» nice girls don’t have fangs

Molly Harper’s Jane Jameson Series: It Was Love At First Bite

K.C. — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:02:12 +0000

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump. Nothing seems to have been piquing my interest and I was starting to get worried that I need a break from romance. Sacrilege, I know! So along comes Ms. Harper with her vampire series and I am once again smitten. Wicked-nasty sense of humor, check, awesome comedic relief from side characters- double check, and a cluster “F” of major proportions, triple check, check. Or as Michael from The Office says, win-win-win.

Warning: these books may make you giggle inappropriately, make piggy snorting noises and if you are not careful, make you spew your drink out of your nose. Drink responsibly people!

As my English professor once told me, it’s easier to make people cry than laugh (after he gave me a C-).

This author has an amazing sense of humor and her dialogues are not only memorable but they have a sense of realism that is refreshingly appealing. It’s not often that a character can pull off not only being an incredible smart-ass but a charming one at that.

Jane Jameson, is your average, mediocre librarian. Nothing exciting happens to her and if she could be anymore plain, she’d match the wall-paint at the DMV. Take the worst day you’ve had and multiply it by a thousand and that pretty much sums up Jane’s ‘happenstance’ into becoming a vampire. Fired from her librarian job, and given “Shenanigans” gift certificates as a severance, Jane does what any red-blooded American would do after getting the axe. She gets rip-roaring drunk off blue Hurricanes.

What’s the most embarrassing way to become a vampire? Just ask Jane! After leaving the bar her car breaks down and she decides to hoof it back to her place. The town drunk mistakes her for a deer and she is shot, left dying on the side of the road. Is this really how she is going to die? Mistaken for a freakin deer! Well, you’ll have to read the series in order to find out, just how does Jane get out of this pickle. Add a best friend named Zeb, his werewolf girlfriend and crazy-narcissistic mother and you have an epic tale of comedic proportions that rivals Shakespeare any day. (Well, that might be a bit much, but you get the idea).

I can’t count the ways in which this series tickled me to the point of laughing out loud and having Mr. S-Hot come and investigate. I’ve even recommended this series to my mother who scoffs at all things paranormal. (she’s barely forgiven Nora Roberts for coming out of the closet as J.D Robb.). If I had to find something to crique (I really have to dig for it) would be that Jane upstages her love interest Gabriel, literllay she and her wacky friends & family steel the show. I also thought in the last book Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever, the secret Gabriel kept from Jane that almost cost their relationship just did seem “that bad.”

Anyway, for anyone looking for a witty paranormal read, Jane Jamison series (or what I refer to as the Nice Girls Don’t series) is not to be missed!

Rating

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs (Bk1)

Genre Paranormal Romance

384 pages

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children’s librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed $25 in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that’s sure to become Half-Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she’s mistaken for a deer, shot and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She’s forced to forego her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn’t enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What’s a nice undead girl to do?

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men (Bk 2)

Genre Paranormal Romance

400 pages

Life as the undead is finally settling down for Jane Jameson. Her somewhat unhealthy relationship with her sire, Gabriel Nightengale, is slowly coming into focus. She loves her new job at Specialty Books. Her family, well, her father, is adjusting well to her condition. Her mother believes that if Jane would just try hard enough, she wouldn’t have to be a vampire anymore.

With Zeb’s Titanic-themed nuptials looming on the horizon, Jane is forced to wear a bridesmaid’s dress her body may reject like a faulty organ. And Zeb’s mother seems hell-bent on stopping the wedding if she can’t have Jane for a daughter-in-law.

In other matrimonial shenanigans, the passing of Grandma Ruthie’s fiancé, Bob, puts her back on the market. Ruthie’s new fiancé, Wilbur, smells like old cheese, has his own sordid history of suspiciously dead spouses, and died more than 20 years ago.

With daytime funerals, mother-of-the-groom hijinks, and Styrofoam icebergs to contend with, will Jane survive her best friend’s wedding?

You will literally die laughing at what Zeb’s mother does to Jane and Zeb. This is probably my favorite book in the series, from the amount of times I laugh out loud.

Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever (Bk 3)

Genre Paranormal Romance

336 pages

Nothing sucks the romance out of world travel like a boyfriend who may or may not have broken up with you in a hotel room in Brussels. Jane Jameson’s sexy sire Gabriel has always been unpredictable, but the seductive, anonymous notes that await him at each stop of their international vacation, coupled with his evasive behavior over the past few months, finally push Jane onto the next flight home to Half Moon Hollow—alone, upset, and unsure whether Gabriel just ended their relationship without actually telling her.

