Intro, or the Stuff Before the Book is Opened
Note: the Ultraviolet snark is going quite poorly (I think the issue is that I don’t hate it enough), so I’m suspending it for now to continue with the Painbringer series–whoops, I meant the Servant series.
Servant: The Acceptance is the second book in the Servant trilogy by L.L. Foster, which is a pseudonym for romance novelist Lori Foster. This was her only venture in urban fantasy (even though it’s labeled as paranormal romance on the cover), the reason for which is explained, in my mind, by the quality of the first book, which in my concluding post I called a “sloppy, lazy mess.”
This book doesn’t have the inner and outer cover that the previous book has, but it does have foil stamping to make metal objects depicted on the cover shiny. The cover admits that this is Lori Foster writing as L.L. Foster (the first book didn’t), and the author name and book title are in raised purple foil-stamped letters. The purple choice is probably dictated by the portrait of the heroine on the cover. She is twisted both toward and away from the viewer in a manner than I’m not sure is physically possible for the human body. She still has short, dark, stringy hair, but this time there are purple streaks in it and she’s wearing much heavier makeup than she was on the first cover: frosted dusty-pink lipstick, very heavy blusher, teal-green eye shadow, and eyeliner all around her eyes. So she had tingling nethers in the previous book and that caused her to learn how to dye her hair and apply makeup. Interesting. Her facial expression also makes me think she’s drunk off her ass or stoned as balls.
She’s wearing a gray spaghetti-strap tank top that’s cropped to the bottom of her ribcage, with lacy scallops along the top edge under her arm and a few tasteful tears near the bottom edge. There’s a generous amount of bared midriff between the top’s bottom hem and the waistband of her skirt. It’s a miniskirt made of what looks like acid-wash denim. I did not know that was in fashion in 2008. There’s a salmon-colored thin belt through the skirt’s belt loops, and in general there’s just a lot more skin showing than there was in the cover for the first book.
She’s also wearing jewelry, which is a new development as well. I can’t tell if her ears are pierced, but she has big gold hoop earrings that look like they almost reach her shoulders. There’s a big gold bracelet on her left forearm and what looks like several smaller ones on her right wrist. Can’t tell if she’s wearing the cross-bearing dog collar Wesley had custom-made for her in the last book because of the way she’s positioned. She still has the barbed-wire tattoo on her right forearm. Put a pin in that–it pays off on the cover of the third book. Please bear in mind that this tattoo was never mentioned in the first book. In fact, when Wesley gave her the dog collar, she didn’t want to wear it becayse it was too easily identifiable, so I doubt Azrael would get a tattoo for the same reason. Her knife is in her right hand and still has the etching on the blade, but it looks thinner and longer than it did on the first cover.
There’s a lot of blurry, indistinct background, but one old man in a monk’s cowl is visible, and his face may be starting to melt. It’s too blurry for me to be sure. There also seem to be some buildings in the background, but, again, it’s too blurry to be sure. The background color is grayish-brown to reddish-brown and is not attractive.
The tagline on the cover is “Destiny Can’t Be Denied.” Presumably, that’s about her relationship with Luther, as she’s fully embraced her God-ordained murderous purpose.
We have the same blurbs from the first book cover from Elizabeth Lowell, but it’s also picked up a couple of new blurbs from Fresh Fiction (“A new twist on demon slaying”—yeah, because they stopped being demons about halfway through the first book), Romance Reader at Heart (“Brash, darkly edgy, and insightful”—I will give you the edgelord comment, but otherwise, whatever), and a starred review from Booklist (“May this be just the first in a long series”—and may you live in interesting times, Booklist! I rebuke your curse! You’re welcome).
The inner page has some more blurbs from The Romance Readers Connection, Night Owl Romance, Love Romances & More, and Midwest Book Review. None of them make me think that the reviewer actually read the book, as they’re all good. Please remember that Servant: The Awakening appears to be a first draft that was edited for typos only. Anyway, let’s check out the back cover copy.
Gabrielle Cody has accepted her destiny as God’s warrior, charged to destroy all evil. Surrounded by violence, she must be ready for anything, but Gaby wasn’t prepared to see Detective Luther Cross ever again. He’s the beacon of reality in her life, the one thing that makes her feel human, like a real woman.
The first line makes it sound as if she hadn’t accepted being God’s paladin until late in the first book, but she always accepted it. She didn’t like it much, but she accepted it fully. That’s just a way of justifying the title of the second book. And she wouldn’t be surrounded by violence if she moved into a penthouse in the rich part of town. Oh, doesn’t she have enough mad comic book money for that, or would that make it too hard for Detective Insta-Stalker to find her? We know how sucky a detective he is. The copy says he’s “a beacon of reality” to her, but that was never demonstrated in the first book. “Makes her feel human, like a real woman?” Yeah, you need a man to feel like a woman, I guess, otherwise you’re only a pathetic shell masquerading as a person. Much Strong Female Heroine energy here.
Because she has work to do—this time protecting the streetwalkers—Gaby resists involvement with Luther now, though he gives her purpose, something more than just working at God’s whim. But her life of retribution is far too dangerous even for Luther, and this time it’s not just their hearts that won’t come out unscathed…
Protecting streetwalkers—so, does that mean she’s going to stop looking down her nose at them and thinking about how superior she is to them because she’s a virgin and they’re filthy filthy sluts? One rather doubts it. And Gaby always resisted involvement with Luther; he just never accepted no for an answer and engaged in major, ceaseless sexual harassment and psychological manipulation to get her to date him. What purpose does he give her? The purpose of being his girlfriend/wife/future baby mama? Purpose, for Gaby, is something that’s imposed by men from outside her. The last line is portentious, generic babble that means nothing.
Quick note: in the previous book I called Gabrielle “Gaby” Cody and Luther Cross Azrael and Wesley Crucifix because I found their original names pseudo-clever, with all the symbolic subtlety of a two-ton piano falling from above, which is a pet peeve of mine, so I took it to the next level of symbolism.
Full transparency: I don’t have much hope this book will be better than the last one, because the first book had an excerpt from this book at the end and I made the mistake of reading it. And away we go!
Ultrasonic Carousel 