This Sounds...Silly

With time on my hands and tired of sending out queries, I turned to Publishers Marketplace to see what's new on the deals page.

The first thing to catch my eye was Gena Showalter's latest tome. The log line summed up the plot as:

...a man who is cursed to die every night only to awaken knowing he'll have to die again and the woman who finally saves him...

Huh? People must be reading this stuff or Harlequin wouldn't bother to publish it, but if I picked up a book like this and read the back cover blurb, I'd be scratching my head, like I am now.

No, I don't read romance. Not even on the sly, sneaking a glimpse behind locked doors, so I can't say that I'm at all familiar with the genre. But a story about a guy who dies every night and then wakes up? It's either Groundhog Day in a different suit of clothes, or the guy's asleep.

He's asleep, for feck's sake, that existential-Jungian whatever mess of pop psychology bit of nonsense that equates sleep with death. Ah, sure and he's only sleeping, you tell the kiddies at grandda's wake. Now let's throw a nightmare at the wee ones. Ha, ha, in the morning he'll wake up, and he'll die again tonight.

I like a good Irish wake as much as the next man, if there's a fine bottle of whiskey available and maybe a ham sandwich, but night after night? I don't drink like that anymore. And how many times could the widow stand to hear everyone telling her they're sorry for her troubles? She'd go mad and get a divorce so she wouldn't have to go through it again and again.

My next best guess is that there's something in the book about vampires or zombies, the living dead, and the feisty heroine finds a way to resurrect her sweetie and he won't have to die every night. Reduce it to just the one time, at the end, and it will be the final sleep. Send him to take his ground sweat, as they used to say.

You don't think Ms. Showalter's doing a variation on the Lazarus story, do you? Is the heroine a Mary Magdalene type, taking over for Himself because he's busy turning water into wine over in Cana? I could read the book and find out, but I think I'll pass. Finnegan's Wake just seems so much more appealing for a good read.