Skip to main content

Bibliophile reviews Undead and Unwed (paranormal)



Author: Mary Janice Davidson
Year published: 2004
Pages: 255

First in a series.

The Story:
Elizabeth “Betsy” Taylor is a talkative, shallow shoe-addict with an attitude that comes her in good steed but also causes problems when she is struck by a car and rises two days later as a vampire (read the book to find out why). The discovery that her stepmother has stolen all her designer shoes and intended to bury her wearing a pink suit (a colour she hates) and cheap shoes initially upsets her more than being dead. Everything indicates that she is the new Queen of the vampires: she can enter churches, touch crosses and say “God” without any discomfort; instead of burning her, holy water only makes her sneeze; daylight just makes her sleepy; and dogs and people are attracted to her like iron filings to a magnet. Not to mention that men get horny just looking at her, something she has never experienced before. She soon discovers that there are two vampire clans in the city: Nostradamus’s clan, who want her to become Nostro’s (as she calls him) minion, and Sinclair’s clan, who believe her to be the prophesied vampire Queen. Betsy just wants to be left alone to live her death as she pleases, but she has no clue about how to survive as a vampire, and reluctantly accepts Sinclair’s help. When she decides to join the war against Nostro, his people kidnap her and that’s when the real trouble starts…

Technique and plot:
The story is well written and funny, but with serious moments as well. The main characters are well drawn: Betsy is saved from being a totally intolerable ditz by her fierce independence and her warm protective feelings for her friends and family; and Sinclair is saved from being a typical sexy vampire king by actually having a personality. Nostro, unfortunately is a stereotypical villain.
The story is told by Betsy herself, in a tone that made me think of Cher in the movie Clueless.
This book is classified by the publisher as a “paranormal romance”, which is a misnomer. There is very little love in the sense of romance in the story, and certainly no falling in love. Falling in lust, yes, but not in love.
The story is partly a parody of the vampire genre, while still being very much part of it. Betsy is an atypical vamp who will do anything to protect her friends and family from being hurt. This makes her a sympathetic character, a difficult feat when telling the story of a member of a parasitical race that preys on humans.

Rating: A funny vampire story, Carmilla lite, that makes an entertaining afternoon’s read. A relief after the intensity of the Anita Blake books. 3 stars.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down
Post a Comment
Read more

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout  woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went and
Post a Comment
Read more

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove
Post a Comment
Read more