bookbabe said:

“I wanted to read this because we have what is a follow-up of sorts here in the system, and I hate reading a book when I know there's one that comes before it; I'm always worried I'll miss something. Silly me! This sounded promising and had some good ideas, but in the end the execution was just so-so.

Lord Byron did not die. (This is not a new idea, either - check out two books by Tom Holland where Byron is a vampire - very good) After living with adult-onset epilepsy for a few years, and with his seizures increasing in frequency and strength, Byron seeks out Dr. Johann Conrad Dippel, a physician doing some strange and wonderous things with electricity. Dippel claims he can "cure" Byron's epilepsy by using the power of lightening, and yes, this is basically the infamous "Dr. Frankenstein" that Mary Shelley wrote about. According to this version of events, Mary did not dream of her monster and the good doctor - she witnessed Byron's "cure" at the hands of Dippel and put the thinly disguised version on paper. And yes, the "cure" worked, sort of. Byron no longer suffers from the affliction, but he is also no longer mortal, possibly not even human.

Enter the modern-day action. Byron, now going by the name Damien Ruthven, no longer writes poetry, fearing detection. He does, however, write, as a literary critic. Enter the manuscript about Bryon penned by Brice Ashton, a biographer obsessed with all thing Byronic after the death of her husband a few years earlier. She receives a letter inviting her to Ruthven's New York compound, an offer she can't refuse, as he hints that she has gotten three facts wrong and he has the "proof" to back up his claim. She imagines that Ruthven is in possession of Byron's journal, which was supposedly destroyed by his publishers upon his death. Without a second thought, she's on a plane and off to the Big Apple to match wits with the great critic.

You can see where this is heading, right? You guessed it - a romance between Ruthven and Brice, who of course finds out that he's really Byron. The novel might have been OK if it had stuck to that point. Instead, there is a subplot that makes up the second half of the book, a plot by Dippel to destroy his creation. Yes, the good doctor is still "alive" and is out to destroy his "mistakes" - two of the other "creations" have already died in mysterious fires in the last year. Ruthven knows that Dippel will be after him, and that's where the book totally falls apart.

I love a good zombie story. I love a good romance. I like the idea of Byron not being dead. I sort of like the character of Brice Ashton. BUT.................... putting them all together is NOT a good idea. "Divine Fire" reads like two books pasted together, the first half being a fairly decent romance and the second half being an action-thriller starring the zombies. I realize that most paranormal romances put their characters in danger at some point, but this was just weird, not to mention over the top. The zombies are really gross - not nasty or evil really, but something that would definitely turn your stomach (they are dead body parts and therefore rotting). What bothered me most is that there's never a reason for Dippel destroying Ruthven; it's obvious the mad scientist thinks that Ruthven is flawed, but why? Compared to the other creations wreaking havoc on the compound, Ruthven is perfect - he's still gorgeous, he's capable of thought and emotions, and he's not decaying, rotting, or smelly. Why not take him and study him? It made no sense to me. Of course, it's also obvious that the doc's been experimenting on himself and has lost his marbles, so maybe that's supposed to explain the discrepancy. Don't know, and in the end, don't care.

I'd save your time and skip "Divine Fire". I'm still on the fence about the follow-up, "Divine Madness". Might pick it up, might not. Only time will tell, and trust me, I will not be reading the entire thing if it follows this pattern of drech.
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posted Sunday, December 16 2007