Twisted Taurus (Zodiac Chillers 4) by Eileen Steiber

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/effing Justin is.

Yes, folks, we have another Effing Justin Situation going on here.  Sigh.

Tag Line: She gets what she wants - always!

From the Back of the Book: Micaela wants Darci - and her brother.... Darci is the new girl.  Dying to get a new life.  Fast.  Enter Micaela, the ultimate Taurus.  So loyal, so devoted - Her friendship grows into a poisonous obsession.  Darci's dates are ruined.  Her brother is seduced.  For Micaela was out to possess him from the very start....

Um.....what is she doing to that guy on the cover? That looks....awkward.

The blurb on this book is barely coherent.  I guess that should have been fair warning about the quality of the rest of it.

This book was published in 1995.  This is my first reading of it, though I've read and recapped the first three in this series.  Thank God they pulled the plug on this train wreck before they did all 12 signs of the zodiac.

Full disclosure: I am an Aries so most of this book just pissed me off.

We begin with a prologue and Micaela who may or may not be our protagonist. In a dream, a voice tells her that two strangers – a brother and a sister – will appear to end her isolation. Then, in English class, she learns that two new students have transferred into the school. Darci and Kurt are brother and sister and apparently Kurt is smokin' hot. Don't look at me like that. I don't write this crap.

Kurt is tall with longish hair. He wears a leather cord around his wrist and another around his neck that has an oval-shaped black bead hanging from it. Apparently this makes him look like a rock star in Micaela's book. She sees him coming out of school with Darci and decides to follow them to a diner. She likes the way they care about each other. Darci is desperate to make friends and this suits Micaela. Up until now, she's needed isolation to learn the skills she needed to learn but now she's ready to socialize. She decides that Darci will be her best friend and Kurt will be her boyfriend and that's that.

Chapter One smacks us into Darci's head so maybe she's our actual protagonist. She's in art class and she's supposed to be sculpting but her cat just looks like a sausage with ears. Micaela is in the class and everyone seems to be in awe of what she's making. Darci goes to wash her hands as an excuse to take a peek and she's stunned when she sees that Micaela seems to be sculpting her (Darci).

Darci stops to ask her what she's doing and Micaela tells her that she makes a good subject because she has an interesting face shape and good bones. Darci doesn't really consider herself pretty but Micaela's sculpture is making her look beautiful. She tells Micaela how talented she is and the other girl replies that it's because she's a Taurus and that's an earth sign.

Clunk.

Micaela accurately guesses that Darci is a Pisces because she has a dreamy quality and small hands and feet. Um. What? Okay, whatevs. She thinks Darci would be better at painting since she's a water sign and Darci tells her she's not really artistic at all. In fact, her room is an awful color and she has no idea how to fix it. I'm not entirely sure this was a smooth segue, but we'll let it go I guess. Micaela offers to come over after school to give her some advice and Darci is thrilled to have made her first friend. I guess she defines “friend” as someone who comes over to look at your paint colors.

Micaela drives Darci home after school. They chat a bit about how awful everyone in the school is and how hard it is to make friends there. Darci's house is a converted summer cottage and she's worried that Micaela will find it lacking somehow. Micaela asks who else is home and Darci says no one. Her brother is off with the new love-of-his-life Kris (female bee tee dubs) and her mom is away on business for a week. Dad is non-existent.

Send the parent of the protagonist off on a trip (business or pleasure) early in the book? Check.

Darci asks Micaela about her home life. Micaela has a four-year-old brother named Devon and biochemist parents who live for their experiments. The phone rings and Darci says she should answer it in case it's her mom checking in. Micaela asks to use the bathroom and is told it's upstairs.

Now we're in Micaela's head. She goes into the master bedroom and picks up the extension to listen in on the phone call. It turns out to be Kurt who is busy with Kris and won't be coming home for dinner. Darci isn't amused. Neither is Micaela. Kris wasn't a part of her plan and will have to be dealt with. She hangs up the phone and goes into Kurt's room where she steals his necklace with the black bead for some nefarious purpose that probably involves a live chicken.

