Customer Reviews

Bitten & Smitten (Immortality Bites, Book 1)

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is one of those books with a plucky heroine of the underdog sort nabs the powerful, sophisticated, and drop dead gorgeous hero. I like these sorts of stories if the heroine is sufficiently plucky that I really root for her - but Sarah never struck me as being particularly extraordinary. She's a college dropout secretary of unexceptional looks who is a self-described bubblehead. But she doesn't have, say, the breezy, irreverant boldness of (Undead and... series) Betsy Taylor - a character who manages to wear her faults with panache.

Nor is she really all that bold - she's just very insistent about going to the vampire club that the hero, Thierry, owns, and insisting that she be allowed to talk to him. Every night something happens that causes her to swear she will never return, and every night there she is, standing at the door demanding to see Thierry.

We are led to believe that she has some sort of conversion - that she realizes that she used to be an airhead and has changed her ways and will now approach life with more soul and thoughtfulness. But since the book's timespan is probably no more than a week, I wasn't really convinced.

Thierry is a good enough cold, in-control, bottled up, and uber powerful vampire master. That's kind of the problem. He seems intelligent, mature, and calm - I couldn't figure out why he was bowled over by plucky, which is to say whiny, Sarah Dearly. Not only that, for a good chunk of the novel he is fighting his attraction to her, which consists of being really, really convincingly not interested in her, and kind of contemptuous of her.

It was an entertaining enough read, but I was ultimately too frustrated with the heroine to really empathize with her.

Sarah Dearly has the worst luck with men. She wakes up from her blind date with Gordon to find herself being buried! Gordon tells her she is now a vampire and that they'll live together forever. Of course, Sarah thinks he's a psycho and runs from him. Unfortunately, her band of rescuers turn out to be vampire hunters and naturally they want to kill her after they kill Gordon. She is then rescued by Thierry de Bennicoeur, a master vampire trying to commit suicide. Sarah fights her vampiric nature (after all, how can a girl apply makeup if she can't be seen in the mirror) and runs away from Thierry to a bar where she meets Michael Quinn. Unfortunately, Quinn is a vampire hunter and she's in a vampire hunter bar! She only escapes when Quinn's father begins berating him, not realizing that someone clad in pink yoga pants and a sparkly Diva shirt could possibly be one of the vampires he is berating Quinn for not killing. Meanwhile, vampire hunters are wiping out vampire bars throughout the area and Thierry's bar is on their list. Sarah copes with wearing an incredibly ugly bridesmaid's dress in her cousin's wedding while discovering who the vampire traitor is. This was a hilarious tale that kept me laughing throughout the novel. I kept wondering what else could go wrong in Sarah's life-- and then it would go wrong! I highly recommend this to fans of the vampire series of MaryJanice Davidson, Lynsay Sands, and Katie MacAlister.

I didn't know if I'd like this book going in but I got it for free so I figured I'd try it out & I really really liked it! I ended up reading it all within 1 day! I'm buying all the other books in the series now!

This is the first in a series I stumbled onto in a used bookstore & fell in love with!

Sarah Dearly is a fun and dynamic character with a depth that is so well written she is easily see in your mid's eye. Her descriptions and dialouge are so vivid it is easy to see her and hear her when you are reading the book. The great thing is that all of the chracters in the book are as equally well written. You feel for Sarah and even Thierry as the book goes on ... Sarah can be a handful! This book was fun & easy to read & I am so glad I found it and took a chance!

Seriously, I almost can't believe how bad this book is. Look, I love paranormal romances, and I've read a lot of them. This book has got to be one of the worst I've ever read! I'm amazed that I actually finished it. The main character just gets on your nerves the whole time, there is very poor character development, and the plot is seriously lacking. The author's attempt at humor throughout the story is really just sad. Giving two stars for this book would be too generous!

Witty, sarcastic and fashion-conscious Sarah Dearly has joined the vampire race, albiet unwillingly through a blind date gone horribly wrong. Michelle Rowen has taken an unusual subject (vampires being the good guys) and presented it with fascinating characters, laugh-out-loud scenes and a master vampire that few can resist! Highly recommended, even after sunset.

I'm not a big fan of vampires in general, so it was with some trepidation that I picked up this book. And you know what? After finishing this book, I couldn't remember what my problem with vampires was to begin with. Michelle Rowen's first book is simply delightful. The language sparkled, the characters were lovable, the plot was engaging, and it had so many funny, memorable lines. Sarah Dearly, the protagonist, is a *girlfriend* with three snaps and a head shake. She made me want to pack my bags and infiltrate the Toronto vamp scene. This book should be made into a movie.

