The SEAL In My Attic by Jan Irving

Wait...What? What Just Happened Here?!

The WTF-iest WTF of all the WTFs. Just...WTF?!

We all know that the idea for my "Crack Attack" shelf on Goodreads was born of my addiction to Jan Irving's books. We know that. What I didn't know was just how powerless I am in the face of the phenomenon that is Jan Irving's body of work. My last conversation with you all about Jan Irving's books went something like this:

Me: Two disappointments in a row! I am done until I see a good review!
You: Yeah. Okay. *full of sarcasm and doubt*
Me: That's right. Done. You need me to spell that shit? *righteous indignation*
You: *blink blink...doubt...blink*
Me: You'll see!

And apparently you do see. You see me writing the first review for this book. Laugh and I will death glare you to death.

In any case...this book.

Murph is a doctor who's just had the day from doctor Hell. A patient died and he's been forced to go on sabbatical. He arrives home to find that there's food and coffee on his table that he didn't leave there. There's blood and a bloody cloth on his floor.

A rational and smart person would do this: Back out of the house while calling the police on their cell phone.

Murph does this: "Oh, screw this," he says and moves further into the house to see who broke into his place.

STOP! Murph, when they forced you to go on vacation at work did you decide to spend that week on Dumbass Island where everyone's favorite pastime is running with scissors?

But, alas, Murph finds a wallet that identifies his intruder as Caleb Black. Caleb is a Navy SEAL that Murph had a brief affair with a year ago and who he hasn't heard from since. So, Murph finds Caleb bloody and bruised in the attic. Caleb doesn't remember who he is and only vaguely remembers Murph. While cleaning Caleb up they hear someone break in downstairs. Caleb tells Murph to stay put and then disappears.

A rational and smart person would do this: Call the police!

Murph does this: Runs outside barefoot to see where Caleb went.

At least PUT ON SOME SHOES, DAMMIT!! @$#%@!&!!! Agghhhh! Oh, and he proceeds to get almost killed while getting kicked in the ribs and face. You know what? Who gave this man a MD? Who? I want to smack them in the face right now.

Caleb after that decides that they need to book it and NOT call the police. Turns out that something has happened to Caleb but he can't remember what. The key to whatever happened might be in a locker at a bus depot though, so off to the bus depot they go.

It's the middle of the night at a deserted, abandoned bus depot in the middle of nowhere. Caleb tells Murph to follow him but then disappears. What happens next is just...I don't even know.

Enter creepy, whistling, milky eyed dirty mutant man. He's calling Murph a little birdy and talking about ripping Murph's head off.

Dear Murph,

This would be a good time to call the police. Yeah, Caleb said not to but Caleb's not being called a birdy whose head is about to be ripped off. So let's say "fuck you, Caleb" while we dial 9-1-1 shall we?

Sincerely
Laddie

Things happen though and Caleb end up snapping mutant guy's neck and then...

Rational and smart people would do this: RUN!!

Murph and Caleb do this: Caleb gives Murph a hand job on the ground next to the mutant man's dead body.

*blink blink* ONE step away from NECROPHILIA. Because nothing reminds you that you're alive like an orgasm next to a dead body.

This is not the last time that the brain trust that is Caleb and Murph have sex at a completely, ridiculously inappropriate time. Late in the story they break into a super secret government testing facility that's a bad and dangerous place. They hear suspicious sounds in the place that's supposed to be abandoned.

Rational and smart people would do this: Investigate maybe because I've given up on them being smart enough to go for help.

Murph and Caleb do this: First Murph takes a shower and ends up having sex with Caleb in the shower. Then they indulge in some medical kink and have sex on one of the operating tables.

Oh, but wait, maybe they thought it was okay because Caleb locked the door. Psychotic killers totally respect locked doors. I think they knock and everything.

The book just gets ridiculous from there and by the end I wanted to punch both men dead in the face.

At this point I'm not even going to say that I won't read the next one. I'm done trying to fight this. If every author figured out what it is about Jan Irving's books that makes me snap them up as soon as they're released...well, I would go broke. So, so broke.

The Viking In My Bed by Jan Irving

Jan Irving Has Forsaken Me

This, my friends, is a sad day because on this day I have finished a Jan Irving book and at the end I said "I didn't...I didn't like this book" and then I fell to my knees and wailed the wail of a thousand yowling cats. Yeah, it wasn't pretty.

Where I wonder if these people know what molestation is.
The book started off in classic Jan Irving style with a WTF moment. Bailey, a college student, awakens to find himself blanketed by a large blond viking of a man. And that man, oh, he's not just any man. He's the man who's awakening Bailey by licking and sucking on his armpit. Yummy, yummy sweat in his tummy!!

Yes, yes, I gagged a little too. We were already wading through some unsexy territory, however, I soldiered forward to find that Bailey thinks his friends have pranked him for his birthday by gifting him with a large naked man who liked to role play.

STOP: Since when does someone wake up while being sexually molested when they're supposed to be in a locked house alone and think to themselves "Oh, this must be a party trick!"? Stranger F'ing DANGER!! Rape maybe?! Did Bailey not watch after-school specials on the television?