By the time Darci comes upstairs, Micaela is in her room checking out that paint color. Darci wants to paint it green but Micaela thinks to herself that it won't work and she suggests off white. Darci says that will mean changing the color of her bedspread which mystifies me. Off white goes with everything. That's the point of off white. Micaela suggests they go to some sale at some store and Darci is amazed because that's where Kurt and Kris are going too.

I think we're back in Darci's head now but it's honestly hard to tell. Micaela finds her an ivory colored bedspread and suggests green pillows. While they're discussing the fine points of this boring redecoration project, Kurt and Kris walk up. Darci tells us how good looking her brother is and it's a little on the disturbing side. These books, man. So incesty.

Micaela does her favorite parlor trick and tells Kurt that he's a Leo and Kris that she's a Scorpio. They don't find this bizarre at all. I would, but whatevs. Kris is clearly unhappy to see the two of them and she's cold and rude. She hurries Kurt away and Darci observes that encounters with Kris always leave her feeling awkward.

She and Micaela head for the registers and Micaela picks up a silver ring with a coral stone. The ring opens up and Darci thinks it's a locket. Micaela tells her that it's actually a poison ring. The hollow cavity is designed to hold poison. What? Doesn't your local Sears store carry poison rings? Maybe you're just not looking in the right department.

We hop into Kurt's head now. He's having dinner with Kris and she's very unhappy. She thinks that Darci is way too dependent on Kurt. Kurt thinks Kris doesn't understand sibling relationships because she's an only child. And that's the extent of the entire section. Riveting.

Now we're back in Micaela's head. She's already dropped Darci off and she's headed into the Catskill mountains. She stops on private property and pulls seven empty gallon jugs from her trunk. She walks into the woods for a little while until she comes to an old spigot. Turning it on, she fills the jugs with pure mountain spring water. She always collects it under the moon and she thinks it helps her secret garden thrive.

Micaela's secret garden is enclosed in a rock wall. To get into it, she has to remove some of the stones from the wall and crawl through. She discovered it deserted and overgrown three or four years ago. She had no idea who put it there or why but she took it over. She grows Death Camas and Hemlock and Foxglove and a variety of other deadly things in it. When she goes there, she calls on the elements and the planets and directions and weather and then steps into the sacred circle of the garden.

Micaela visits her garden that night to harvest the rest of the plants before the first frost sets in. She has a new one with dark red heart-shaped flowers that doesn't even have a popular name yet. She calls it Heart of Darkness and it's her favorite.

We're back in Darci's head for lunch period on Friday. She hates lunch period because she still hasn't found anyone to sit with. People just aren't very welcoming in her new school. She's standing there trying to decide what to do when a guy named Ian rocks up and asks her if she wants to skip the caf and eat outside somewhere. They're not authorized to do this and will probably end up with detention but she's good to go.

The go outside and sit down under a tree. It's only then that Darci realizes she doesn't actually have a lunch with her. Ian graciously shares his PBJ and BBQ chips and I'm kind of in love with him already. He expresses sympathy for her newbie fitting-in problem and tells her he went through it the year before. She asks him why his family moved to town and he tells her that his dad is in prison for embezzlement. He seems to be carrying a lot of pain around about his dad and Darci is a little clueless and careless about it. He asks her out anyway. She can't go because she already has plans with Micaela. He warns her that Micaela has a bit of a reputation. She's into some "seriously dark stuff". She laughs the warning off and they finish their lunch and head back inside.

Micaela sees them come in and asks Darci about it later. She tells Darci that Ian is an Aries which makes him “pushy and self-centered”.  Whatevs.  Micaela warns Darci that she and Ian would never be happy together and Darci laughs her off as well.

