LA VIDA VAMPIRE

Author: Nancy Haddock ISBN: 9780425219959 4/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: BERKLEY

Sometimes being a vampire isn't all it's cracked up to be... Take it from me, Francesca Marinelli. I was trapped underground for more than two hundred years and unearthed during the renovation of a Victorian mansion in historic St. Augustine. Being something of a tourist attraction myself, I'm well suited for a job as a ghost tour guide. A vampire telling ghost stories. Is that a kick or what? Hey, I'm 227 years old. I want to learn things, do things, see things! With enough sunblock, I can have a new lease on afterlife. But... Getting used to being a vampire in the twenty-first century is tough. First, everything I learned about men is a little dated. Then a woman from my tour group turns up dead. Naturally the police think I'm responsible, and it's not so easy to prove I didn't do it. To top it all off, a crazed vigilante squad called the Covenant is out to get me. Between the dead bodies, the stalkers, and my seriously nonexistent love life, I'm starting to think it was easier being a vampire when I was undead and buried.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

While the premise of a stranger unearthing a buried sassy vampire while remodeling her home, and then becoming that vampire's "sponsor" in society (*snort*) in itself makes LA VIDA VAMPIRE compelling enough to dig into, the actual character of the vampy heroine makes it a keeper.

I admit to wanting a bit more out of the plot, which at times is convoluted and silly, but I really enjoy the heroine. She has a fang-u-lous sense of humor, is super smart, and despite her bad hair days, manages to land a super hot cop that I cannot wait to learn more about.

I suspect LA VIDA VAMPIRE is the beginning of a series involving Francesca, the nice-but-not-dull vampire heroine, and I am excited about that. I do hope the promise of the mysteries to come are brought to light better than they are in LA VIDA VAMPIRE because Francesca deserves a more engaging story to be featured in. All the quirky characters do.

Shannon Johnson