You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Laurie emailed to ask for your help finding a romance that starts out at a Comic Con. FOR REAL. AWESOME.
I’ve just searched Google for 2 hours straight trying to find this
book.It starts out at a comic convention where the shape-shifter heroine is
running away from an abusive gang that lives in another dimension and steals
or buys women from our world. She’s looking for some god she thinks can
help her and knows he comes to the convention every year because it’s one
of the few places his odd looks don’t stand out.
Somehow three brothers are at the convention and they can smell the heroine
and search all over for her. I think her scent is irresistible and whoever
finds her first will be compelled to have sex with her.Other details I remember are that the hero had a ring that could transport
him and somehow the heroine was trying to save her sister from an abusive
relationship in the other dimension.
Shapeshifters at the comic convention?! NO WAY. I’m totally going next year. Anyone remember this book?
Wow – whatever it is, I want to read it! To tide you over, “One Con Glory” is set at a sci-fi/comic book convention and is reviewed on this site – author is Sarah Kuhn. No supernatural elements, though.
I think that’s a Dark/Were-Hunter novella. She’s looking for Acheron and goes into heat (that’s why she so easy to smell).
Ellen’s right – it’s a Dark Hunter novella by Sherrilyn Kenyon in the anthology Stroke of Midnight. The title is “Winter Born.”
I KNOW THIS ONE! FINALLY!!!!!
It is a Sherrilyn Kenyon Were-hunter novella. WINTER BORN in THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT anthology. The book is set at Dragon*Con.
Dammit. I would have been the first if I hadn’t answered the phone. Phooey. ;-P
Yes! Thank you CarrieS, RebeLovesBooks and Silver James. You don’t know how crazy looking for this book made me. I’m going to re-read tonight!
My first thought was “That sounds like a mix between Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter/Were Hunter stuff and Dara Joy’s Knight of a Trillion Stars” and then I read the comments and discovered that it’s one of Kenyon’s novellas. So, my first thought was almost on the mark, it just wasn’t a mix at all. 😀
Not a romance, but if you know anyone who has ever been into the ComicCon scene, or if you’ve ever attended a ComicCon, a must-read mystery book is Sharyn McCrumb’s “Bimbos of the Death Sun” and of course it’s sequel “Zombies of the Gene Pool.”
Best.
Titles.
Ever.
And the books were pretty damn good, too. LOL. She’s very witty and had me laughing till I cried. I have a number of friends in the Comic Book business, and so I’ve SEEN these people. LOLOL.
Somewhere in storage I have both books in their original covers, and they were works of art. LOL I’ll see if I can find the images online.
Lynda, I love you! I also love Bimbos (somewhat more than Zombies, although it was also pretty awesome.) I don’t have the original cover, but I do have a signed copy…it’s in my vault of “You may borrow ONLY over my DEAD BODY” 😀
With Nine You Get Vanyr by Ward & Smith is set partly at DragonCon, since we’re mentioning books with this element.
Gah, the first time ever I actually know a HABO and I’m pipped to the post! Cute story and a lot less angsty than most Kenyon fare.
Donna Andrews did a wonderful murder mystery set at a con: “We’ll Always Have Parrots”
I discovered Bimbos through this site somehow and I enjoyed it and the sequel also (checked out from the library). Original Bimbos cover is at amazon.com, choose “Paperback, March 1987” edition. For Zombies, the “Mass Market Paperback” page shows the newer cover but there are 3 customer images of the original cover.
I cannot believe it! My security word is “union69”! Discuss.
On the subject of con books, Deep Secret is one of my favorite Diana Wynne Jones books, and it’s set at a con. The romance in it is great, as well as the character development and her trademark plot twists. Rest in peace, Diana – we’ll miss you.
List 79 – I wish I could list 79 Diana Wynne Jones books!
THere is a comic con anthology on Net Galley right now. Comic Con 2011 Romance Sampler from Avon. Maybe it is in there?
I quite liked Zombies of the Gene Pool, but found Bimbos of the Death Sun immensely annoying; based on my own considerable experiences, Bimbos is at best only selectively accurate. (Also, the original release suffered from extremely poor proofreading; among other things, if I remember correctly, Anne McCaffrey’s name is consistently misspelled.)
OTOH, I do recommend the Donna Andrews title mentioned above, which also gets con culture down pretty well. See also Carole Nelson Douglas’s Cat in a Kiwi Con—as much as that series also annoys me, the SF/F convention in that book is pretty realistically portrayed, to the extent that it riffs knowledgeably about certain genre-writer organizational politics going on about the time it was written. And of course Elizabeth Peters’ Die for Love, set at a deliciously wacky romance writers’ conference.
I am also desperately trying to think of the title of a small-press book I ran across a couple of years ago. If I recall right, this was part of an urban-fantasy series involving a complex elven hierarchy, a private-detective outfit to which a dragon was attached, and a series of events partly unfolding at DragonCon or a close analogue. (This was *not* With Nine You Get Vanyr, nor part of Mike Resnick’s John Justin Mallory series, nor written by Glen Cook, and so far Google isn’t helping me track it down.)
John, I’m going to WindyCon the end of next week. I’ll print out your HaBO and contact Larry Smith and some of the other cognoscenti there.
Deb: much appreciated, but my library’s brand new search engine came through after all. The book is Magic, Mensa and Mayhem by Karina Fabian, and the series Web site is Dragon Eye P.I.. I had slightly misremembered one notable detail; the convention in question is a MENSA gathering occurring in Florida. OTOH, the narrator is indeed a dragon—one Vern, sentenced by St. George to serve the Faerie Catholic Church and partnered with nun/mage Sister Grace.
I have not yet—bad me!—looked up Vern’s other available case files, and it should be clearly noted that these are straight fantasy/mystery, not romances of any stripe. However, I definitely recommend this particular volume; besides being highly amusing and cleverly plotted, the characters were more thoughtfully developed than one often sees in the slapstick/pun-driven corner of the fantasy genre.
Since we’re mentioning books with this element, I had to jump in. Have you guys read DEFYING CONVENTION by Abby Niles? It’s a newer book, only a few months old, but it’s set at a comic book convention, and it is fantastic. It’s a contemporary romance and FUNNY as all get out.