“White Star” by Elizabeth Vaughan
After 0.01 seconds: Am in great pain. Falling asleep by the pool when mercury’s ready to pop out of the thermometer is not a good idea. Apparently when the girl at the IPL hair removal salon tells you to stay out of the sun for 24 hours, she is not lying. Arms now look as if I have been sprayed by a radioactive chemical agent. Not exactly the look I was going for. Will try and console myself with reading “White Star” by E. Vaughan. Pick up book.

After 0.02 seconds: Have put book down. Who knew fried hands would have such an impact on your life.

 

After 13 minutes: Juan has departed after slathering coconut smoothing lotion onto my hands. The little darling has rushed off to take baking fudge cake out of oven but has promised to come straight back to help turn pages of book for me until I finish it. Apparently he could smell the cake burning. Strange since I didn’t smell anything. Wonder if sense of smell could be affected by sunburn as well?

 

After 15 minutes: Am lying here waiting.

 

After 27 minutes: That cake must really be burning.

 

After 33 minutes: Gingerly pick up book. Study cover. Has Jennifer Garner-esque model with pure white hair on cover. Sheridan has come into room. Have asked if she’d like to turn the pages for me. After remarking that the heroine has white hair, she rushes out of the room again. Maybe she’s gone to help Juan with the cake.

 

After 35 minutes: Am introduced to the hero. Orrin Blackhart. Jeez. Don’t give him an obvious name or anything.

 

After 35.2 minutes: Orrin is also known as the Scourge of Palins. Makes me wonder if he’s a Democrat. I giggle.

 

After 36.1 minutes: That must be some cake.

 

After 37 minutes: Orrin has captured Lady High Priestess Evelyn, from the rebellion forces and locked her in her dungeon. Should be good! A bad boy warlord hero with a dangerous past and a black heart who has met his match! I anticipate the fun I will have, seeing how he will evolve by the end of the book from the dastardly creature he was at the beginning. Will I be able to bear the long and agonizing wait as he behaves like the biggest sh*t in the world, especially I am without the use of my hands to hit my head with? It will be worth the wait I am sure. The road to redemption will be long indeed. And hopefully covered in grovel.

 

After 39 minutes: Orrin has smiled at Evelyn and offered her bread with butter so that she will not starve. Clearly there is a shortcut on the road to redemption.

 

After 45 minutes: Am a tad confused by this book. Although this is set in the same universe as E. Vaughan’s previous “Warlands” books, I am not familiar with the characters in this series. Gather that Orrin works for some kind of evil sorceress who is raising things called odium (i.e. zombie-like things) to help her seize the crown. Very Conan the Barbarian. Much has been aluded to Orrin’s sinister and evil ways. Although I have yet to witness aforementioned sinister and evil ways, I am excited and give him benefit of the doubt for trying to feed Evelyn butter sandwiches earlier. Maybe this was a way for him to butter her up first before tormenting her. Ha ha. Clearly being fried by the sun has not affected my ability to zing with the best of them.

 

After 48 minutes: Apparently odium are kind of like zombies, raised from slaves. So it’s Dawn of the Dead-meets Red Sonja-meets Romeo and Juliet. Just once, I would like a normal historical romance please. One without hermaphrodite heroines or zombie secondary characters or apemen. Apparently this is too much to ask for.

 

After 53 minutes: Orrin’s boss has died and he has decided to surrender in order to save his men from death. Huh??? Why has the balance of power shifted so quickly? What happened to the powerful warlord, the Scourge of the (ex) Alaskan Governor, enemy to all mankind?? (Orrin, not the ex-Alaskan Governor although some people have their doubts.) He is brought back in chains to be executed as a war criminal.

 

After 58 minutes: Now the tables have turned and Evelyn visits Orrin in his cell. They play a tentative mating dance of attraction involving discussions of Evelyn’s role as a High Priestess. Evelyn informs Orrin she has sworn a vow of chastity, but not celibacy. I am confused. Is this like where President Clinton claimed he broke a vow of celibacy but not chastity?

 

After 1 hour: Orrin is brought before the council to have his crimes tried. A list of his crimes is read out.

