Review- Real Vampires Don't Sparkle by Amy Facteau

Let me begin by starting very clearly I'm not a professional book reviewer. I happen to like to read and I read all genres. My goal is to read a book a week and thanks to some brain at Amazon, I can now read for free. 

I bet every author who ever slaved over lines of prose is real happy about everyone being able to read for free. I never did understand how giving away books is the way to make money, but it's a different world from my youth. Anyway - let me tell you about this book I read. I got it free off Bookbub. 

Real Vampires Don't Sparkle by Amy Facteau. 

Matheus Taylor didn’t ask to be murdered. To be fair, the percentage of people actually asking to be murdered is probably small enough to be safely ignored, but he felt it was worth stating regardless. His life might have been ordinary, but it was his life and he wasn’t done with it yet.

Quin didn’t care. A seventeen-hundred old Roman, Quintus Livius Saturnius had a different view of morality than most people. Killing Matheus and hijacking his undead existence seemed perfectly acceptable to him.

Now, Matheus spends his nights running for his life, questioning his sexual orientation, and defying a mysterious new threat to the vampires within his city.

Not that he set out to do any defying; he just wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately, that was never going to happen.

I like a good vampire story. This one got off on the right foot with me simply by spelling vampire with an "i" and not a "y".  It opened with Matheus being attacked by the vampire and went on to detail his transformation woes, of which there were many. Matheus tried to be tough, but it was pretty clear he fell in love with his sire. 

Here you'd think the author would roll out the sex, but no. (The book is remarkably lacking in that department for my taste but it kept me reading in hope.) A quirky cast of characters is introduced, the dialogue takes off, and the author builds a grandiose shadow-world right in suburbia's back yard. 

The author is very good with witty, sarcastic dialogue. The first half of the book certainly entertained. But after awhile, Matheus' snark wore a little thin. Railing against that which cannot be changed is immature. I expected him to act that way immediately after the transformation, but he didn't work past it. 

It was also at the halfway point the author got a little "wordy." I was reminded of the Book of Matthew. Matthew's scribe never used ten words when thirty would suffice. The prose could have been shortened, much like this review. 

All in all, a good read that held my attention all the way through. The author might be too wordy which is a shame because all the snark gets in the way. She's got a good vocabulary but the smartass dialogue makes it come across as condescending at times. Teenagers would probably love it. 

My major complaint - the story simply stopped. Boom. Done. I'm on the fence about buying the sequel for fear it, too, will end in the middle of nowhere. 

TW

Summer Fever

Having finally almost attained true lady of leisure status, I plan to read more. I also plan to share a bit about only those books I really enjoy here on the blog. Why the hell not? Everyone is doing it. The difference is, I'm not about to write about the dogs that are a total waste of money. It's not nice to trash someone else's best efforts, no matter what the endeavor. So here's a bit about the unlucky first to be mentioned, Summer Fever by Catt Ford.

I loved it!!  Is that enough of an opinion, or do you need more?

More:

JD goes to the family summer cottage for a little vacation. He gets pulled over by local law enforcement officer (that's local LEO in today's slang), and the sparks fly. 
JD is a free spirit, and Russ is more the type to want  home and hearth. Both characters are well-drawn, JD more so as the story is written in the first person from his point of view. And speaking of the story, it flows smoothly around the characters, even if it does have just a small bit of melodrama at the end, which is so typical of "romance."

The book is well-written and quiet readable. The sex scenes are pretty hot if you like gay romance, which obviously I do since I bought the book. (It's very affordable for your Kindle at Amazon.) This one is worth the time and money.

So there's my first, poor pitiful book review. I hope to get better as time goes by.

And remember - if I can't recommend the book, you won't find it mentioned here.