Customer Reviews

Love Bites (Vampyres of Hollywood)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a great book! I'm not really into Vampires. At all. But I have to say, this was very enjoyable. It was suspenseful, full of crime from the supernatural, in a modern day life. Seeing how the two worlds stepped on each other. Great. And just the right amount of graphic sex, but not so much that it gets tacky. I have to say, this book has sparked a new interest in vampires. And I am a 24 year old male. But they are very seductive and tempting in this book. Very great adult read. Over-all...not bad for a sophomore author! Can't wait for the next book!

"Love Bites" is the perfect sequel to Adrienne Barbeau's deliciously imaginative "Vampyres of Hollywood", which first introduced us to Ovsanna Moore, the seductive Scream Queen and head of Anticipation Studios - who just happens to be a vampire. Together with LA Detective Peter King and her band of legendary Hollywood Stars - who supposedly died years ago but are actually vampires awaiting their chance at a comeback (how great is that!) - they must hunt down and destroy the horrifying creatures who are slaughtering the Hollywood elite.

Then, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the studio, along comes "Love Bites" with a whole new set of nasty beasties and things that go bump in the night. Once again Ovsanna joins forces with Peter, and her outlandish band of Hollywood has-beens, to battle the supernatural forces of evil. Adrienne has once again given us a fast paced steamy thriller filled with richly fleshed out characters and tantalizing twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages well in to the wee hours of the morning. It's a great read!

"Love Bites" and "Vampyres of Hollywood" would make great movies! Reading it I felt like I was watching an old film noir. Let the kids have Twilight - Ovsanna will leave you thirsting for more! Just watch your toes. :-)

What a wildly entertaining, funny, smart book! It's even better written that the first one. One of the most charming aspects of the book is the way Barbeau creates the "lore" of her Hollywood vampires and her very unique spin on the mythology of these supernatural creatures. Highly original and deeply impressive in a genre that often relies on tired formulas and the reader's prior knowledge about the world and rules. Once you pick this up you won't put it down till the end, and then you'll be counting the days till (hopefully) the sequel hits the shelves. More please!

Ovsanna Moore is a gorgeous Hollywood scream queen with a secret no plastic surgeon can rival: she's a 450-year-old vampyre. Yet when Beverly Hills Detective Peter King discovers that Ovsanna's pearly whites are really fangs, instead of grabbing a wooden stake, he asks her out. And a romantic Christmas Eve turns into a holiday of horror. First the werewolf attack, then the mutilated body at the Sportsmen's Lodge, and finally, Orson Welles and Mary Pickford fighting for their careers in a rat disguise and a Cyndi Lauper costume, respectively...What's the just-getting-to-know-you couple to do? It doesn't help that Ovsanna's personal assistant and sometime lover, Maral, will do anything to get Peter out of Ovsanna's life, including make a trip to the cemetery to consult with Marilyn Monroe. Peter and Ovsanna have to fight for their lives. (And yes, even a vampyre can be killed--and if you've survived in Tinseltown as long as some of these monsters have, you know how to do it.) Ovsanna enlists her clan, the Vampyres of Hollywood, to help battle a coterie of supernatural beasts straight out of "Alien vs. Predator." This is no ratings war, it's a fight to the death.

Smart, sexy, and heart-stoppingly fast-paced, "Love Bites" is a wickedly hot read.

I would like to see a third in this series. It is fun, entertainment reading. I enjoy the characters and Vampryes shown is a different perspective.

Sure, its entertaining and all the Hollywood info is cool but this seriously needed more work before going to print. There are too many filler scenes. There is too much romance for a thriller and too much thriller for romance. A Mystery/thriller blend is fun when its done well but I don't believe a romance/thriller is a good blend. One other thing. Who writes character introductions after initial dialog with the 2nd character? It makes it really confusing. I found I had a hard time sticking with it and spending weeks between reading sessions. That said, I'm sure it's still a learning process and she'll only get better.

Have a blast, and shivers too. Adrienne Barbeau has written a deeply funny and scary and, yep, dead-on novel about the truly undead: Hollywood stars. With an insider's knowledge of celebrity and a wonderful eye for its vanities and excesses, Barbeau gives us a romp through neck-biting and backbiting to answer the question: can a beautiful 450-year-old movie star (right, that's four and a half centuries, and call her a cougar if you dare) find happiness with a regular-guy cop who likes her as a murder suspect? This is an up-all-night, couldn't-put-it-down read.

Title Love Bites (Vampyres of Hollywood)
Author Adrienne Barbeau
Rating ****1/2
Tags fiction, series, paranormal, vampires, werewolves, movies




Adrienne Barbeau's Vampyres of Hollywood series is a great guilty pleasure. The main character is Ovsanna More, a 400 year-old vampire who has been part of Hollywood since its beginning. In the first book in the series, Vampyres of Hollywood, someone was killing those who worked for her film production company, and detective Peter King was assigned to the case and found out what she was. The two ot them, with other vampyres of Hollywood including Orson Wells, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and others, take down an ancient evil. In this book, Ovsanna is attacked by a werewolf, and later by a pack of them. A badly torn body is found in the pool of a famous hotel. Ovsanna and Peter must once again discover the paranormal truth and overcome the danger without being able to tell Peter's boss what's really going on. They must also figure out how to deal with their attraction to each other when vampyre/human relationships rarely turn out well.

Barbeau is a terrific writer. The plots are well done, and told with great humor and zest. There's a lot of gore in her books, but she is a queen of the horror world. She also knows her Hollywood history and drops tidbits of it in a way that seems natural to the story. Great fun.


Publication Thomas Dunne Books (2010), Hardcover, 336 pages
Publication date 2010
ISBN 0312367287 / 9780312367282

Five centuries old Hollywood legendary actress and studio head Ovsanna Moore looks as beautiful as a twentyish wannabe. Besides her movie roles, she takes care of her Los Angeles based vampyre clan to insure the paparazzi do not discover their secrets.

However, she feels more like a teen going out on her first date with Beverly Hills Police Detective Peter King who she is attracted to but also worries about the cop in him will learn some biting truths about her; beyond what he knows about her being a vamp. They worked together on the Cinema Slayer case, which they resolved to their personal satisfactions, but BHPD will want a body that they cannot produce since the killer melted away. A shapeshifter attacks her just before the date which leaves Ovsanna a bit freaked out while also struggling with vampire unemployment issues. He has issues too as his latest homicide is nasty; but the biggest concern for Peter is dating a much more experienced vampire as he keeps thinking of her giving him a hickey.

The second Vampyres of Hollywood romp is a jocular romantic police procedural urban fantasy. The fun in the tale is the Hollywood crowd who participate in the satirical frolic. Fast-paced throughout, fans will enjoy the vamp and the cop as they date in between murder, supernatural assaults, paranormal jealousy and a bite or two.

Harriet Klausner