TEST
I know I’m getting cranky, but, gee, would it be too much to ask to actually expect a flippin’ story in a romance novel? I mean, how many 50-page sex scenes can you take?
This one is yet another in Christine Warren’s The Others series featuring (let me know if you’ve heard this one before) a hot race of sexy and studly vampires. Our heroine Reggie meets vamp Dmitri when her friends force her to take part in a “fantasy fix” in which they will make all the arrangements for her to indulge her wildest sexual dreams. Thinking it would be impossible since everybody knows vamps and aliens aren’t real, Reggie’s fantasy is submitting to a sexy and domineering otherworldly creature.
And cue the vampires! She winds up at a vampire ball in the East Village and lickedy-split winds up with hot Dmitri who is there to discover just what Evil One is turning out vamps who are, in turn, indiscriminately feeding on humans. See, Dmitri is some kind of uber security dude for the vamps (let me know if you’ve heard this one before).
So Dmitri and Reggie hook up – for more than 50 pages, they hook up. And it’s boring. And not hot. Then Reggie learns that her ex is really even nastier than she thought. Then she and Dmitri go to the opera for 25 pages or so and, in the meantime, Reggie does the girlfriend thing with her bestest friends and Reggie and Dmitri end up fighting an evil vampiress. (And, yes, the author actually uses that word.)
Scenes in this book go on and on for pages and pages and pages. But, geez, taking up all those long-winded pages for what should be…er, short-winded scenes does offer readers something positive: If anybody out there needs a refresher on just how boring it can be when an author “tells” and doesn’t “show”, well, then, you’re looking at Exhibit A.
Add a decidedly skimpy word count (at roughly 70,000 words this one barely qualifies as a single title) on to the fact that it takes freakin’ forever for anything to happen and the book slides even more firmly into D territory.
And, honestly, that just about does it for my review since I can’t think of another word to write about this book. Well, other than these: One Bite with a Stranger is shallow, formulaic, and…well, completely without bite.
Grade: D
Book Type: Vampire Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 18/10/08
Publication Date: 2008
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.