We time hop to Saturday and land in Micaela's head. She's experimenting with the Heart of Darkness flower. Once ground up, the powder from the petals is odorless and tasteless but not colorless. When mixed with water, it turns the water a dark red color. Since the flower is so new and unknown, she isn't sure how much is needed to kill a person. She experimented a bit on a mouse but knows she really needs a human guinea pig. She doesn't intend to actually kill anyone but she needs to know what kinds of things the poison does.

She hears Darci drive up and she rushes to put away her things. She puts some of the powder into her poison ring and stores everything else. She wonders what Darci will think of her room. It's full of tapestries and candles and crystal balls and every other cliché that Steiber could think of to make her sound “witchy”. She decides to mix up a couple of drinks (sparkling water and cranberry juice as gross as that sounds). The red color of the drink will hide the poison powder she puts in Darci's glass. As she gets it ready, she thinks about Ian. She doesn't want Ian around. She want's Darci lonely and desperate.

We hop into Darci's head. She's awed by the size and opulence of Micaela's house. We get two pages of all the nifty and beautiful things that Micaela's house contains so that we'll be suitably impressed by her parents' wealth. Micaela gives Darci a tour of the NOT secret garden and Darci marvels at her green thumb. Micaela says it's because she's a Taurus and that's the first of the earth signs.

Clunk.

They have a conversation about Van Gogh that sounds NOTHING like a conversation two high school aged girls would have. Steiber really knows her teens.

Then they start discussing star charts (not the kind for tracking constellations, we're talking horoscope stuff here), ascending planets, things in retrograde, blah, blah, blah. I refuse to read it, let alone recap it. I'm pretty sure it's all inaccurate as hell and I don't want a huge lecture from Wrath when the author gets it completely wrong. Micaela tells Darci that over her lifetime she will become materialistic, stubborn and develop a foul temper. Darci isn't thrilled with any of this.

Micaela gives Darci the poisoned drink and Darci sips a little of it while they chat. Within minutes she is nauseous and then falls to floor in convulsions. Micaela begs her not to die because it isn't time yet. THEN MAYBE DON'T POISON HER FUCKING DRINK NEXT TIME, SISTER.

The next chapter opens with Micaela snipping off some of Darci's hair while she's unconscious on Micaela's bed. Darci eventually wakes up and asks Micaela about the convulsions. Micaela says Darci felt sick, laid down for a nap and must have dreamed the rest. Darci is doubtful but accepts the explanation.

We skip to Monday and land in Ian's head. I suddenly feel so....masculine. He's trying to “accidentally” run into Darci as she leaves Chemistry class so he can ask her on a date. She's having an awful day and she tells him she'll have to talk to him about it later which just seems really rude to me but whatevs. As she walks away, Micaela approaches Ian and warns him that Darci has “a big mouth”. Micaela tells him that Darci's told half the school about Ian's dad being in prison. He's devastated.

We take a sideways hop into Darci's head now. She's been walking on a cloud for half the day because Ian asked her out. Never mind that she never actually accepted. {{eye roll}} She finds him after lunch to see if maybe he might want to catch a movie but he's cool and distant. He tells her that he doesn't want to go anywhere with her and makes several references to her having a big mouth which she doesn't understand at all. Then he walks away and she's crushed.

We're back in Ian's head for the next chapter and he's really not doing so well. He's a star soccer player but he just flubbed up a really important game and everyone is mad at him. His friend John asks him what's going on and Ian tells him about Darci betraying him. John offers to help him get some kind of revenge on Darci but even though he's mad at her, Ian doesn't want to hurt her any more than he already did by refusing to go out with her.

We're back in Darci's head and she's miserable. She calls Micaela for sympathy but all Micaela says is that their signs are incompatible and Darci should just move one. Aries are immature and spoiled and selfish and that's just that.

