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Romancing The Dead

Tate Hallaway

Published 2008       308 pages

Summary (from book jacket)

Planning a wedding can be a real pain in the neck – when you’re marrying a vampire.

Especially when said vampire – the wickedly handsome Sebastian Von Traum – goes missing. And Matyas, his half-vampire/all-attitude son, turns up. It’s not like Garnet is used to an easy life, but having recently escaped the clutches of the Vatican witch-hunters and the FBI, she was quite looking forward to settling down.

No chance of that though, unless she finds Sebastian. Plus she needs to get someone to cover her shift at the occult bookshop, make sure Micah, the sexy new member of the coven, feels welcome and ditch the stray dog which seems to be following her. But Lilith, Garnet’s inner goddess, has got other ideas…

The Review

Romancing The Dead is the third novel in Tate Hallaway’s Garnet Lacey series. The Garnet Lacey books are a serial romance series – each story follows the further romantic adventures and magical misadventures of practising witch Garnet and her vampire fiancé Sebastian. While each of these books works well enough as a stand alone story due to the continuing relationships and developing story arc they are best read in series order.

Events in Romancing The Dead start shortly after where Dead Sexy, the second book in this series, finished. Sebastian had asked Garnet to marry him and she had said yes. Still the path of true love never runs smooth and before they can even discuss the wedding plans Sebastian goes mysteriously missing - and stays missing for the majority of the novel.  On the one hand this allows Matyas and Garnet to put aside their differences and team up to rescue Sebastian. On the other hand it’s hard to enjoy a romance novel when the romantic lead character is mostly absent from the story. As a romance reader I felt that Romancing The Dead didn’t work quite as well as other books by this author.

Even if the romance falls a little flat Romancing The Dead still has its main mystery plotline and plenty of magic to fall back upon. Characters are both quirky and realistic and Tate Hallaway writes with a light touch - delivering an entertaining story written in a chick-lit style.

Matyas gets to show his wanna-be detective side as he looks for clues to find out who wanted his father dead. He is the first person to notice that Garnet seems to be the intended victim of a number of magical attacks and soon it looks like Sebastian was kidnapped to keep him from aiding Garnet rather than because someone wanted him dead. Matyas-the-detective makes a refreshing change from Matyas-the-sulky-immortal-teenager and his character seems a lot more likeable as a result.

While Romancing The dead isn’t as good a romance novel as its predecessor Dead Sexy - and isn’t as funny as Dead If I Do, the novel that follows it – its still capable of entertaining readers and raising a smile.  This light-weight vampire tale would make good summer holiday reading for any vampire chick-lit fan.

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