Sins of the Piano Man by solareclipses

Official Description:

A reclusive vampire’s swan songs for the victims he regrets draw in a young woman struggling with her father’s illness. As fate brings them together, Edward’s dark past threatens to tear them apart.

Over the last few months, we’ve talked about different categories or maybe subgenres of vampfic. Not to be overly repetitive, personally, I lump vampfics into these three categories: 1) Canon, 2) AU, and 3) Canon AU.

Thus far, you’ve seen recommendations in this column for all three. Here’s a quick recap in case you missed previous months:

July – AU – The Music of the Night, by theladyingrey42
August – Canon AU – The Count of Tuscany, by Wythanie
September – Canon AU – Giving Way to Dusk, by HelenahJay
October – Canon – Cowboys Have Fangs, Too, by Pastiche Pen

For this month’s recommendation, we’re returning to AU, meaning that the world that’s laid out doesn’t fit into or flange with the canon world SM created. In a straight up AU fic, the author has free reign to alter events, move settings, add/remove characters, change backgrounds… really about anything.

AU doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t see aspects – big or small – of the characters and/or story that drew you to fic in the first place. In fact, for me personally, my very favorite AUs of all time are the ones in which the author holds true to most, if not all, of the canon character traits. See then, rather than being an OOC fic that barely resembles Twilight at all, instead, the story becomes more of an exploration into how and why character X would behave and function had canon events never occurred. To me that’s absolutely fascinating. Because they are near-canon in thoughts and personalities, I still feel close to my beloved characters. Yet at the same time, I get the opportunity to really see how they tick. On top of that, I get the freshness of a new plot. Win-win!

And… that – the win-win – is exactly what I got when I cracked open solareclipses’ Sins of the Piano Man. This story is a great example of an AU fic in which a lot of canon character traits are kept, especially in the case of Edward, our piano man, but the setting and events are not canon at all.

Here, rather than being turned by Carlisle way back in 1918, this Edward wasn’t. Instead, he was turned by some random vampire (you learn who later, by the way) and was left to fend for himself. So this Edward didn’t benefit from the Cullens’ gentle upbringing and Carlisle’s tutelage. This Edward didn’t learn about feeding from animals. This Edward didn’t learn about families and all that comes with being a Cullen. No, this Edward learned to kill and do what all the other vampires do – drink humans.

Okay, so that’s been done before, you say. We’ve seen Edward drink people before. But I bet you haven’t seen this twist…

She was completely ordinary looking with her shoulder-length hair, plain shirt, brown skirt and boots, but there was still something about her that was intriguing, something that called to me. Her scent was sweet, like gardenias, with subtle undertones that I couldn’t quite place but that had the fire in my throat raging. All the other thoughts and humans in the bar no longer mattered. She would be the one I would take.

…

I bought her beer and led her to the table I had previously occupied. Her thoughts were erratic, jumping back and forth to different faces that she didn’t readily assign names to, and to a rainy town called Forks; and then her thoughts would drift to me, to how handsome she thought I was and to how much she knew she would regret tonight even though she had every intention of living life to the fullest while she still could.

Was she dying?

Well, no matter. She had a front row seat to death now.

We sat, and I smiled at her again. Her heartbeat slowed. “I’m Edward,” I said, and didn’t extend my hand to her.

Old-fashioned name…must be a relative’s. “Renée,” she answered.

Oh, yeah, you caught that there at the end, eh?

When we enter this story, it’s 1987. Edward is alone, roaming around, and living the life of a people-eating vamp. Because of who he is deep down and because of his gifts, like canon, for the most part he partakes of the dregs of society – murderers, rapists, and their ilk. Every now and then, however, he allows himself something better – something a little tastier maybe. An innocent.

And… in 1987, Edward’s chosen innocent just happens to be one young and frightened Renee Swan, who just happens to be recently pregnant. When Edward learns this, it’s almost like it’s an ah-ha moment for him, one which calls into question his entire way of life and which, more importantly, serves as the impetus for change.

Because of Renee, and more so, the truly, truly innocent life within her that he almost claimed, he vows off the sauce, so to speak, and through some trial and error, learns how to subsist while still keeping his conscience in tact.

That’s our introduction to this world and this Edward.

It’s twenty-one years later, however, when this story really begins. Edward is now a golden-eyed non-people eater. But in true Edwardian form, he’s still alone and his conscience eats away at him for all the lives he stole prior to his coming to Jesus moment in ‘87. Trying to reconcile in some way, he spends his time composing songs for all his past victims.

Now they were all I thought about.

So I found myself writing down the name of every innocent life I’d ever taken.

When I was finished, five hundred and sixteen names filled four pieces of college-ruled notebook paper. They belonged to the people I never should have touched, the people who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and whose bloodless bodies were rarely ever found, because I’d thrown them in lakes and rivers and oceans or concealed them deep in the ground.

I frowned and gripped at my hair. I hadn’t realized how many innocents I’d killed, but nearly a fifth of my killings were of these blameless souls. I had chosen not to count them over the years, as if not knowing the depth of my own evil would somehow absolve me of my sins.

It didn’t.

Sitting at my piano, I began to compose music in their memory. I tried to capture their essence in the compositions, tried to encapsulate their final streaming thoughts about life and love and anger and regret.

They were so beautifully flawed.

So human.

My fingers crashed down on the keys in frustration.

So long as I drank their blood, even from bags, I was still a monster.

I would never be human or anything remotely close to it.

If only I could run from myself.

Lovely, isn’t it? And so very Edward. In the very best of ways.

Meanwhile, that unborn child that changed Edward’s path so many years ago is now a woman dealing with her own issues. When he’s called into Seattle to help a pianist playing his songs, their lives cross once more. And they cross again and again.

I have to say one thing I really, really like about this story is Bella. SE has done an excellent job putting together a slightly older Bella, who is not only more mature than canon B, but in my opinion more “realistic” in terms of her reactions and behaviors. At the same time, like with Edward, you see a lot of canon B in there, too, especially in the way she cares for her ailing father. Her sadness feels real and makes my heart hurt at times.

“You don’t have to do this,” I told Charlie later that morning after a coughing fit. There were consequences to being awake, like the blood and phlegm on the tissue I held. With my other hand, I wiped his face and neck with a warm, damp cloth. “I don’t want you to hurt, Dad.”

Mrs. Guzman had him swallow a spoonful of cough syrup. It was one of the few things he was willing to take now.

He cleared his throat, then shook his head and drew in an uneven breath of oxygen. Lifting a frail hand, he patted my cheek and brushed away a tear with his thumb. “No crying,” he said hoarsely. It was a dismissal, a signal that I’d lost this battle—lost the whole goddamn war. He’d go into the darkness with a broken body, but a clear mind.

“Okay.” I nodded and gently passed the cloth over his cracked lips.

As obvious from the above passage, this fic is in the hurt/comfort category, so go ahead and grab a tissue or two. But it’s certainly not all doom, gloom, and tears. There are some truly wonderful moments between Edward and Bella – real romance, nothing overly maudlin, but instead very touching and sweet.

“Be very still,” he suddenly said in a low, breathy whisper.

Damned if my eyes didn’t snap open then. My pulse raced. Was this going to be another kiss to my cheek, to the corner of my mouth?

I pled with my eyes, even though his had closed at some point. Please, please, please.

I didn’t have to wonder or wait for long as Edward’s lips pressed against mine without further hesitation. I sucked in a loud breath against him, and despite his request for me to remain still, my hands came up, unbidden, to tangle in his soft hair. The kiss was delicious and heady, better than I expected.

His lips were firm, like the rest of him, and my mouth bent and shaped to meet them. We kissed unhurriedly, carefully. It was so much like my first kiss—a little fearful, a lot wonderful—but it was also all-encompassing, erasing every kiss that had come before it. Everything paled next to this, which felt so right it hurt and burned in my chest.

Beyond a sweet and wonderful ExB romance, there are a lot of other things I like about this story, too. It’s excellently plotted for one. Reading, it’s clear that SE has spent some real time in crafting her story. It makes sense, it’s logical, and it’s interesting. It’s complex, as well, encompassing far more than just a budding romance between a vamp and a human. Both characters do a lot of growing on their own and both have their own demons to resolve. Throw in a not small amount of external conflict (I won’t talk about this because it comes later on in the story), and you have the makings of something really special and fun to read.

While I won’t give away any details, I did want to mention that there is a certain chapter in this story that blew me away. Okay, maybe I will give away a little: Chapter 19. The particular scene I’m talking about is hard to read, but it’s so poignant, and SE handles it better than about any other that I’ve read. It’s a collision of a lot of different emotions and events: Edward’s instincts, anger, fear, lust, need, and a half dozen other things. And the result is painful – for the characters and for the reader. Vague enough? Read it and you’ll see what I mean. I read it twice because it was just that well done.

The writing itself throughout this story is crisp and clean. Told in an alternating 1st person narrative (but never overlapping and both with distinctive voices), it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the characters’ minds. Now because I’m the Edward girl that I am, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I enjoy the EPOVs just a bit more than the BPOVs, but both are very well done.

Okay, and lastly, before I stop, I probably should go ahead and warn you. This fic is meaty. At a whopping 230k+ words (so far), this isn’t a casual, quick read. No, it’s better than that. This is a curl up on your couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and read for hours kind of fic.

If that’s what you are looking for, get thee to solareclipses’ page right now and give Sins of the Piano Man a read. Make sure you stop and leave her some love by way of reviewing, too!

Until next month!

[dcs_p][/dcs_p]