The next afternoon, Micaela comes over to help Darci paint. Darci is happy to cover the sludge blue with the crisp off white and comments to Micaela about how much better it looks. Micaela replies:

“You're starting to feel your Taurus. You're connecting with that part of you that loves color and material things.”

First of all “starting to feel your Taurus” brings back hideous cow-shifter memories. I'm traumatized for life, I tell you. Second of all.....

Clunk.

It's like there's a contest to see which book can make these sentences the most awkward.

Kurt comes home with two cardboard cutouts named Marc and Eric whose names both end with a “c”. They do cardboard boy things like shove each other a lot and act like they've never eaten in their lives. Kurt and Darci get into a stupid fight over the last bag of popcorn and Micaela offers to order Chinese in for everyone if Darci and Kurt declare a truce.

While they wait for the order to be delivered, they play Twister because that's what high school kids do. Darci notices that Eric and Marc never speak to Micaela directly. They don't even look at her if they can help it. The game quickly turns racy as Micaela uses it to her advantage to touch Kurt as much as possible. At one point she even makes sure to straddle his body. I'm sure his teenage hormones are enjoying this very much and maybe more high school kids should play Twister.

Darci confronts Micaela about trying to seduce her brother but Micaela brushes her off and makes her feel like she's overreacting.

We briefly land in Micaela's head on Monday morning. She's planning to steal something from the chemistry lab to make the Heart of Darkness poison colorless.

Then we land in Ian's head. He's forgotten a book in the chemistry lab and he walks into the room just in time to see Micaela pick the lock on the chemicals cabinet and stead a vial of something. He doesn't know what it is or what she wants it for, but he knows one thing. If she's a thief then she's probably also a liar.

Ian finds Darci after school and asks to talk to her. She isn't happy about it, but reluctantly agrees. He tells her about Micaela blaming her for the rumors and stealing the chemical. He apologizes for not asking Darci if she told the entire school about his dad. Darci doesn't think Micaela would do such things. Ian understands her defense of her only friend and says they'll just keep an eye out and see what happens. He asks her if they can be friends and she agrees. Then he kisses her and complicates the entire thing all over again.

We're in Micaela's head now. She's just returned from a cemetery where she's dug up an old grave and removed 12 old nails from a wooden coffin. She needs them for a spell. A voice in her head warns her that Darci is with Ian again and he will turn Darci against her. She vows to destroy Ian.

On Saturday Micaela casts a spell to break up Darci and Ian once and for all. The actual description of the spell casting is super stereotypical and lame and I'm not going to incur Wrath's....well, wrath by recapping it. Let's just say it's your typical Disney series kind of magic. Micaela binds Darci's thoughts to her so that Darci can no longer make any decisions without Micaela. She casts a spell to kill Darci's love for Ian and make it painful for her to even think of him.

Meanwhile Darci and Ian are mid-makeout. They've had an amazing date and Darci's pretty sure she loves him. She's standing there with his tongue in her mouth when suddenly it feels like she's going to be burned alive if she even touches him again. And not in the good way. She pushes him away and he's all sweet and concerned for a bit. He's worried he somehow kissed her too hard or something and asks if he hurt her which seems like an odd question unless he has fangs. She tells him she can never see him again and runs away.

Well, that's enough to give a guy a complex about his kissing skills.

We're with Kurt now and it's Monday afternoon. He walks out to his van in the rain and finds Micaela waiting for him dressed very provocatively. She says she needs a ride and then puts major moves on him, stroking his face and chest. She goes in for a kiss and he pushes her away telling her he loves Kris. Unfortunately Kris has seen the entire thing and she pretty much breaks up with him on the spot. Micaela gets in her car and drives off.

Ian has witnessed the entire thing and tells Kurt that he'll back him up with Kris if it comes to that. He's willing to say that Micaela orchestrated the entire thing. He tells Kurt that Darci dumped him again and he's pretty sure it's Micaela's fault. Kurt thinks Ian is being dramatic and he drives away.

