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Book Review: Undead and Unemployed by MaryJanice Davidson (Series, #2)
Summary:
Betsy may have dealt with the fact that she’s an undead blood-sucker, but she certainly is not ready to deal with the idea of being queen of the vampires for 1,000 years. Or mated to the horribly tricky Sinclair. The sexy, tricky Sinclair. She is focused on more important things, like her new job selling designers shoes at Macy’s. But when vamps start popping up dead a second time, her duty calls whether she wants to listen or not.
Review:
If somebody asked me to hand them the quintessential chick lit summer beach read, I’d toss the Queen Betsy series at them. Light, short, set in a cool climate, and one guaranteed hot sex scene per book. Great literature it ain’t, but I’ve definitely read far worse paranormal romance in my time, plus Davidson always manages to get at least a few chuckles out of me.
The one thing that baffles me is that I truly hate Queen Betsy. She is everything I loathe in *coughs* certain women: shallow, conceited, wears too much make-up, obsessed with shoes, self-centered. Yet for some reason I can’t help rooting for her. Maybe it’s that she didn’t ask to be queen of the vampires and yet still manages to rise to the occasion when needed that makes her bearable. This is a long series, and I do hope that Davidson will see fit to give us a good character arc for Betsy. Going from a shallow 20-something to a fully grown-up queen. I could dig that.
In the meantime, the storyline here in the second book was actually a bit more interesting than the first, although the mystery was quite easy to solve. Unfortunately, the laughs weren’t quite as frequent, which is what made the first book so enjoyable, but they are still present. Who reads paranormal chick lit for more than a few hours of giggles and horribly unrealistic vampire sex that knocks chunks of plaster out of the ceiling? If that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t go wrong with the Queen Betsy series.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Previous Books in Series:
Undead and Unwed, review
Book Review: Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson (Series, #1)
Summary:
Betsy was a 30 year old secretary (previously a model, previously a college drop-out) living in Minneapolis, and she was quite content with her life. Oh, a good date would have been nice, but at least she got to drool over the hot detective assigned to figure out who assaulted her a few weeks ago outside an Italian restaurant. Everything was fine. Until she got hit by a car one slippery night in front of her house and woke up undead in the morgue the next day. Even that would have been fine, but the local vampires keep insisting she get involved in vampire politics. True, a lot of the vampire rules don’t seem to apply to her. For instance, holy water only makes her sneeze, but why should she bother with vampire politics when she could be doing more important things like getting her designer shoes back from her stepmother?
Review:
This is not paranormal romance. I repeat. This is not paranormal romance! It is, however, what I have chosen to dub paranormal chick lit. Undead and Unwed reads like a Sophie Kinsella novel if it was set in the frigid midwest and had a pleasant back-drop of vampires.
Betsy is one of those main characters who you really think you would hate in real life. In fact, I hated her so much in the first bit of the book that I almost stopped reading it. Statuesque blonde who used to be a model who was too good for college and is illogically obsessed with designer shoes? Blergh. The thing is, though, when she gets turned into a vampire we see the happy-go-lucky, humorous, good souled person underneath. What a flip from typical vampire books, eh? But it works. Betsy is a flawed main character. What a nice change of pace! But she isn’t so flawed that we can’t sympathize with her and enjoy her presence.
Choosing to make Betsy a prophesied mighty vampire puts an interesting twist on the typical paranormal trope. She’s not a non-vampire with interesting powers who shakes up the vampire community, and she’s also not some regular newbie vamp learning the ropes. She’s a vampire who the typical rules don’t apply to, but on top of that, she calls it like she sees it. She laughs at the ridiculous names, pomp, and circumstance the vampires in the area have chosen to burden themselves with. She’s a breath of fresh air, if you will. These combine to make a truly amusing read.
Of course, there is sex, and it’s not badly written at all. The vampire elements are played up more here than they are in series like the Sookie Stackhouse series. Additionally, some readers might be turned off by the revelation that when a vampire feeds on a human, they must also have sex with them so the human gets a similar release. I found this to be a call-back to the grittier vampires such as the type Anne Rice wrote, but I get it that some readers might be a bit skeeved out by that.
Overall, Undead and Unwed is a delightful northern piece of paranormal chick lit that will have you laughing or at least smiling in a wittily bemused fashion. I recommend it to lovers of paranormal and chick lit alike, and I plan on reading the rest of the series.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Imminent Arrivals and TBR
Since I didn’t quite manage to finish my current read on the bus this morning (I literally had to stop in the middle of the climax. I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS), I thought I’d do something a little bit different today. As you all know, I use PaperBackSwap for acquiring a lot of my books. It lets you sort your wishlist by estimated time to fulfillment, so I thought I’d share with you guys the books that are estimated to be mine shortly.
First up, I’ve been waiting for this book forever: The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Next is The Group
Third is yet another post-apocalyptic book: Life As We Knew It
Ok, so I also have books in my TBR pile, so I’m going to show you guys 3 random books from there. If there’s one you sorely want reviewed soon, tell me now!
I stumbled upon The Integral Trees 
A pretty recent arrival, I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells features an untrustworthy narrator with sociopathic tendencies who spends the book trying to convince us and himself that he’s not a serial killer. Kind of reminds me of Dexter
Finally, there’s Undead and Unwed 
That’s it! Please tell me what you think, my lovely readers!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 