Customer Reviews

Betsy the Vampire Queen

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is actually a compilation of the first four books in Mary Janice Davidson's "Undead" series. I happened to get this through a book club that I belong to and it was cheaper to buy the hardcover compilation than to buy the four paperbacks individually. I was definitely taking a chance by doing this because I had never read any of Davidson's works in the past. I was not disappointed!

These four novels had me erupting with laughter from the beginning of the first novel to the very last page. I can't wait until the next installments are released so I can dive right back into Betsy's world. I have always been intrigued by vampire stories and I've been equally taken with romance novels in my day. Top that off with the fact that everyone loves to laugh and you've got a triple threat of storyline and a whole lot of entertainment coming your way!

Betsy's sassy, devil-may-care method of dealing with the fact that she's recently been made the queen of the vampire world adds a great deal of color to the cast of serious vampire sidekicks she encounters. Add to the mix a series of sarcastic, eccentric and comical humans and you have a character base that will never leave you bored!

This is light reading, not to be taken seriously of course. C'mon, it's about VAMPIRES after all! Betsy has a great sense of black humor and the series is REALLY funny with lots of sarcasm(though the sex might be a bit too much) and I look forward to the next set of books!

You'll love Davidson! These books are so much fun to read. Great characters! I actually just bought another sampler book so I could read about the Vampire Vet and how she and Liam met. This series is light fun reading. Buy these books!

If you're as tired of the uber clichéd emo dark evil sexy brooding theme that vampire series have these days, as I am, this is a definite recommended read.

The lead heroine is a selfish self-centered airhead, but this series is HILARIOUS.

I love this edition most especially because it's four books in one. An absolute steal!

This is a very funny and new twist to the vampire world. I enjoyed this book and it is a good read.

Betsy Taylor had it all, once. She cashed in on her blonde-haired long-legged good looks and was a model. But at the age of 30 she's decidedly over the hill, and with no ring (or sugar daddy) to show for it. Her home life is fairly disastrous - with her parents divorced and her father married to a liposuctioned creature of horror, Antonia `the Ant' who hates Betsy and steals her shoes.

So when Betsy finds herself on a morgue slab she isn't all that surprised . . . really, it's just another thing in a long line of personal disasters.

What Betsy isn't prepared for is to wake up - undead! Undead and with awful pasty skin that clashes with every colour palette in her wardrobe! Even worse than that though, Betsy is hungry . . . starving. But a little neck-nip of a cute detective and cuter (but gay) doctor has them turning into lust-ridden puppies.

And the hits keep on coming when Betsy is approached by a drop-dead-gorgeous (literally) guy called Eric Sinclair and his minion-buddy, Tina. They claim that something called `The Book of the Dead' foretells of a vampire queen rising to take control of the vamp population . . . and that Betsy is just that queen.

The `Undead: Queen Betsy' series by MaryJanice Davidson began in 2004 and is now ten books deep (with at least two more to come). This is one of my all-time favourite paranormal series, and I feel the need to share the love.

Davidson's series is hilariously similar to Molly Harper's `Jane Jameson' - told in first-person narrative by a newly-awakened vampire as she navigates and perks and upheavals of her newly undead life . . . but that's where the similarities end.

Betsy is a divinely ludicrous and self-involved protagonist. She's hot, and she knows it. She has a one-track-mind that is often narcissistic and she speaks like a Gilmore girl on crack. When she awakens as a vampire one of her first thoughts is how to adjust her makeup to her new ghostly pallor - that's just the kind of heroine she is. Betsy's narcissism is never so awful that you can't laugh at her; her big head makes her oddly endearing and always funny. Even when Betsy is in the middle of a werewolf smack-down her outfit is never far from her mind.

The `Undead' series is all about how Betsy not only copes with her new undead status, but the realization that she is undead royalty. Betsy hasn't been dead for a week when the local vampire population start approaching her and asking for her royal advice and guidance. Someone so self-involved and designer-obsessed is certainly not prepared for the divine responsibilities of the crown. Reading Betsy's reaction to her queenly status is bellyaching hilarious - especially when the vampire Eric `Sink Lair' Sinclair informs her that she has duties to fulfil.

Yes, Betsy has a romantic love-interest and his name is Eric (note: Sinclair, not Northman). These two have a very unconventional romance . . . it goes from hatred of volcanic proportions to resentful attraction and then landing right on lustful love and begrudging acceptance. Eric Sinclair is a smoulderingly handsome bad-ass - he is the quintessential vampire, and Betsy is all too happy to call him out on his tall, dark mysterious vampire-clichés.

The good news is that Eric and Betsy hook-up early on in the series (so lots and lots of sexy-time ensues). The real focus of their continued romance is how they cope with happily-ever-after when they have a resentful attraction.

One of the best things about the `Undead' series is the cast of kooky-cool secondary characters who surround Betsy. There's her rich best friend, Jessica. Gay doctor buddy, Marc. Suspicious but cute detective, Nick Berry. Sinclair's right-hand-woman, Tina and a cache of sister spawn, evil stepmothers, ghostly roommates and psychic werewolves. Some of Davidson's best laugh-out-loud moments come from Betsy's repartee with these zany individuals.

MaryJanice Davidson's `Undead: Queen Betsy' series is a perfect comedic paranormal romance. This is the series to read if you don't like how dark Charlaine Harris's `Sookie Stackhouse' books have become. Or if you wish that Molly Harper would release another twenty `Jane Jameson' books. Read Betsy for a hilariously-sexy good time with a sweetly self-involved heroine as she reluctantly takes the crown.

I have not yet received this item although I purchased it over a month ago.

Betsy is a tall young woman who dies, is brought back to life somehow, and since she's immune to several things that other vampires are (sunlight, garlic, being killed), she's nominated as the queen. She's a shallow shallow girl, without much personality besides being perturbed most of the time. She starts a relationship with another vampire, and there is a lot of sex. As for plot...well, they throw that in once in a while, but otherwise, I cannot see much reason for reading this book...and I read every one of the four-book collection. Just wasn't interesting.