We're with Darci for Tuesday evening. Micaela comes over with her finished star chart and a floor-length green velvet dress as if that's not just bizarre. Darci likes the dress and how it makes her look. She tells Micaela about the weirdness with Ian on Saturday and Micaela says it was her intuition warning her against Ian and she should always listen to her intuition. She also tells Darci that her star chart reveals that she should stay away from romance entirely for awhile.

Micaela tells Darci that she might be “a little psychic” and offers to help Darci develop her powers. She also offers to teach her how to be a super mega awesome very authentic witch. Darci says it's what she's always wanted even though it's actually NOT and just a byproduct of the binding spell Micaela did on her. She lights a candle and makes Darci kneel and take an oath of obedience and loyalty which is just super disturbing. Then she leaves to go throw herself at Kurt one more time.

Kurt tells her she's attractive and he'd be interested but he's committed to Kris which is just such a good way to get Kris murdered. Does NO ONE watch cable anymore?

Main character who seriously needs to watch some Discovery ID? Check.

Micaela tells him not to worry about Kris. Their destiny was written in the stars long before they were even born and everything will play out exactly as it's intended to.

We get treated to a very bizarre paragraph where Darci's mom catches her reading a book on magic and tells her that she once thought she was a witch. She tells Darci that she has more “power” than she realizes.

Odds of Darci being a more powerful WHATEVER than Micaela: 95%. Hey, the book has to counteract Micaela somehow.

Micaela does her pseudo-witch thing in the secret garden that night while wearing Kurt's stolen necklace. She does some kind of “spell” to make Kurt love only her and then buries his necklace under the Heart of Darkness plants. Something about his love for her growing as long as the plants do. Then she does a little scrying to see what the future holds. She sees a vision of Kris vanishing into the dark woods and hears a voice saying Micaela can have Kurt if she sacrifices Kris to the darkness.

Micaela knows she has to lure Kris into the woods but she doesn't know how to do it. She calls on her spirit guides for help and the voice tells her to call Kris. Micaela has no idea what she's supposed to do but she looks Kris up in the phone book and gives her a call.

As soon as Kris answers, the voice – sounding exactly like Kurt – takes over and apologizes. It asks Kris to meet him in the woods that weekend for a special surprise. I have no idea why she agrees, but she does.

Character displays a shocking lack of survival skills? Check and double check.

Micaela spends three days digging a pit in the woods. She covers the opening of the pit with brush and then sets up a picnic complete with flowers on the far side of it. Kris shows up right on time and makes her way toward the picnic. She falls into the pit and Micaela listens to her scream for awhile before revealing herself. She tells Kris to give her the keys to the car and maybe she'll be set free. Kris complies. Micaela begins to fill in the pit. She gets it filled up to Kris's shoulders and declares that good enough. This seems really dumb to me. If Kris works her way free (it's dirt, not concrete) she might be able to use all that dirt to climb out.

Micaela's plan is to push Kris's car over a ravine and go back home to bed.

We're in Darci's head now and it's the next morning. Kris's mom calls the house to see if Kurt has seen Kris. Kurt realizes that he's a suspect because Kris told her parents she was going to meet him. Luckily he has an alibi since he was home with his mom and sister all night. They go to school and he's immediately led away by police for questioning. In most places, this would not be okay because Kurt is a minor and a parent must be present during questioning. Know your rights, kiddos.

Ian approaches Darci and she starts to immediately back away. He asks her to stop and talk to him. He isn't going to do anything she doesn't want him to do but she looks like she needs someone to talk to. He tells her kindly that he knows what it's like to watch someone you love being taken away by the police. Something in his voice gets through to Darci and she tells him everything she knows. He suspects Micaela because he is AWESOME.

