Real Vampires Hate Skinny Jeans - Gerry Bartlett

Real Vampires Hate Skinny Jeans

Gerry Bartlett
Berkley
 
Paranormal Chick-Lit

Glory St. Clair has been a vampire for over four hundred years, yet somehow her problems are those of any chick-lit heroine.  For instance, her love life is overscheduled.  Maybe that makes her a chick-lit anti-heroine.  She’s currently torn between longtime love (and maker) Jerry, friend-with-benefits and bodyguard shifter Rafe, and rock star Ray.  And she has an unwanted houseguest.  Alesa, a demon who once briefly possessed Glory, arrives at her door and announces that she’s pregnant and moving in for the duration.  Glory allows this situation to continue because Alesa claims that she became pregnant during her possession of Glory when Glory and Rafe got together.
 
Putting all of that to the side (the situation is resolved roughly halfway through the book) local paranormal doctor/scientist Ian MacDonald has some big news for Glory.  Apparently, her blood is something extra special, giving vamps who ingest it super vision, hearing, and libido.  In other news, Ian is positive that, whatever Glory thinks she knows about her pre-vamp life, she didn’t start out as human.  The ‘what was Glory’ storyline is resolved fairly quickly, with the remainder of the book devoted to her dealing with it.

I started reading this long-running series with the last book (REAL VAMPIRES DON’T WEAR SIZE SIX) so it may just be that I’m not emotionally invested in the interwoven characters.  I just find it difficult to empathize with Glory, who spends the first half of the book being a doormat for no good reason and the second half being very nearly a Mary Sue.  As in the last novel, Glory is deeply desired and even loved by nearly everyone, including three fairly alpha male types.  It just doesn’t seem realistic that these guys would be willing to sit back and wait for her to decide among them, through action or inaction, so it doesn’t work at all on the romantic level for me.  Again, this may be due to the fact that I’m a relative newcomer to the series.

The paranormal elements are fairly interesting and quite diverse, but there’s so much going on at once that each plotline seems to be given less attention that it deserves.  There are several characters who pop up in this novel who have been absent for some time, and the author’s note at the end kindly points readers to the appropriate installments for their stories.  Written with a very light and humorous touch (meaning: no scares or gore) this series would be a great choice for someone who enjoys chick-lit or romance but wants something with a more supernatural plot.
 
Rating: 6
April 2012
ISBN# 978-0-425-24562-0 (trade paperback)