Vampire Lit
Manolo says, one of the Manolo’s dear intenet friends has given the Manolo the reading suggestion.
Greetings dear Manolo,
Knowing that you are a voracious reader, I was wondering if you have ever happened upon the writings of Mary Janice Davidson. She writes a series about Betsy Taylor, a vampire with great taste in shoes. The first in the series Undead and Unwed provides the groundwork for Betsy’s story:
“Betsy Taylor–former model, newly unemployed secretary, 30, and still single–wakes up after being flattened by a small SUV in a tacky coffin wearing cheap knock-off shoes. Her mother is glad she is back, albeit as a vampire, but her stepmother is enraged that Betsy has reclaimed her designer-shoe collection.”
The thing that infuriates Betsy most is not that she is undead, but that her evil stepmother had the gall to put her evil feet in Betsy’s Manolo Blahniks.
Not serious literature by any means, but amusing and diverting for any footwear devotee.
Warmest Regards,
The Gemdiva
Perhaps the Manolo is behind the times, but the rise of the vampire chick lit has caught the Manolo completely by surpirse. Indeed, only the last week, over at the Manolo for the Brides, the Manolo accepted the ad for the Last of the Red Hot Vampires.
How did the entire literary trend sneak up on the Manolo unoticed? And, the second question, have the vampires now replaced the traditional romance novel heroes, you know, the long-haired dread pirates, the blonde knights with the busy hands, the bare-chested stable boys?
Now, the Manolo will have to read the vampire romance novel.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
No you don’t.
April 10th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Actually, there used to be a big trend for romances with sheiks that disappeared once the war in Iraq started. Now there’s a whole Nascar line. Check out the variety on Harlequin’s website sometime, but prepare to be frightened.
April 10th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Harlequin is still doing some of the sheik ones — it seems about one a month. I guess they need the heroes to be rich, and the authors ran out of billionaires in the Western world!
April 10th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
If you are diving into the vampire chick lit, don’t leave Laurell K. Hamilton off your list. While there is a sad dearth of shoes, the read is quick and fun.
April 10th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
The writer you have the ad for has done a few great series in this genre. Supernatural romance is a growing area and provides new outlets for this type of story. I actually like them and I’m not a huge romance reader.
April 10th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Charlaine Harris’s series is about to become an HBO series. They are supernatural southern mysteries and quite funny.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I tried to read a romance novel one time. It was a nice old bodice-ripper called “The Black Knight”. Let’s just say that afterwards I had to scrape my eyes with a razor bathed in battery acid in an attempt to cleanse them of the filth to which they were exposed.
But about vampire romance novels…I’m not an expert, but I’ll assume vampires don’t have functioning blood, which is why they’re so pale (they are, after all, undead). How do vampires engage in these, ahem, “acts of love” while they have no blood in their veins? :/
April 10th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I’ve always thought Chelsea Quinn Yarboro’s Count St. Germaine would be the Manolo, if he were not just a vampire count but also a shoe blogger. I bet he wears the BEST boots.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:57 am
This just reminds me of a blog entry I once wrote about an especially steamy bodice-ripper I once found in our home library. Sadly, the book does not contain any hot vampire action… but now that I think about it, the author could have used some.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Vampire romances are popular because :
1) All vampires are always alpha-men
2) They are physically unable to have sex with anyone other than their mate & in some books will DIE if they are forced to spend time apart from their mate.
3) Vampires have unlimited cash, and are in excellent physical condition and never age - neither do their mates.
These type of books appeal because they are the the “zippless frick” of romance - handsome men who must beg women to love & “redeem” them and are forever faithful due to their biology.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
What SamiJenkins said. Vampires are the ultimate “bad boys” who are “misunderstood” by everyone else, yet oh-so-sexy underneath. I think the genre was gaining steam even before Buffy and Angel, but I’m sure those TV shows didn’t hurt.
My favorite so far is Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. From the Amazon page: “Buffyesque baker Rae “Sunshine” Seddon meets Count Dracula’s hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley’s first adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world.”
THAT’S my kinda romance! (Seriously, it’s a much more serious and interesting read than that cheesy intro would suggest.)
April 20th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Brian’s babymomma suggests Laurell Hamilton, but if you follow that advice, read only the first few in the series, they get rather . . . kinky. . . after that. A kind of kink that Anne Rice really does much better.
Charlaine Harris’s series about psychic barmaid Sookie Stakehouse, on the other hand, is consistently funny and has interesting and entertaining plots. I couldn’t get enough of it. (Sookie dates a vampire, so it fits in your vampire romance genre.) Somewhat different but also enjoyable is the series by Kim Harrison and the series by Kelley Armstrong.
June 29th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Very good site. Thank you:-)