MaryJanice Davidson: Undead and Unappreciated

Berkley Sensation (Hardcover), ISBN 0-425-20433-2

Undead problems continue to beset Betsy Taylor. She now lives in a huge old Victorian mansion with her best friend Jessica, young doctor Marc, fellow vampire and unwanted consort/major hottie Eric Sinclair, and Sinclair's vampire sidekick bodyguard/secretary/go-fer Tina -- a few too many people. She loathes Sinclair, mostly because he tricked her into sleeping with him so he could become the consort, but still finds herself very attracted to him. And George, one of the Fiends -- feral vampires with very little brains in their head, which she inherited by killing another vampire -- keeps getting loose from his keeper.

Not only that, but she faces a fate worse than death (again) -- a baby shower for her hated stepmother Antonia (the Ant). But a visit from her father gives Betsy some unknown information -- this won't be the Ant's first child. Apparently she gave one up some years ago.

After a trip to visit Ant and some undead persuasion/hypnosis, Ant spills the beans. But her tale indicates possible mental illness. Antonia describes being pregnant one day and the mommy of a screaming infant the next -- with almost a full year's gap in her recollection in between. Antonia put the baby girl up for adoption. Marc uses his doctor privileges to dredge up information on the baby, and Betsy soon learns her half sister attends the nearby university. Then Sinclair announces that the devil really gave birth to Betsy's half sister. Well, a spot of demonic possession would explain quite a lot about Ant… Betsy meets Laura, quite possibly the most perfectly beautiful and sweet young woman ever. So how might she end up powerful and trying to take over the world, as the creepy Book of the Dead indicates?

A fluffy cross between Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake vampire books and Becky Bloomwood of Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic novels, Betsy Taylor never fails to entertain the reader. A little shallow and shoe-obsessed (OK, a lot shoe-obsessed), she doesn't take herself or her situation as queen of the vampires too seriously. Undead and Unappreciated seems a little light on the plot -- a lot more about how Ant ended up possessed by the devil would be nice -- but this series makes for pure guilty pleasure fun.

Jen Foote

Jen Foote recently moved to central Florida, where she is a copy editor and page designer at a small daily newspaper. She is ecstatic to live an hour away from the ocean.

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