Ongoing Review Part 2: TMBOVR

Wow, that’s quite an acronym. Time for another review of The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance! I’ve read four more stories so far, and like last time I’ll try to keep the spoilers mild, but beware! There will be some stories that I can’t help myself with the spoiling.

And to be repetitive, the book info again! ;)

Buy it now: Amazon
Description: The biggest names in paranormal romance have created a fascinating array of 30 short stories of hot blood and inhuman passions that will leave you thirsting for more. Authors include Sherri Erwin, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Jenna Black, Jenna Maclaine, Raven Hart, Delilah Devlin, Keri Arthur, Kimberly Raye, Alexis Morgan, Lilith Saintcrow, C.T. Adams, Cathy Clamp, Susan Sizemore, Dina James, Colleen Gleason, Barbara Emrys, Savannah Russe, Shiloh Walker, Vicki Pettersson, Rebecca York, Rachel Vincent, Amanda Ashley, Karen Chance, and Nancy Holder. These ain’t your mother’s vampires! (from Amazon)

The Reviews!

“Fangs For Hire” by Jenna Black

I like Jenna Black’s Morgan Kingsley series, so I went into this story hoping I’d find the same sarcastic type of protagonist. I wasn’t disappointed on that count; Gemma Johansen is a vampire hitman, or hitwoman as it were, and she’s snarky and seemingly-cold blooded. She’s hired by a young man to take out his stepfather, whom he believes killed his already-ill mother for her money. Gemma goes to investigate her target and finds that Ross Blackburn is more than she bargained for.

I think this story works well in this format. It feels a bit like a condensed longer story, but Black manages to fit a self-contained narrative into nineteen pages. The only complaint I have is slightly uneven characterization for Gemma. When she first meets her client, she narrates that she won’t kill innocents, but as long as she doesn’t know anything about the target, she just knows that they need to die. And yet she decides to go meet Ross and find out if he did kill his wife. That just didn’t quite make sense to me. The narration is first person, and while I suppose Gemma could be an unreliable narrator, it just didn’t quite fit that she would think to herself that she’s cold and detached, and then tries to find out if the guy really was a murderer.

I did like Gemma, though, and I think she’d be worthy of a novel or two.

The Fangirl Says: B+

“The Righteous” by Jenna Maclaine

This story seems to fit into some larger narrative; the story starts with a prologue of sorts, where the Irish war goddess Morrigan commands an unnamed High King to send one of his vampires to Paris. The story then shifts to a vampire spying on a mortal vampire hunter, a young woman who has spent time as an opera singer, a courtesan, the mistress of two kings, and… yeah, now a vampire hunter on the side.

Um. Yeah.

The romance didn’t really pull me in. The hunter finds the vampire attractive and vice versa, but it seems like she caved more out of necessity (the vampires want to use her younger sister to punish her for being such an awesome hunter) than actual desire. And the quick-and-tidy wrap up at the end of the story left me wondering if there was a real point in reading this. Aside from a brief mention, there’s no real conflict within the story, not even when the vampires kidnap the hunter’s sister. We hear about it, but don’t see it. It’s a classic case of telling instead of showing, and frankly, I think that makes a poor story. Add that to being dropped in the middle of a larger narrative without a good explanation and the Mary Sue-ish heroine, and you can color me unimpressed.

The Fangirl Says: D-

“Knowledge of Evil” by Raven Hart

This story is narrated in first-person by a male vampire, and unusual choice in a romance-type story. Unfortunately, he comes off as an arrogant, know-it-all prick, and I wasn’t too fond of him. Of course, you could argue that he’s arrogant and a know-it-all because he’s a damn vampire who’s been around since classical Greece, but… I just had trouble relating to him or even liking him. That’s quite an accomplishment, since his main motivation seems to be gaining knowledge, and I’m planning on being a lifelong student.

Our vampire protagonist meets an anthropologist who is an expert on vampire myths one evening and goes home with her to get a little somethin’ somethin’, only to find that she knows he’s a vampire, and she’s determined to make him turn her. As our hero hates fledgling vampires, who are ravening beasts, he’d rather kill her than turn her. But her thirst for knowledge intrigues him and so he changes his mind and creates a companion for all time.

This story was okay. I wasn’t particularly impressed by it, but at the same time, I can’t say that I really disliked it, either. I do think that a vampire who spends eternity taking university classes is a pretty cool idea, but the arrogant first-person narration put me off. The anthropologist is pretty much a non-character, existing only as a mirror of the vampire’s own desires. An interesting concept, but one that just didn’t work out for me.

The Fangirl Says: B-

“Viper’s Bite” by Delilah Devlin

I’ve read one of Delilah Devlin’s novels (review here), and… well, let’s just say that I wasn’t particularly impressed. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this story. It was erotic without being porny, and it was also deeply emotional.

Viper, a vampire, lures a woman, Mariah, out of her apartment to seduce her, or so we think. As the seduction progresses, we start to get hints that there is more to this situation than is on the surface. Somehow, these two know each other, and though Mariah doesn’t seem to remember, Viper is nearly overwhelmed by the pain of it.

I won’t spoil the story, but I’ll just say that I found myself getting a bit choked up at one point. I really believed these characters and felt for them, which is much more than I can say about the characters in that novel I read. This is a sweet, romantic, and angsty little story, and I liked it a lot.

The Fangirl Says: A