Even Vampires Get the Blues

(Mom don’t read this review because the book is on its way to you)

Even Vampires Get the Blues by Katie MacAlister

So sue me, I know this isn’t exactly high fiction, but I absolutely refuse to apologize for my love of the paranormal. If I didn’t think it was cheating I would have written every Women’s History Month entry on the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries (Southern Vampires) which I read this month, and then where would you be? Besides, I like to think of it as having a varied interest in all genres.  Anyway, on with the show, since nobody comes here to listen to me assume you’re all judging me.

Even Vampires Get the Blues is set around the idea that Samantha, half-elf/half-human, has just begun her career as a Private Detective.  Meanwhile,  Paen (pronounced Pain), Scottish vampire extraordinaire, is wallowing in thinly disguised self pity since he doesn’t have a soul. It seems that in this vampire lore, in order to produce souled vampires the parents must have been “Joined” (mystically) before they pop out the little ones and sadly for Paen, they were not. So he’s a soulless vampire, forced to … well, be soulless. There isn’t a lot of description about what it’s like to be soulless until the last few chapters and so we just have to go with the idea that it’s bad and undesirable.  Luckily, there’s a way to get his soul back! He has to find the one woman who “completes” him a la Jerry Maguire. Termed in vampire lingo as his “Beloved.” After completing the 7 steps to Beloved-ness, Paen will get his soul and the girl gets immortality (assuming she isn’t already immortal).

After establishing all this, Paen is approached by a messenger demon calling on an ancient agreement between Paen’s father and the Head Honcho Demon to finally be fulfilled. What the Head Honcho Demon wants: a little monkey statue that was lost. What he gets if the agreement isn’t fulfilled: Paen’s mother’s soul.  Unfair, I know. Now unfortunately, Paen’s parents are trapped in some jungle on some kind of vague safari mission and completely unreachable, so to save his mother, Paen must locate the statue on his own. This is of course where Samantha (Sam) comes into play.

Now, there’s a lot to be said for this book. I’ve heard that usually this author is pretty good, and based on this book I’d be willing to give her one other shot… but only one.  The book is charming, upbeat and funny. I smiled or giggled a few times and there was one laugh-out-loud moment that for whatever reason is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read in a book, but that might just be me. There’s nothing wrong with this book really.  I didn’t want my 2 hours back after reading it, but it’s kind of hectic.  There was constant movement, constant action, and while that’s not always bad, I didn’t really care about the characters enough to feel like I wanted to know if they were going to die in the next action sequence or not.

The book did several things badly.

First, as mentioned earlier, it gave you no idea why you should care if Paen had a soul or not. You got the idea that it was a negative occurrence, but not what he was going through. He was just a grumpy mildly emotionless vampire. Since half the plot was based on souls, it was kind of important to know upfront what it was like for him, not 60 pages from the end.

Second, they established the love story almost immediately. I don’t mean like “longing glances, oh i like him/her” immediately. But like full-on “hey, let’s do it” immediately. There was a vague plotline about Sam trying to prove to Paen that sex with love is better than sex without love. But it wasn’t actually truly established which one was better so the entire point of that plot line was wasted.  Everybody knows that you can’t establish the love story immediately because then there’s very little reason to keep reading when your book has “Romance” in the genre title.  I think MacAlister was trying to keep us interested by having a “will they stay together in the end or not?” ploy, but frankly, nobody overly cared. By the way, the whole book isn’t filled with sex scenes, regardless of that being a plot point. It’s like 70% plot and 20% sex and 10% almost sex, so completely readable. Oh, and is Sam Paen’s Beloved? You’ll never guess!

Third, like I said, so fast paced. The wording even was just chaotic. You never felt like there was time to slow down and understand the characters. The author was trying to be too funny, all the time.  Sometimes you just wanted Sam to shut up so you could enjoy some writing without dialogue.

And did I mention it’s kind of predictable. I’m bad at predicting novels because I don’t usually think much beyond a chapter ahead. I like being surprised so I just don’t wonder what’s going to happen. So if I guessed it less than halfway through the novel… I don’t know. That’s not a bad point necessarily, just a comment.

But all that aside, it’s a good beach book. Not like the kind of beach book you end up keeping and putting on your shelf when you get home because “wow, this was more than just a beach book,” but really just a beach book. The kind you leave in the library of the hotel or on a chair by the pool when you’re done.  I enjoyed it, I would recommend it if that’s your kind of thing and you’re just looking for a couple hours of fun, but it’s not on my Top 100 Supernatural books.