 

After 1 hr 2 minutes: They are still reading out the list of his crimes. Wow. Orrin’s list of warcrimes is staggeringly long. The dude was baaaaddddd. Although since all these acts took place off-stage and I have only seen Orrin offer up butter sandwiches to the heroine, I remain doubtful as to the true extent of his bad-assness.

 

After 1 hr 5 minutes: Evelyn has asked for a boon - Orrin’s life. I too would like a boon. Perhaps a slice of that chocolate fudge cake that has so enraptured everyone and left me flipping the pages of this zombie book by my lonesome.

 

After 1 hr 5 minutes 6 seconds: Evelyn’s choice of boon has not made her the most popular cupcake in the bakery. Even Orrin thinks she’s nuts.

 

After 1 hr 10 minutes: Orrin is informed that his life is spared, but that in order to win a full pardon, he must rid the world of odium (i.e go all Zombie Killah). But in anticipation of this task, he is stripped of his weapons and all clothes. Not even a little teeny weeny loincloth covers his dangly bits. Talk about being at a disadvantage. I would not exactly choose to go amongst flesh-eating zombies with my vulnerable parts bobbing happily in the air like windchimes.

 

After 1 hr 20 minutes: Evelyn has helped Orrin by bringing him to a stable and outfitting him with leftover clothes of dead soldiers. She also gives him a red cloak and a necklace with a gem in it. He is most grateful and touched by the gifts she has bequeathed him. Me, I would be happier with a gun or a machete but then again I am just a girl with awesome highlights and not some super duper powerful warlord so what do I know.

 

After 1 hr 37 minutes: Evelyn has been banished to a far-flung corner of the kingdom by the lustful High Priest who is totally digging her white-haired self.

 

After 1 hr 45 minutes: Evelyn pines for Orrin.

 

After 1 hr 46 minutes: Orrin pines for Evelyn.

 

After 1 hr 47 minutes: I pine for chocolate fudge cake.

 

After 1 hr 48 minutes: The odium pine for the taste of human flesh.

 

After 1 hr 49 minutes: The odium have found their way to the shrine where Evelyn is. Maybe someone will get their wish after all.

 

After 1 hr 53 minutes: Orrin has come to rescue Evelyn from the flesh-eating zombie hordes. As they rot on the ground, Orrin insists to Evelyn that they have to leave. Evelyn insists that she has to remain to tidy up the shrine (bits of rotting, decomposed flesh have fallen off the zombies so I guess things can be a bit messy) and to say prayers over the zombies. I is confused. Zombies are already dead no?

After 1 hr 54 minutes: Orrin knocks Evelyn out and carries her away. I clap in delight. Then yelp as I remember my sunburned hands.

 

After 2 hr 37 minutes: Orrin, Evelyn and their merry band of men have devised a plan to rid the land of the flesh-eating zombies. I pay little attention to this, more concerned with devising my own plan to get my hands on some of that chocolate fudge cake.

 

After 2 hr 38 minutes: Maybe I can set off the fire alarm in my room and when Juan comes running to check on me, I can snatch the cake from him. This of course presupposes that Juan will be holding on to the cake when he comes running to check on the alarm. This may not be very likely.

 

After 2 hr 39 minutes: Orrin, Evelyn and their merry band of men are attacked by zombie children. This is vaguely freaky I must say. They try to avoid hurting the children but end up having two of their number killed when the zombie children slash open their throats. Urp.

 

After 2 hr 43 minutes: It is discovered that Orrin’s evil boss, Elanore is still alive. She delights in telling Evelyn that Orrin knew all the time that she was creating zombies. Orrin denies knowing that she was making zombie children. I think this is splitting hairs but then again what do I know. Maybe there are various stages of culpability in creating the living dead.

 

After 2 hr 55 minutes: Elanore is vanquished but Evelyn is wounded trying to protect Orrin. Orrin summons a portal and Evelyn is whisked away to be healed.

 

After 3 hr: Evelyn has recovered but has sworn a vow of silence. She feels as if Orrin has abandoned her. I know how that feels, having been supplanted by chocolate fudge cake.

 

After 3 hr 5 minutes: Orrin has scaled the walls of the castle where Evelyn is recuperating and reassures her that with her by his side, he will be a good person and stay away from raising the dead. Ah, the transformative power of love.