Where I wonder if someone can really be that stupid.
In any case Bailey is all "Dude, game over, whoever you are."

And the viking says...wait...let me quote directly from the text.

"I am Freyr Grimmson," he said in a language I didn't understand.

Really Bailey? If you don't speak the language or even know what language it is then how do you know what he said? How do you even know his name was a name at all? Freyr Grimmson could mean dog shit for all you know...but again I'm soldiering on.

It so happens that Bailey's best friend Candy then drops by and in the midst of the situation where there is a strange naked man who neither of them knows, Candy decides that no self-respecting viking should go around with unconditioned hair. So, she remedies that but cutting and conditioning Frey's hair and "Mayhap do you want a purple streak, Frey?"

So, there they are giving Frey a cut and style, making him coffee, deciding he must be a viking because he has split ends or some crap like that. Meanwhile I'm calling them idiots and trying to figure out a way to reach into my Kindle and smack the stupid out of them.

Dear Candy and Bailey,

You two don't deserve to breathe fictitious air. I'm just sayin'.

Sincerely,
Laddie

Where I wonder if vikings everywhere will be insulted.
Frey...what can I say about Frey? Frey is a Guardian who, ummm, guards against the eeeeevil eeevil things that live in other dimensions. Every once in a while he gets called forth by a guide so that he can fight. Between the times when he fights Frey sleeps in a kind of limbo land. I won't tell you how but Bailey is Frey's guide and, in addition to laying down his life for Bailey, Frey plans to make Bailey be his woman. Yes,that is actually what Frey says. Yup.

Frey says some other stuff too but I swear the man was two steps away from speaking only in one and two syllable words. One and two syllable words that he apparently bellowed. He was always bellowing. It was like "Frey Smash! GRRR!! Frey make Bailey his WOMAN! GRRRR!!! Frey name is FREY not CONAN!! GRRRR!! Bring Frey Coffee!! GRRR!"

Apparently, Frey was from Norway and if I was from Norway and read this book I would be a bit miffed. Just a bit.

Where I wonder if a plot that makes sense is a thing of the past.
Jan Irving's plots are usually just kind of a filler between the raunchy sex scenes. This time though I think she actually tried to have a real plot. It didn't work. No, it didn't work at all. Here's the reason why; this book was short. It was too short for all of the sex plus a plot that she tried to make intricate or...something. Guardians, guides, possessed and bitter history professors, mystical drawings, creatures from other dimensions, a hawk with a really f'ed up form of bird flu. It was too much and I just gave up caring about it.

Where I tell you again how disappointed I am.
I was REALLY looking forward to this book. I love Irving's crazy imagination and I usually have a lot of fun reading her books. Not so this time. This time I just wanted it to be over and done with.

While I'm not giving up on Irving, I can't recommend this book. I'm going to pretend like my disappointment never happened and wait to see what she comes up with next. Please, please, please let it be cowboys.

Crack Attack: Why I'm Going To Have Jan Irving's Book Babies

Yesterday I saw that Jan Irving has answered my prayers and rewarded me for the way I sacrifice of my sanity while I'm reading one of her books.

What was so special about yesterday? Oh, I found out that she's coming out with the first book in a new series. The Viking In My Bed (Lightning Strikes #1).

While I was going *SQUEEE* I realized that I hadn't written a Crack Attack post about Jan Irving's books. That's damn near sacrilege. Jan Irving is the Queen of Crack Attacklandia. Yes, there were some who came before her but there is no one who's better. No one.

I'd read some Crack Attack before Jan Irving came along. Authors like Joyee Flynn, Stormy Glenn and Amber Kell. Then one day when I was wandering through the virtual stacks of small press e-publishers I found Jan and the first book in her Uncommon Cowboys series.

My e-life was forever changed.

It's like the universe created Jan Irving's work just for me. Seriously crazy, crazy WTF moments happen in Irving's books.

One thing Jan loves is the whole Domination vibe. She does it in the most insane ways though. Dudes' faces getting pushed into the dirt, getting fucked with claws and boot tips and fire, sucking swollen tree branch sized cocks while being called a slut, and my favorite is the fantasy of being milked like a cow while chained up in a cellar.

Is this the way most D/s works? I have no idea but I doubt it. In Irving's world, though, it's exactly how it works.

The other thing that I love is the way the main characters meet or find out about each other's secrets. You get stuff like "Oops, I'm not a woman!", a dude shifting while getting a blow job, one man finding the other naked in the snowy woods. In another book, one guy seeing the other naked, scratched up and unconcious in the middle of a deserted road in the middle of the night.

With every book that Irving releases things get more insane. A 20 foot shifter with dinosaur teeth? Oh man, Jan Irving, your mind works in mysterious ways.

Whether or not I'm supposed to laugh at the absudilicious things that happen in these books, I find myself laughing so hard and loud that my neighbor probably wonders if I'm right in the head.

