who’ve failed to dodge the salty wrath of Dagon. And that is how it should be.

​BLOOD INK BY DANA FREDSTI

Lee Striga—stuntwoman and demon-killer extraordinaire—is in dire need of a job, any job. After the disastrously bloody events of her last movie, word has got around that Lee’s a dangerous woman. Hollywood—even the supernatural side of it—has closed its doors to her. That is, until a mysterious new producer appears with a job offer that seems too good to be true. Pity Lee can’t stand the sight of him.
But beggars can’t be choosers, and soon Lee is in New Orleans, working stunts on a horror movie like no other—with a cast and crew of werecats, crocodile-men, and an artistically frustrated ghoul. But before she even arrives on set, Lee’s demon-killing legacy as Lilith’s descendant draws her into a whole new mystery, and a desperate fight for survival.

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