The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love

The Eaten Heart was quite suprisingly witty. I wasn't expecting a book from the 1300s to be so funny, but there were several times that this collection of short stories had me chuckling away. It seems some of the points of our age were being made 700 years ago! I enjoyed this short collection (possibly as well as it was in modern English), and one day would like to read the larger collection of which this formed a part.

Notable quotations:

• 'Dear me!' said the other. 'Don't you realize that we have promised God to preserve our virginity?' 'Pah!' she said. 'We are constantly making Him promised that we never keep! What does it matter if we fail to keep this one? He can always find other girls to preserve their virginity for Him.'
• She had no conception of the kind of horn that men do their butting with.
• And so, despite the fact that eight separate men had made love to her on thousands of different occasions, she entered his bed as a virgin and convinced him it was really so. And for many years afterwards she lived a contented life as his queen. Hence the proverbial saying: 'A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again.'

The Strain

The Strain is an incredible book. I listened to the audiobook version, and the story and performance were both amazing. So much so that I am torn between reading the next installment myself when it comes out later this year, or seeing if Audible have another version ready.

The story is the first part of a trilogy concerning a vampire coming to New York and deliberately spreading his virus, and the efforts of a select few to contain and defeat this. It is clear that del Toro is a movie director as listening to scene after scene I could picture it clearly in my mind's eye and would imagine this making an excellent movie. Suspense, horror, intrigue... it's all here. And it certainly is worth reading, that is certain. The characters are extremely human and realistic, which is one of the strengths of the tale. I also enjoyed it being set in New York, being able to picture everywhere the events taking place.

So in summation: I really enjoyed this book, it was awesome and I can't wait for the next installment later this year!