Bit The Jackpot

Well! This second book in Erin McCarthy's humorous contemporary vampire romance series certainly lived up to the promise of its predecessor, High Stakes. In fact, I liked it even better.

This one features vampire Seamus Fox, the uptight campaign manager for vampire president Ethan, the hero from High Stakes. He's paired with Cara Kim--a virgin stripper.

Just the characters themselves would be enough to drive an entertaining story, but vampire politics are really cut-throat (heh), which ups the stakes (heh heh) for everybody.

Sorry about that--couldn't resist.

Anyway. Cara gets mortally injured; Seamus feels responsible, so he turns her. And when she has trouble dealing with vampire life and drinking blood, he tries to make things easier for show more her, breaking a lot of vampire laws to do so... a scandal in the making, especially at such a critical time in the campaign.

So he also tries to keep her a secret, and moves her into his hotel suite along with her dogs. And all the while, he's trying to keep his hands off her and keep himself in denial that he's falling in love. It is, after all, an unfamiliar emotion for him, since the last time he had a relationship with a woman (that ended disastrously, natch) was 200 years ago.

Cara, meanwhile, chafes at the restrictions. She realizes she's falling in love with Seamus, but she's no happier than he is, because she believes it's one-sided.

Bit the Jackpot is an entertaining story about characters I could really care about. We also get more of the secondary characters from the first book, including Brittany and Corbin, whose story is in Bled Dry. I'm looking forward to it. show less

Seamus is a 370 year old vampire and a campaign manager for the president of the vampire nation. He hasn’t had sex in 200 years since his last girlfriend betrayed him but all that is about to change. When he spots a shadow dancer (someone who dances behind a screen) at a strip club, he instantly becomes enamored.

He is there to speak to the dance choreographer who is the aunt of Alexis, the vampire president’s wife, to find out if she knows who the father of Alexis’ sister, Brittany. I know…it’s hard to follow. Alexis’ mom cheated on her dad with a vampire and had her sister Brittany. They never knew until recently that vampires even existed or that Brittany’s father was a vampire. Their mother died of an overdose when show more Brittany was only thirteen so she can’t tell them but hopefully, the aunt knows who her father is.

Cara Kim dances behind a screen at the strip club as a shadow dancer. She could never dance nude in front of an audience but this club lets her shadow dance which helps pay her way through veterinary school. She never has to see or interact with the audience except when she finishes her act and puts her robe on, a man appears and is asking her questions and looking at her with lust. She wonders how he got past the bouncers. She tries to back away but she is frozen like she is in a trance. He asks her name and even though she doesn’t want to, she tells him. Then a skinny dark-haired woman interrupts them and is frantically telling the man something. Cara makes her escape. She goes to the dressing room, puts on her jeans but feels like the man she just met is in trouble. She exits out the back door.

Kelsey was taken by bad guys and was drained of blood. Seamus fed her his blood to revive her. She was already a vampire so it didn’t kill her but she is scared now and has been clinging to Seamus. When she interrupts his chat with Cara and frantically tells him the people who hurt her are in the club, he escapes through and exit door and finds himself in an alley with the bad guys. While he is fighting them, he notices that Cara is hiding and watching them. He tries to keep the bad guys from seeing her but one does spot her and he tries to bite her. Cara ends up running into the street and gets hit by a car. She is dying. Seamus has no choice but to change her into a vampire.
The bad guys are thugs sent out to kill Seamus and Kelsey by Donatelli, Ethan Carrick’s opponent for the presidency of the vampire nation. Donatelli is evil and really wants to win the election but so far the good guys haven’t figured out that it is Donatelli who is sending assassins after them.

This book has a serious storyline and plot but it also has a lot of humor in it which makes it fun to read. The author does a great job of pulling the reader into the story by making loveable characters. She does something interesting with one of the characters, Ringo. He starts out in the first book as an assassin for hire and human. He has no idea his target is a vampire. He meets the targets secretary, Kelsey, and starts to have feelings for her. He is bad but he also has the capacity to be good also. I like what the author is doing with this character. In this book, Donatelli has made Ringo into a vampire and has addicted him to drug laced blood. Ringo feels trapped by Donatelli and fears if he doesn’t get away from Donatelli, he will be lost forever and turn totally evil. He is conflicted. I’m interested to see what happens to this character.

Now, I’m hooked so I am going to read the next book. I noticed that there are only four books written so far…or maybe there are only four books to the series. It shouldn’t take me too long to finish all of them. show less

Campy, vampire lite is how I'd describe these vamps. He's irish, presidential campaign manager and she's a virgin stripper. After an attack on him ends with her death, he turns her and keeps her in his hotel room to protect and teach her, along with her dogs and cats. Really not sure I want to bother with the rest of this series. I hope it gets better.

Erin McCarthy always impresses me with her funny, quirky stories. This is book two. Still funny enough to make me laugh out loud.

This action packed humorous vampire romance kept my attention from beginning to end. I liked involvement of characters from previous book and steamy parts were good too. Vampire Seamus is attracted to stripper Cara.

*** 2½ stars ***

After reading [b:High Stakes|46481|High Stakes (Vegas Vampires, #1)|Erin McCarthy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309197143s/46481.jpg|45600], I had high hopes for this series - that with a little bit better character development, next parts could even sneak into my favorites list. Unfortunately it all went downward in second book.

You all probably remember Seamus Fox from first part. That grumpy guy who is so concerned with propriety? I was looking forward to read more about Seamus. I like it when up uptight characters get loose. Well his personality suddenly had a 180-turn in this book. In fact, it's like we are reading about some other guy...

As for Cara Kim her personality and characteristics are even worse. It show more feels like [a:Erin McCarthy|7941|Erin McCarthy|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282613000p2/7941.jpg] changed them from chapter to chapter. Cara acts in a way that will make the most comic effect in a current situation or would increase tension or whatever writer wanted to use to keep us interested.

Ethan and Alexis , protagonists from first part, are still here but they are so two-dimensional now. Ok, so this book is not about them, but their characters now just seem foolish and usually act stupid.
This also applies to Seamus and Cara.

So... I hope situation gets better in [b:Bled Dry|46486|Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires, #3)|Erin McCarthy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170330668s/46486.jpg|45605]... show less

A cute, quick read if you're a fan of the chick-lit/paranormal-romance genre. Not a lot of depth or serious character development, but a fun indulgence to check out.