Undead and Unwelcome

Betsy Taylor, queen of the vampires, has to bring the body of her dead werewolf friend Antonia back to her pack. Unfortunately, the pack resides on Cape Cod, a very dangerous place for a vampire queen, especially when that pack not only believes she got one of their own killed, but is determined to forget that they pushed Antonia out in the first place. With her husband, Sinclair, and adopted baby/half-brother BabyJon in tow, she sets off to confront the werewolves. Meanwhile, her sister, who happens to be the daughter of the devil, has started to go a little crazy. How much can Betsy deal with?

This has got to be one of the fluffiest books I have ever read, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s ridiculous and it knows that it’s show more ridiculous. Betsy is not only queen of the vampires, but she’s obsessed with shoes! And shopping! Honestly, normally that is not my taste, but the book contains very little mention of those besides other characters teasing Betsy about her obsessions. In fact, I laughed throughout most of this book. Between Betsy’s assistant, who uses ridiculous acronyms in his emails to her, her sister’s crazy devil worshipping followers, and people’s reactions after Betsy rises from the dead (apparently vampire queens can do this), I had so much fun.

This was also an interesting test for me. I hadn’t read any of the other books in the series when I got this one and I didn’t have time or money to buy and read the preceding seven, so I more or less jumped right in. I was curious to see how well I would get on with the story having little to no knowledge of everything that had come before. There was a recap in the beginning of the book which quickly filled me in on the background information. This means I have been a little spoiled for all the preceding books, but perhaps more importantly I now want to read them just because sometimes we all need a laugh. I think having read all of the preceding books may have helped me feel a little more strongly for the characters - I’d just love to read how Betsy and Sinclair fell in love - but it certainly didn’t hinder my enjoyment.

This is what I’d call urban fantasy lite. Don’t read it if you’re looking to think and don’t read it if you can’t deal with supernatural beings. Read it if you’re looking to laugh and have a fun afternoon in a world that has a few more species than our own. This is an ideal airplane read, especially given its short length, although you might get a few funny looks when you start giggling! I’ll certainly happily pick up more of this series and save them for when I need a break.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=1024 show less

Undead and Unwelcome is written from two viewpoints, Betsy in Cape Cod with Sinclair, Jessica, BabyJon and the werewolves and Marc (through his diary entries) at home with Tina and Laura. I was skeptical at first, but the format worked really well and I think it brought a little something extra to the novel.

I loved the extra focus on Laura and it looks like her storyline is just starting to get good. It was also a rare pleasure to get into Marc's head a bit. We even got to know what the deal with BabyJon is. I just knew something had to be going on with that kid.

There were a couple of laugh out loud moments, including Betsy's awesome bitching about Marc's love of chat acronyms. On the totally scary side, Betsy and crew finally caught a show more glimpse of how bad things could get.

I have no idea what they could do next, but I'm sure MaryJanice Davidson had something fantastic up her sleeve. show less

These keep getting sloppier and less interesting....in this one not only were there several egregious spelling and grammar errors but some plot skips too....if they need a careful editor and proofreader I'd happily do it, otherwise, get it together! One thing that really bugged me is a lot of it felt like "oh, by the way this happened" catch-up summary for people who may not have read the previous books. Really? They take about 2 hours to read on a slow day, so if you haven't read them and for some reason are possessed by a burning desire to read this one, just get them and read them. It's lazy writing to rehash what's already happened.

But really, was I expecting anything else from trash-fiction? It's just that everything that made it show more fun and good seemed to be skipped over - the sex, the fights, the tension. Addressed, but summarily. show less

Well, well, well. Queen Betsy is at it again. Sorry to say there's no shoe shopping in "Undead and Unwelcome", MaryJanice Davidson's latest. However, Betsy and Sinclair DO learn a bit more about werewolves and BabyJon...and Betsy's sister, the daughter of Satan. Sound funny? Oh, the whole series is a side-splitter. Picture a self-absorbed, shoe-loving, fairly normal, not-so-bright, teetering-on-30 woman. She goes out on her birthday, has a horrible time, gets hit by a car, and wakes up a vampire--not just any vampire though. Oh no, she's the prophesized Queen of the Vampires! Has this changed Betsy? Uh, nope. She's still self-absorbed, still loves a shoe sale more than anything, still has more stereotypical 'blonde moments' than are show more good for her, and still hangs out with her best friend from way back. But the last two years HAVE seen some changes: she's now married to hunky Sebastian, found a sister she never knew about (yes, the one who turned out to be the daughter of Satan), accidentally bit a friend, cured a werewolf who couldn't change, and many other exciting and zany adventures you'll just have to read about.

Why do I enjoy this series? It's vampires without the angst. I mean, Queen Betsy is the antithesis of angst...unless we're talking knock-off shoes. The series is a bit sillier than Charlaine Harris' 'Sookie Stackhouse' and maybe I just like the fact that reading about Betsy's antics and though-processes makes me feel like a genius. I laugh, I shake my head at Betsy, and I laugh some more. How can that be bad? show less

(This review is based on a reading of the entire series in two days - thus the books have blended in together. Overall I thought it started out fun and light, a chickflick bit of urban fantasy. But I grew tired of Betsy is flaky/obsessed with shoes/losing her humanity. I am also uncomfortable with how the fiends are shown and how physical and mental rape is treated. Sinclair never develops past being a body and a dry voice. And the minor characters stay minor. I won't recommend the series.)

Ahhh...another Queen Betsy romp. I have to say that this was not my favorite sequel. Up until this one, I can safely say that I have love, love, loved this series. This one just seemed to fall flat for me. Perhaps that is because Betsy and Sink-lair (har har!) are finally together and there's no sexual tension anymore. Who knows. However, book 9 just came out and I am definitely going to read it. So, we'll see how that fares.

Betsy is the best character ever - and MaryJanice is the funniest writer. I laughed out loud reading the "acknowledgements - "... Given that I have the long-term memory of a salamander." Did you? I love that Betsy hates LOL, OMG and WTF in emails. I love that it was critical to the plot that she refused to try to deceipher CAPS speak. I love a lot of things about this series. Mostly I love that it's still going and has lots of interesting twists developing.