Now the children’s-librarian-turned-vampire is reviving with plenty of Faux Type O, some TLC from her colorful friends and family, and her plans for a Brave New Jane. Step One: Get her newly-renovated occult bookstore off the ground. Step Two: Support her best friend, Zeb, and his werewolf bride as they prepare for the impending birth of their baby . . . or litter. Step Three: Figure out who’s been sending her threatening letters, and how her hostile pen pal is tied to Gabriel. Because for this nice girl, surviving a broken heart is suddenly becoming a matter of life and undeath….

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Some of My New Favorite Fanged and Fabulous Series

K.C. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:21:45 +0000

Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress Series

This is one of the best vampire series that I have read to date! Cat Crawford is not your average young woman. She was born half-vampire and half-human after her mother experienced an encounter with a newly turned vampire. After years of listening to her mother’s bigotry regarding her half-vampire heritage Cat sets out to find and kill her father as revenge for raping her mother. Cat needlessly risks her life posing as ‘bait’ to horny vampire males and this is where we get to meet the illustrious Bones.

Bones is one of the best male characters I’ve read to date. Each time you read him on a page, it makes you want to giggle like a teenager. Never before have I been so interested in a couple after they have gotten together. Frost does such an amazing job keeping your interest in Bones and Cat’s relationship throughout this entire series.

Most Memorable Scene

Cat is bleeding on the forehead.

Bones crouches down in front of Cat preparing to help with her wound, when she bats his hand away and mutters “Bones there are other people that are actually wounded”

Bones “Kitten, you always come first” {insert swoon here}

This series is not to be missed!

Halfway to the Grave Book 1 (Amazon)

One Foot in the Grave Book 2 (Amazon)

At Grave’s End Book 3(Amazon)

Destined for An Early Grave Book 4 (Amazon)

Molly Harper’s Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs

Is a fun series that has a fresh, wry sense of humor. I found myself giggling and snickering while my husband kept asking me what was so funny. After a couple of shoulder shrugs and rolling of the eyes (apparently a sign of disrespect), I was sent on a time-out to the bedroom until I could learn to ‘communicate like an adult’. After finishing the book and having to say three nice things about my husband I couldn’t help but re-read all my favorite lines.

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children’s librarian and self-professes nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes n a bender that’s sure to become Half Moon Hallow legend. On her way home, she’s mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladtlike0thirst for blood.

Most Memorable Scenes

Jane has just recently become a vampire and her ‘sire’, Gabriel is teaching her the ropes.

“You can just wipe his memory?” I asked. “Can I do that? Because I’d kind of like to get my uncle Dave to stop telling the story about me flashing my panties at his wedding reception.”

Gabriel stared at me.

“I was three,” I explained. “Pink panties were a big deal”.

Jane best friend Zeb has just found out she is ‘undead’. He has stabbed her numerous times and has made her jump off the roof just to test her healing capabilities.

“Funny.” I grimace. Zeb was looking around, scanning the porch for something. “You want to stab me again, don’t you?”

He didn’t look at all ashamed. “Think of it as testing the limits of your new abilities.”

I groaned. “I’ve created a monster.”

“I don’t think someone who recently crawled from the grave should be throwing around labels like ‘monster,’ he said, making sarcastic little air-quotes finger.

“It wasn’t a grave.” I sniffed. “It was a comfy four-poster.”

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs (Amazon)

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men (Amazon)

Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever (Amazon)

Chloe Neil’s Chicagoland Vampire Series

For those of you who liked Ilona Andrews Kate Danile’s series then you’ll be just as enraptured with Ms. Neil’s Chicagoland vampire series. Merit is an undergraduate student who had the misfortunate of being at the wrong place and wrong time. Left for dead after being bitten by a vampire, she is changed into one by the Master of the Chicagoland Vampires, Ethan. She’s sarcastic, understated but beautiful, and somehow always get’s herself in trouble.

They killed me. They healed me. They changed me.

Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it was mine. I was doing fine until Chicago’s vampires announced theirexistence to the world-and then a rogue vampire attacked me. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker… and this one decided the best way to save my life was to make me the walking undead.

Warning: Once you start this book you won’t be able to stop. I stayed up till 2:oo am to finish this series. Totally worth it.

Some Girl’s Bite(Amazon)

Friday Night Bites(Amazon)

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