I am looking forward to Michelle Rowen's next book. And the one after that, and the one after that.

I bought Bitten and Smitten on a whim because it looked cute and romantic. I quickly descovered that it was DEFINITELY not my cup of tea.
Firstly, the main character: Sarah is a whiney, flippant TSTL fool. She takes aaaages to accept that she is now a vampire and then she just proceeds on as she was, wearing sparkly T-shirts with DIVA in glitter accross the boobs and bimbo-ing her way through life.

I know this flavour of fantasy novel is never going to be heavy on world-building, but SOME would have been appreciated. It seems like there are vampires absolutely everywhere and yet all of them are woefully unable to protect themselves against the likewise abundant vampire hunters who have only the vain hope of spotting fangs to guide them to the "disgusting undead" whom they wish to murder. I totally rolled my eyes at the fact that the vampire hunter bar is direcly accross the road from Thierry's secret Vamp night club. COME ON! That is utterly ridiculous.

When Sarah is first turned, Thierry tells her that she will be sensitive to the sun etc, and yet all vamps, including Sarah are up and around in daylight for the rest of the book with no mention of the troubles of the sun.

The entire story was just a messy hodgepodge of various vampire myths, thrown together in totally random and contradictory ways without ANY explanation:

-Vamps have a heartbeat,yet have to die to be turned.

-Vamps have no reflection in mirrors but turn up fine in photgraphs

-Some vamps like food, others cannot stomach it. Never know which way a vamp will go.

-Vamps can't get drunk on pure alcohol and yet get wasted when shooting spirits as a chaser to blood.

The list continues. I think this was just a chicklit romance shoe-horned into a paranormal "world" with no thought for continuity or making sense of the supernatural.

Thierry was a pathetic hero IMO, he's hot, rich and has a french name. Is that REALLY all it takes to be a vampire stud these days? Where was the chemistry? The sexual tension? Anything to make Sarah and Thierry's painful romance worth watching?

Katie Macalister writes chick lit style paranormal romances which are hilarious and romantic. Bitten and Smitten what just trashy and half-assed in my view. Lovers of this style of book should probably try it for themselves, as it's really not my cup of tea. I would suggest the library.

The idea of this book is what sparked my interest--A girl, on a blind date, being turned into a vamp against her will. I finished it in about five hours (reading non-stop), and I thought that each page flowed smoothly and was written nicely. The first chapter is action packed, and I was thinking 'Wow' by the second paragraph! I don't want to give too much away, but the main character, Sarah, waking up in a grave is definitely new...and cool! Sarah was a funny character: always finding something to joke about in even the worse situations had me laughing out loud on numerous accounts. Overall, this is a very cute, fast story that should captivate fans of anything 'vampire'. I know it did me

I just finished this book and found that it was lacking in some truly essential ways: the author wrote her characters into unbeatable corners but instead of saving them in a creative way or even believable way she sort of cheated and used a lazy way of writing them out of their predicaments (i.e. Ms. Dearly and Quinn were in the 'lab' of the "evil" doctor and were about to be murdered by Quinn's dad. The dad angrily confessed to killing his wife. Suddenly, the evil doc is no longer evil... he in fact shoots and kills the dad and then even goes so far as to offer help if they ever need it in future. I mean COME ON! If you are going to have an evil henchman have some world-shattering epiphany than you should at least lead up to it with description of what he may be expressing facially in reaction, have him interrupt in the conversation exasperatedly. Or, she could have saved them by having one of the vampire friends, possibly George, come to the rescue and kill the dad. Or, Sarah or Quinn could have tried to save themselves and discovered they had more of the ancient power than they previously thought.), Another disappointment was that the romantic tension and sexual tension between Sarah and Thierry was not at all developed well. There was really nothing developed for this Sarah character to later 'realize' she was "in love" with Thierry. In fact, the only true pursuer was Quinn. Even the ill-defined 'bond' between the ancient vampire (Thierry) and Sarah, and for that matter Quinn, was not defined or described in sufficient manner. Finally, I was looking for a really good understanding of Thierry's suicidal tendencies. It never appeared. I don't like books that have poorly defined characters, poorly or ill-explained plot lines and cheats to rescue the protagonists. Yes, it's a fictional vampire novel.. but lets at least TRY for some believability in personalities and situations. Even if the believability includes supernatural powers and amazing last-minute rescues. I'll meet you half-way there if you meet me the other.