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Fanged & Fabulous

Michelle Rowen

Published 2007       384 pages

Summary (from back cover)

Just stake me now.

My name is Sarah Dearly, and I've got major problems. Last month, I was turned into a vampire by the world's worst blind date. Then I may have, totally by accident, started a war between the mostly peaceful bloodsuckers and a bunch of sociopathic vamp hunters who have nicknamed me the Slayer of Slayers.

Now I'm being used as bait to draw out the hunters' bad-ass leader, while my gorgeous 600-year-old boyfriend Thierry seems to be blowing me off, and my sizzle-hot, fanged friend Quinn is trying to turn my self-defence lessons into make-out sessions. So you know what? I'm done. I've had it. There comes a time when a vamp has to just suck it up and go after what she wants. And as soon as I figure out what that is, that's exactly what I'll do...

The Review

Author Michelle Rowen first introduced us to reluctant vampire Sarah Dearly in Bitten & Smitten.  While Bitten & Smitten was a stand alone novel and the story was happily wrapped up at the end of that book, the reader was left with a few unanswered questions about the actions of the characters.  Fanged & Fabulous continues from where Bitten & Smitten left off and does a good job of fleshing out the characters that were introduced in that book.

For those readers not familiar with Michelle Rowen’s vampire romance novels I’ll give a quick recap – Sarah, a self confessed bubblehead was turned into a vampire while on a blind date that went badly wrong.  Thierry, the master vampire of Toronto helps Sarah adjust to her new vampire status and they somehow fall in love while managing to avoid being killed by vampire hunters.  (This recap doesn’t do Bitten & Smitten justice and if you haven’t read it yet and you enjoy light-hearted vampire romance I’d recommend you check it out!) 

Now, while Bitten & Smitten introduced us to Sarah and Thierry and the world of the Toronto vampires it really didn’t explain Thierry’s character at all.  Sarah’s character is an open book to us, not least because she humorously narrates the story to us in first person, her feelings and motivations and well known but Thierry is always a man of mystery. 

Fanged & Fabulous is still narrated in first person by Sarah but her character is much less flighty, she now even favours wearing comfortable shoes (all the better for when she is running for her life from the vampire hunters) and in fact she recognises that she is a bubblehead no more - “I was much more of a bubble head back then.  Not being hunted helped my mind stay free of anything but the day-to-day issues of fashion, cute guys, and having a good time.”  Not being a bubblehead anymore means that Sarah gets to the bottom of her relationship troubles with Thierry and as a result the reader finds out why he is a dark, brooding, troubled man.

From reading this review you might get the impression that Fanged & Fabulous is all about weighty issues like relationship woes, personal growth and vampire angst - which would be completely the wrong impression because while this novel is about those things they are always treated in an upbeat humorous way. 

Fanged & Fabulous successfully spoofs vampires and vampire fiction, an example of this (and my personal favourite) is when Sarah wakes up hung over at her gay vampire friend George’s house to find that her pet Barkley (a werewolf stuck in wolf form) has managed to finally transform himself back to human during the night.   Sarah treats this in typical Sarah fashion - “I glanced at George half naked in his towel, then at Barkley, completely naked in his …nothing.  A vampire and a werewolf.  I shook my head.  It was obvious.  I was having one of my Anita Blake dreams again.”

Fanged & Fabulous is a hugely fun, light-hearted vampire chick-lit romance and yet it is a surprisingly satisfying read too.  Blending both sharp wit and classic romance it makes perfect reading for the summer.

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