Review
Half spoof, half serious, this unusual story promises to change the way you see yourself in relation to your simian cousin, the chimpanzee, and reveals a fascinating future that may already be here. -- Author
Absentmindedly, Francie reached out to shut the door. She wasn't even looking into the DoRight room as much as she was purely operating by rote. You see an open door, you close it. But somewhere with that trivial act, her eyes shifted as her nose picked up the pungent vanilla odor, and in that imperceptible movement, Francie entered a netherworld that scraped her vision raw. Go back. Go back three seconds. Go back, eyes, to the innocence that was minutes ago. Return, brain, to my unspoiled optimism of faith. Don't let my mind be raped liked this.
But there was no returning to moments passed. There never is. For a second, Francie wanted to vomit, cleanse her body of food, of sight, of feeling. Quickly, the instant nausea subsided when she realized she wasn't alone. There were children in the next room, thirty feet away, and Francie willed herself to step inside.
She knew she wasn't prepared for the scene that slashed her eyes, but she also knew she had to play the warrior,the protector, the shield. She, alone, stood between her children and the visual terror that gouged her sight. All she saw was blood, blood everywhere, splotches splattered on the walls, the windows, the ceiling, and more blood lying in pools on the floor. Vanilla blood. That's what she smelled. Vanilla blood. -- Excerpted from Vanilla Blood by Nancy Martin. Copyright (c) 1996 by Nancy Martin. Reprinted by permission of Tecolote Publications. All rights reserved.
Nancy Martin's Vanilla Blood is a thriller: set in the future, this tells of the year 2006 when genetically-altered apes share homes with human families and perform servants' work, and when a killing spree involves super sleuth FutureDick in investigations to uncover the truth. -- Midwest Book Review
