"Fanged and Fabulous" by Michelle Rowen

It's been a quite a while since I read the first book starring Sarah Dearly ("Bitten & Smitten"), so I wasn't so sure how much I wanted to read this one. I remembered vaguely that the original book was cute, had a sexy vampire in it, and that Sarah was kind of snarky. I couldn't remember much more than that, though.

I'm happy to report that the second book is a cute, easy read. Since I don't remember much of the first entry, I'm guessing here, but I don't think either one would qualify for Mensa material. It's the sort of thing you pick up when you want to read something in addition to the other work you're reading, something that won't conflict as far as plots and such. What's that? You don't read more than one book at a time? Oops! Maybe that's just me that does that. It's not been unheard of for me to have two fictional works and a non-fiction all going at the same time. Hey, I did tell y'all, I LOVE to read!

Anyway, this go around finds our still-newborn vampiress Sarah in the dumps. She's only been a vampire a month, is still living with the guilt of killing a vampire hunter (it was a clear case of self-defense), and now her sort-of-boyfriend Thierry seems to be blowing her off. Worse yet she's found out that she now has a "reputation" as The Slayer of Slayers, something that's bringing all the wanna-be slayers out in force. Oh, and her friend Quinn, also a newbie-vamp and ex-vampire-hunter, has a very bad crush on her, one he's not afraid to let everyone know about. Things are about to go from bad to worse, especially when another old master vampire shows up in the city, one that was friends with Thierry decades ago. One who claims that Thierry killed his wife. One looking for revenge...

To add to Sarah's woes, someone blows up her apartment, thus obliterating what little worldly goods she owned. She moves in with her gay co-worker and fellow vamp George, mostly because her sort-of-boyfriend, the one with lots of money and even more living space, does not invite her to stay with him. Sarah is being protected by bodyguards, one of whom is in love with the other and shows her how much by writing her extraordinarily bad poetry. Sarah is quickly losing patience with her stalkers, her situation, and most especially, Thierry.

It's a cute book and as I said earlier, it's a quick read. Rowen has an easy style and Sarah is endearing in a bit of a grating way. Hey, as long as you find yourself rooting for the main character, she's written well enough, right? I liked it more than I thought I would, so yes, if you happen to find a copy of this, pick it up for those "light reading" moments.