So, yeah, I want to have Irving's book babies because her stuff is just mind blowing in all of its deliciously bad glory. I'm already counting down to April 2nd when the new book comes out. When midnight hits on April 1st I will sitting at my computer hitting the refresh button every 30 seconds and bouncing with anticipatory glee.

A Cowboy In Ravenna by Jan Irving

A Big, Hot, Oily Mess of Absurdilicious Crazed Insanity!

This book made me laugh so hard that I WTF-ity fuckin' CRIED!
Tears, real tears, running down my face as I was hunched over laughing my ever-loving butt off while texting friends to tell them that I could not BELIEVE what I was reading.

Every sentence of this book dropped me further and further down the rabbit hole. And, with my twisted love for this completely cracked out series, I loved EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!

I thought that after book five, A Plain, Ordinary Cowboy, I would be able to deal with whatever Jan Irving could dish out. I was wrong, and like this book, I was wrong on so many levels.

Jan Irving is just trying to kill me with this series now. She's trying to kill me dead.

A Cowboy In Ravenna is about Trin, 39 years old, and Chace who's 19. Trin is the foreman at Chace's ranch and a shifter who lost his son to rogue wolves eleven years ago. He's also Chace's mate but he thinks he's too old and too much of a monster for the virginal, delicate artist Chace.

Chace has brou-ha-ha with his cold and unloving father when Chace decides to go to Italy to see the art and lose his virginity. When Chace tells Trin his plans, even though Trin is all "I'm not good enough for him", Trin announces that he's going with Chace.

And oh, oh, oh my friends this is where things got craaaaaazy.

First let's talk about the sexual euphemisms in this book.

The Dreaded Dimple And The Forbidden Fruit
Alot happens in Trin and Chace's first sexual encounter but the first thing that made me laugh? When Chace is naked, draped over Trin's lap and ...

"Trin slid his fingers down the invitation of Chace's open body, stroked his dimple."

...it actually took me a minute and I read that sentence multiple times. The dimple? Oh, that's his asshole in case ya didn't know. But wait...just. Wait.

Soon after that?

"Chace pictured himself hanging, his balls luscious grapes that Trin was eating like dessert."

Why? Whhhyyyyy??!!! Why must thou ruin grapes for me so that I can never eat them again in this life or the next??

And FYI; if I was a guy I would never want to envision someone eating my balls. Rocky Mountain Oysters anyone? This is not the X-factor. No one's getting a million dollars if they nosh on some balls.

Oh, but....

Trin's thick root was free, as big as a tree branch, distended and pulsing."

Maybe it's just me but a huge, swollen, distended penis...that sounds like STD City to me. Like maybe Trin needed some prescription ointment or something.

By the way, that first scene ends in the most fabulously ridiculous way. Chace puts Trin's cock in his mouth, not to suck it but simply to fall asleep with it in his mouth. It's not a pacifier, Chace. It's a cock, a big tree branch of a cock that just might choke you while you sleep. Careful there, buddy.


They won't buy the cow if they get the milk for free
What I'm about to explain to you is by far the most mind-blowing aspect of this book. Jan Irving took this next scene and poured crazy-sauce alllll over it.

Trin discovers that he likes to suck Chace off. Somehow this turns into Chace talking about how he saw some porn of a guy with his junk hooked up to an electrical apparatus. Okay, electrical play, okay.

This is where the scene takes a turn for the worse...or the best depending on how you look at it.

Chace and Trin begin to discuss, during the blow job, about how Trin wants to milk Chace by attaching his balls to a cow milking machine.

This starts very, veeeeery un-sexy talk like sucking on Chace's balls to "build up his cream" and "I'll drink all your cream" and "You could spank me if I didn't produce enough cream".

And thank you Jan Irving for ruining all milk products for me for the rest of my natural existence!!!!

Then Irving kicked it up 520,000,000 notches when Trin tells Chace that he wants to chain him up in a cellar under his cabin and hook Chace's balls up to milking machine, and this is all discussed while Trin gives Chace a blowjob and fucks him with one of his sharp-as-shit shifter claws.

Yes, there was a claw in the virgin's butthole!!

By this time I'm gasping for breath, laughing, crying, rolling around and going "OMG, OMG sooooooo funny!"

There is also a scene where Trin is sucking Chace off for the katrillionth time and the words "when he'd milked his pony for as long as he could..." are used.

Is sex while in partially shifted wolf form not uncomfortably close enough to animal sex? We have to throw ponies in there?

The Shadow Shifter
Remember when I said that I wanted to find out what a shadow shifter is? Well, I found out.

Guess how tall a shadow shifter is. No, guess. I don't even know what number you chose but I'm pretty sure you're wrong, so I'll tell you.

20 feet tall. Twenty. Oh, and shadow shifters...they have T-Rex teeth.

By this point in the story I was done for. I broke something, I laughed so hard. I'm still laughing. Actually, laughing is too tame a word for what I'm doing right now.

I gave this book three stars but I wanted to give it five because I was so stunned that I don't even know if this story had a plot. The craziness that is book smacked me and made me its prison bitch.

Gimme the next book, please.