We walk away from that scene in Ian's head. He takes us to confront Micaela. He demands to know what she did to Kris and reveals that he knows she stole something from the Chem lab. He also knows she set Kurt up to be seen kissing her in front of Kris. Micaela laughs it off and tries to gaslight him but it doesn't work. She ends up forcibly kissing him on the mouth and walking away. I guess the kiss transferred us into her head because she tells us that she has to get rid of Ian immediately.

Immediately we're back in Ian's head. This is making me dizzy. He's eating lunch when Micaela joins him. They spar a little and somehow we're in Micaela's head again. She likes arguing with him. Aries are self-confident, aggressive and intelligent and the only truly worthy opponent of the bull. Her hand brushes his glass and I'm pretty sure she poisons him and then she walks away.

Now we're with Darci. She and Kurt are talking outside the principal's office about the police questioning when she sees Ian being taken away by paramedics. She and Kurt go to the hospital where drs give them a crap ton of information they should never have about Ian's condition. He's been poisoned and he's going to die if they don't figure out by what.

Darci asks to see him and she's taken in. Ian looks awful and says he's seeing yellow halos around everything. He pleads with her to go to Micaela's house and see if there's any info there about poisons. He knows she put something in his food or drink at lunch because he's the only non-idiot in the entire book.

Darci and Kurt go to Micaela's house. They get by the nanny with some flimsy excuse of looking for a borrowed book and then they search Micaela's room. They notice a bunch of plants growing on the windowsill and Darci wants to write down the names, so she grabs a nearby notebook. A piece of paper falls out and Kurt picks it up. It's an article about Van Gogh with the important parts helpfully highlighted for them.

SUPER CONVENIENT.

The article expounds on the theory that Van Gogh went insane due to digitalis poisoning from the foxglove plant. One of the symptoms is seeing yellow halos and several appear in Van Gogh's paintings. Kurt points out that there's foxglove growing on the windowsill and a Van Gogh painting on the wall. Darci remembers that Ian was seeing yellow halos and they think they have their answer. Then Kurt finds some notes about Heart of Darkness and sees the entry about Darci's poisoning. The symptoms are similar to foxglove.

Darci immediately calls the hospital and passes the information about both plants on to the dr treating Ian. They hope an antidote can be administered in time. Kurt looks out the window and realizes that Micaela is now home. Kurt runs to hide in a nearby room but Darci hesitates to make sure there are no signs of them being in there. She waits too long and ends up having to hide under the bed.

Micaela comes in and does her chanting thing. She tells the voice that she's sacrificed Kris and eliminated Ian and she wants to know what to do next. Apparently the voice tells her to cut the finger off “the dead girl” and take some dirt from her grave and offer it to the darkness and Micaela says she will.

Micaela leaves and Darci finds Kurt. She tells him that they have to follow Micaela because she's done something to Kris. They follow Micaela out to the woods and find her doing her ceremony. She talks about having sacrificed Kris and then Kurt and Darci see something stumbling out of the woods. It's Kris and Darci thinks she's been risen from the dead. She screams and blows her cover.

Micaela decides to exert her mind control over Darci. Darci pretends to be under her influence. Micaela asks Darci to send the evil zombie Kris back to the earth. She hands Darci a knife with a long, curved blade. Darci pretends to go for Kris but then turns and holds the knife at Micaela's throat. She demands to know what Micaela did to Kris. Kurt is done being an observer and he tackles Micaela to the ground and ties her hands together with his belt.

Darci still thinks Kris is a zombie but Kurt recognizes that Kris is very much still living. He goes to cradle her in his arms as Micaela screams that she did this for him – so they could be together.

Then the book just ends. No, seriously. Right there. We get no closure on ANYTHING. We don't know if the spell on Darci and Ian will go away. We don't know if the spell on Kurt will go away. Although, it doesn't seem like that one ever worked anyway. I'm not so sure Darci's mind control did either....so why did the anti-love spell? It makes no sense to me and it never will because Steiber didn't bother to explain any of it. She just ended the book practically mid-sentence as if it was the series finale of the Sopranos or someth...............