LoveVampires. The Website Dedicated to Vampire Fiction - with vampire book reviews, information and author interviews.

Undead and Uneasy

MaryJanice Davidson

Published 2007             272 pages

Summary

In the days leading up the The Big Day, Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor seems to have a full house - and the wedding guests have yet to arrive.  Along with her human buddies, there's a ghost, a werewolf, and a Fiend crashing at her place.  And though her fiancé, Vampire King Eric Sinclair, conveniently disappears when the conversation turns to seating charts and flower arrangements, he does manage to make his oh-so-sexy presence known at other moments.

Betsy knows the next few weeks won't be smooth sailing - but she never expects just what's in store for her.  Cold feet are no surprise, especially with an undead groom.  But when Sinclair truly goes missing - and not just to avoid wedding preparations - along with most of her friends and loved ones, Betsy is frantic.  Alone and afraid for the fate of everyone she loves, Betsy can't trust anyone as she tries to find them and whoever is behind all the disappearances.

The Review

Undead and Uneasy is now the sixth outing for MaryJanice Davidson’s shoe obsessed vampire queen heroine, Betsy.  After Undead and Unpopular, the somewhat lacklustre previous book in this series, you might (like me) have been thinking that the series was starting to run out of steam but Undead and Uneasy is a welcome return to earlier form for MaryJanice Davidson (MJD).  The jokes are still running a little thin in places but Undead and Uneasy has a solid plot-line to hold it up and give it some backbone. 

This time Betsy finds herself abandoned by both her family and her friends, even the unshakeable Sinclair has disappeared, being Betsy and channelling a whole dumb blonde vibe as well as being vampire queen it takes her a while to work out that this is not normal and is in fact very sinister.  Left to her own devises for once, Betsy needs to find out why everybody has deserted her but there are no clues to any type of foul play - it is like fate itself is conspiring to take all her friends away from her in her time if need.  In her own inimitable style Betsy blunders around until she stumbles upon the answer.

This solid mystery plot with a defined beginning, middle and end (and a few laughs along the way) is what helps bring Undead and Uneasy back to the quality of writing that readers have come to expect from MJD.  While Undead and Uneasy still doesn’t feel as fresh and original as Undead and Unwed or Undead and Unemployed it is a huge improvement on the half-arsed effort that was Undead and Unpopular.  In fact, Undead and Uneasy feels like it is the second half and conclusion of that story and getting to the end of this book I felt like I’d finally got the point of Undead and Unpopular.

While MJD successfully parodies B-movie vampires in her Undead series there is a danger of self parody creeping into the stories.  There are a lot of in-jokes in this book which may not seem funny to anyone who hasn’t read the previous novels and doesn’t remember the jokes from first time round.  For this reason I would recommend new readers of this series to start by reading the earlier books before reading this one (otherwise it could be like hearing the punch line before anybody tells you the joke.)

Undead and Uneasy is a fast-paced light-weight read.  You won’t find any vampire angst here (unless Betsy has missed a big shoe sale) - what you will find is entertaining vampire chick lit that is hugely appealing to both paranormal and non-paranormal romance fiction fans alike.

LoveVampires Review Rating: