Real Vampires Don't Wear Size Six - Gerry Bartlett

Real Vampires Don’t Wear Size Six

Gerry Bartlett
Berkley
 
Paranormal Chick-Lit
 
Jumping into this long-running series at this point, as I did, puts the reader at a disadvantage.  Glory is a 400-year-old vampire, so she’s got a lot of living piled up in the past.  Most recently, she was possessed by a demon and cheated on her longtime boyfriend and sire, Jerry Blade with her onetime bodyguard, Rafe.  Although the demon is now gone, the hurt feelings remain, and Jerry decides that the two of them need a cooling-off break so that Glory can decide whether her attraction for Rafe is real or a demonic delusion. 
 
Also during the possession, Rafe apparently used his own partly-demonic powers and now there’s a price to pay.  In point of fact, a couple of minor demons arrive and demand that Rafe start harvesting souls for El Jefe, Lucifer.  Glory feels that she needs to help Rafe and puts herself squarely in the path of the demons, as well.  While all this is going on the ruling council wants to make sure that Glory is trustworthy, so she’s charged with mentoring a brainy yet sullen college student who was turned vampire without consent.  Wacky hijinks naturally ensue. 

Clearly, the author intends these novels to be a sort of light-hearted take on the vampire mythos.  Glory’s problems are few and mostly center around her desire to be a size six.  She apparently has no character flaws at all, since everyone in her sphere is either in love/lust with her, willing to forgive her anything, or all of the above.  This makes her a far less interesting character than she could be.  The whole demon thing never gets too scary, since she’s got a couple of personal angels hovering around, making sure she’s ok; and Jerry is quite a dab hand with a sword.  Take that however you like.
 
If you’re more into the paranormal or action type novels, you may be disappointed here.  There’s really nothing graphic or gory about the supernatural inhabitants of this novel.  They have the same concerns and hang-ups as your average twenty-something.  The fight with the Big Bad is handled in a few paragraphs and comes of something as an anti-climax to those used to more edgy paranormals, but that fits in with what I believe is the author’s desire to keep things from becoming too grim.  There are a few loose threads left for a future novel, and, of course, these are the threads that I found most interesting.  For readers who enjoy chick lit with humor and want to venture a bit out of their comfort zone, this novel would be a great way to do that. 
 
Rating: 6
August 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24135-6