Shame on, Erm, Me

If I'm to out the book I'm ashamed to own, then I'd best clarify why there is any shame involved before I name the book. Owning this book -- nay -- going so far as to give it placement on the Keeper Shelf for nine years makes me hang my head because it reveals I am a ...

Hypocrite

Yes, yes. Clutch your pearls. Plaster your wrist to your brow. Aim for the fainting couch.

Over the months and months of random confessions here on the Word Whores blog, I may have admitted my largest literary pet peeve:

Head Hopping

I despise guessing with whom I am supposed to identify. I begin to foam at the mouth if reading resembles learning to drive a manual-transmission automobile. Herky. Jerky. Barfy. Tossy. I have wasted far too much money on far too many novels in which the author fails to rise to a basic challenge of the craft. Put me in one character's mind -- not per sentence, not per paragraph -- PER SCENE. If an author cannot stick to one Point of View per scene, then getthefuckoutta my bookshelf.

However

I developed this peeve after I started writing. Back when I was an avid reader -- before I devolved into an OCD struggling writer -- I noticed head hopping, but it didn't stop me from reading the book. Back in those days, paranormal romances clawed at the edges of mainstream.  Back in those days, a relatively new author was releasing the third book in a new series that twisted the vampire myth. The author had mixed together Greek goddesses, scrumptious somewhat-dead champions, and ordinary human women. What I love best about this series is the banter among the men. I keep the third book in the series because of one exchange that still slays me:

"Ahh, Tally, me lub you too."

"Shut up, crotch-sniffer. You're not allowed to make lovey noises at me, only my honey is." 

So, for all that this makes me an epic head-hopping hypocrite, my guilty pleasure is Sherrilyn Kenyon's Night Embrace (that's book three in the Dark Hunter series, aka Talon and Sunshine's story, for you Kenyon fans).