Some questions just came in about Reap the Wind. Please be aware that there are spoilers below if you haven’t read it.
1) Was that the senate’s first time into hell? That scene was hilarious they sounded completely out of their depth.
Thanks, I love that scene! Their reaction was surprise as much as anything. They’d expected Mircea to tap into Cassie’s seidr spell, so they could all talk to her in her Vegas suite. To go from that to hell, and a particularly tense moment in hell, took a bit of an adjustment. Some of them may have been there before, but not like that, and not so abruptly.
2) It kind of looked like Mircea was really using sex to get answers out of Cassie about the demon council or am I just being paranoid?
Yes and no. Mircea has never minded mixing business and pleasure, and to be fair to him, Cassie was pretty much doing the same thing there. So no harm, no foul. The problem came a few minutes later, when Mircea made his pitch about the vamp army. Cassie was upset because she felt like he had used their time together to soften her up and that the army had been his real reason for calling her. That it had just been a way to ensure that she’d do as he liked, not because he genuinely wanted to see her, and that hurt. They also had an agreement not to use their private lives to influence each other politically, and Mircea had just broken it. Which was especially annoying because it had been his idea in the first place! He, of course, could make the claim that the army pitch was scheduled for later, but that he’d moved it up in response to a question Cassie had asked, and that it was just an extension of their previous conversation. You could make a case either way, but Cassie didn’t like it.
3) Will we find out how the Silver Circle and the Demon Council formed an alliance? I find that really interesting.
If it becomes relevant. The problem with backstory is that I already get accused of putting too much in the books, so am becoming gun shy.
4) Mircea kind of lost his shit with Cassie way more than we saw him do in the Dorina books in the same timeline. Is there any particular reason for this?
Yes. The scene where Cassie and Mircea get into it was unusual for the number of stressors on Mircea.
a) It was the same night that Lawrence was supposedly killed and ten other masters along with him. The scene at Dory’s house was hours later, and Mircea had had time to get his game face on. The senate meeting, on the other hand, was that same night, only an hour or so after the massacre. Mircea had just lost eleven masters that he was going to have to account for to some very unhappy, very important people. So it started with his nerves on edge. Otherwise, he would almost certainly have handled things better.
b) It was at that same emergency meeting that it was decided to press Cassie for the army. The whole senate was there, but Mircea was the one expected to deliver. The pressure was on him, far more than on any of them, because Cassie was seen as his responsibility. And her intransigence was viewed as his failure. And that was despite the fact that the consul’s concern over his growing power base was one of the reasons he hadn’t been able to spend much time with her/gain her trust more! So he was being put in an impossible position.
c) He’d just almost lost a vampire of his family line (Casanova), and been unable to help him (a major source of shame for a master).
d) He was in hell, not the place he’d expected to be when he tapped into Cassie’s seidr link. That’s going to throw a guy.
e) Jules was still human, and he wanted his servant back.
f) From Mircea’s perspective, Cassie’s attitude made no damned sense at all. If Ares really was trying to come back, shouldn’t they be doing everything possible to prevent that? If they didn’t know how to fight a god–and they didn’t–then preventing his entry into earth seemed the only plan likely to
save all their asses. Yes, an army of master vamps might be a little difficult to control later on, but even worse case scenario, could they really do more harm than a vengeful god? Her counter argument, that all the signs pointed to Ares coming back, and soon, no matter what they did, didn’t have much of an impact. Because that left Mircea feeling helpless, and he’d had enough of that for one night. He wanted something to do, but he needed her help for that and she wasn’t giving it. And his mental state was too messy at the time for the usual patented charm. Basically, he lost it.
Hope that helps!
I do not do facebook so I will tell you here I loved Reap the Wind! Superb, as always. I need to go back and re read it for details, I was reading too fast. I did kind of gather the above info when I read it, but the explanation of your thoughts is always welcome. Now, of course, I want Dory’s new book and Ride the Storm. I wonder how many books are in the series in total? Or would that give away crucial info if you told? Do you have other stories not related to these books percolating in your brain? Sorry for all the questions, I know you might be too busy to answer. Oh, I wanted to say, the story about Pritkin’s house was beautiful!
Thank you–I’m very glad you liked RTW. I have a ton of other books I’d like to do, but I like to finish what I start first.:-) Assuming people continue to read the books, I will need 13 to finish Cassie properly.
13? That’s wonderful news. I’ve loved the series, and am on my second, more leisurely read of RTW – thank you so much for writing such great characters. Can’t wait to find out what happens next!