Tantalize

Has Stephenie Meyers totally ruined your appetite for young adult vampire stories or star-crossed teen lovers or hunky ethnic werewovles like she did for me? Well, don’t despair! I’m about to introduce you to a genre-blending fantasy novel set in Austin, Texas that will restore your faith in the undead. Let me introduce you to Tantalize, Cynthia L. Smith’s homage to food, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juilet.

Quincie P. Morris is like your every day regular teenager if that teenager’s best friend was an Irish-Mexican hybrid werewolf and she stumbled upon a murder at her family’s vampire-themed restaurant. Quincie is struggling with her feelings for best friend Kieren, who will soon be leaving to join show more wolf pack, as well as trying to reopen her late parents’ bankrupt restaurant with her slacker Uncle D. Things get really complicated with Quincie’s growing attraction to the new chef, who is wooing her into a world of wine, sensuality and vampirism.

With endless amounts of humor, shape shifters, vampires, and a serial killer on the lose, it is needless to say this is not your regular cold, dreary, Washington State-based horror-love story. Tantalize is a thinking reader’s horror novel that you must simply take a bite out of. show less

This was fast-paced, sexy and interesting. A must-read if you liked Twilight!

Ahhh, vampires. I love ‘em. I love ‘em when they’re traditional, punk rock, evil, tortured, comical and downright horrifying (I cannot wait for the 30 Days of Night movie adaptation – the graphic novel was delightfully gory and terrifying…). I also love other beasties, be they adorned with claws and moon-weakness, or a plain-old hankerin’ after brains.

Now, Tantalize, by Cynthia Leitch Smith, focuses mainly upon vampires, both real and legendary, but throws in a wee bit of were-animal fun for kicks. Seventeen-year-old Quincie Morris is doing her best to transform her family restaurant into a success, but the slacker uncle who’s been her official show more guardian since her parents’ deaths isn’t much help – he’s too busy spending all his time with his creepy wanna-be vampire girlfriend, Ruby. And though it was his idea to re’vamp’ the restaurant into a Transylvanian culinary experience, it’s Quincie who has to work with the new chef to help him come up with creepy enough menu selections.

When the bodies start piling up in their small town, however, Quincie has to wonder if she and her uncle have aroused the interest of real vampires with their Dracula-inspired restaurant. Oh, and add to the mix the fact that Quincie’s long-time friend, hybrid werewolf Kieran, is planning on leaving town to join a pack of his very own before kissing Quincie breathless and falling as head over heels in love as she is with him… Yeah, Quincie’s having a bit of a time.

Tantalize is fast-paced and sexy, and Quincie is an admirably tough chick. Check it out if you, too, dream of pale men with wicked-sharp teeth… show less

Quincie's family restaurant has become all the more important to her since her parents death, the restaurant is a second home, its staff a second family. So with the restaurant failing it is given a makeover, a vampire theme, but not everyone is happy with the theme nor the type of people a theme like that will attract. But Quincie has other worries, head chef and surrogate grandfather Vaggio has been murdered.

Kieren, Quincie's best and only friend, not to mention first love, is about to embark on a werewolf right of passage, the outcome of which being Keiren's absence from Quincie's life, forever. With so much loss in her life it is little wonder that Quincie soon makes friends with Henry, the newly hired head chef of her family show more restaurant.

Tantalize offers a smorgasbord of murder, mystery, unrequited love, vampires, wine and deliciously seductive food that will change the way you eat forever. An exciting story of a girl changed by her experiences, and yet still determined to hold on to who she is. A story where the good guys don't always win, the bad guys are able to destroy everything and sometimes not everyone gets a happily ever after. This is one supernatural series with bite. show less

This was an interesting take on vampires in YA books. They are not sexy, brooding, bad boys who you can't help but fall in love with. They are good at disguising themselves and murder people and turn others into vampires against their will. I liked Quincie, she was self sufficient and brave. I totally ship her and Kieran. Her uncle was a shitty parent and I didn't like him. The story was quick and fun to listen to.

I absolutely love this book! Dark and sensuous, the imagery is amazing. Quincie, the main character, is drawn into a world of vampires and werecreatures where her best friend is a werewolf. She is determined to open a vampire themed restaurant but the plan stumbles when the head chef is murdered. Enter Henry Johnson, a chef that no one would consider dark and mysterious, to take over. Will Quincie be able to open her restaurant and resist the temptations that are offered to her? This is how to write a good vampire/werewolf triangle. It is one of those books that will stay with you long after you've finished shuddering

Quince has been orphaned…Left to the care of her Uncle D (Davidson), who is her Dad’s baby brother. She was also left with her Mom’s restaurant, which had been her Grandparent’s Legacy. Quince has decided to remodel and re-open with a vampire inspired theme. In walks Brad who appears to have the chops to pull it off. Now that the opening is looming, there are a rash of murders that appear to be the work of Weres…and her best friend, Kieran, is suspect number one!

HOLY COW…this book moved fast. I was so engrossed I didn’t realize the story had ended and I was reading the Acknowledgements. LOL

This had a really good love triangle…or maybe it was an unrequited love triangle?? Quince and I fell so completely under Bradley’s show more spell, neither one of us knew exactly what was going on, until it was too late. Poor Kieran tried to tell us. Notice how I included myself in that?!? My only complaint would be how easily Bradley seemed to give up? But I’m not convinced he has…need to get into the next book in the series to see if he really did give up.

The restaurant setting was different. I can see where some readers might (did) get turned off. Personally I thought it was a great setting/tool to effectively get the reader from point A to B. Can you tell I’m trying not to give away major plot points? Anyway, as someone who loves to cook and has fantasized about working in a restaurant, I loved the Sanguini’s setting.

Over all I enjoyed this book. Time flew so fast…good thing I started it on a day off with not a lot of chores to do…dinner did not get made though. Not a ton of character development because the characters are constantly reacting to their surroundings. But there were a lot of twists and turns and betrayals which always makes for an engrossing read as far as I am concerned. I hope we get into Kieran’s backstory a bit more in the next book. Him I would love to learn more about. show less

In a world where vampires and werewolves (and so on) are real (if not necessarily accepted), Quincie's uncle decides to start a vampire-themed restaurant. Then bad things start happening to the people connected with it.

The first half of this book is fairly blah. It's all setup for what happens in the second half of the book. The second half is much more interesting, and the more I think about it, the more I like it. There are twists that aren't normally found in the vampire books (at least, not the ones I've read).

**SPOILERS**

I recognized that Quincie had been turned when she thought the olives were off. I was fascinated by the book being told from the perspective of Quincie-as-vampire after that point, though it took me a while to get show more into it after how blah the first half had been. I mean, how often are there female vampires in these kinds of books? And how often is a vampire story told from the perspective of the vampire? And then to combine those two - really, it was very interesting.

I was surprised at who all were what kinds of non-humans. I hadn't figured it all out, although I suspected Brad and her uncle alternately (but not both of them! and not Ruby, I just thought she was a b*tch...though I think I liked her at the end.) show less