Customer Reviews

Dead and Loving It

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book with one caveat- don't read all 4 stories back-to-back as the similar style will get old. Otherwise, all 4 stories have the snappy dialogue that I expect from a MJD book!

"Santa Claws" brings together werewolf Laird Alec Kilcurt and human Giselle Smith. Giselle works as a Santa Clause for charity and is swept off her feet in a short but humorous story.

In "Monster Love", werewolf Janet Lupo finally finds her mate and is able to get over Michael Wyndham (who chose a monkey, aka human, instead of a werewolf as his mate). Janet meets vampire Richard Will, who kidnaps her when he thinks she is skipping out on a date with him. After all, Janet is the first woman not to run screaming once Richard reveals his vampiric nature to her. Richard doesn't believe Janet is a werewolf and both must learn a lot about love.

"There's No Such Thing As A Werewolf" is the story of blind werewolf Dr. Drake Dragon and his mate Crescent Muhn (who is not a monkey, but figuring out what species she belongs to is part of the story). Crescent has been living in the streets whereas Drake is a doctor living a life of luxury.

"A Fiend In Need" is the story of vampire George the Fiend- whom we learn is actually named Garrett Shea- and his mate Antonia Wolfton. George has been evolving from the mindless fiend state he began in throughout MJD's books and so it was great to see him find a woman who will love him.

Overall, this anthology will probably be enjoyed by die-hard MJD fans such as myself because it tells the stories of some of the minor characters while maintaining the sassy humor expected from MJD. First time readers of MJD will most likely be disappointed, however, as the plotlines are relatively simple. I recommend this collection to fans of the Undead and Wyndham werewolf series but suggest that all 4 stories not be read consecutively.

Any one of the four stories in this book would be a nicely humorous short read. The only odd thing--I wonder why a good funny writer would write the same story four times, put all four of them together into a book, and expect the reader to stay amused.

Girl (of some sort) meets boy (of some sort). They talk a bit, they have fantastic sex, They tell each other they have no problem with what the other is, and they decide they were meant to be together forever. The sex is oddly un-erotic, to my mind; basically it's your rote-memory plumbing story. It's as if she had enough one-liners that smartass confrontational supernatural types would use in a certain story for her to have to write that story four times to use them up.

*However*, it does contain a continuation of the tale of George the Fiend. The story changes him from a weird and unconventional member of Betsy's household; it seems that now he's going to be a more-or-less normal guy. But if you've watched George from the beginning, the story is a clever addition to the series, even though it follows the same pattern as the other three.

Your choice. If you like Queen Betsy and her group enough to spend the money for the additional story, you'll enjoy it. If you expect a four-story collection to contain four different plots (or at least four different situations), you're probably better off saving your money.

I bought this book the day it became available, and was horribly disappointed. The stories all follow a similar theme: boy meets girl, boy is instantly attracted to girl, boy has mind-blowing sex with girl, and girl decides that based on that, they're perfect for each other. If you're looking for tons of gratuitous sex, this is the book for you. If you're looking for a little more in the way of plot, you may want to look elsewhere.

One story that disturbed me was "Monster Love," in which the hero kidnaps and rapes his lady love. Eeeewwww! How is this supposed to be romantic? Maybe it's just me, but a story with a woman falling in love with her rapist is just plain repulsive.

The only bright spot is the last story which features George the Fiend from the Undead series. I did enjoy learning a little bit about George's background. It would have been a bit more enjoyable if George's love interest was a little more appealing.

"Santa Claws". Werewolf Alec Kilcurt is lonely. That is until he sniffs his soulmate, who is a human female wearing a Santa Clause costume.

"Monster Love". Vampire Richard Hill looked forward to falling in love that is until he did. His beloved werewolf Janet Lupo can get into a rage over nothing and calming her down takes quite a bite of his patience.

"There's No Such Thing as a Werewolf". Dr. Drake is a rare physically impaired werewolf as he is blind. So he wonders why he vividly can see Crescent Muhn.

"A Fiend in Need". Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor is at her wits end and by George not over shoes. However, relief may occur as Wyndham werewolf seer Antonia Wofton arrives to help George the vampire fiend evolve into a beast of her choosing.

These are four amusing romantic fantasies as MaryJanice Davidson once again entertains the sub-genre with an irreverent fun anthology from the supernatural side.

Harriet Klausner

I can say it NO better than Kathleen did. MJD has fallen into the "romance" writer trap of ignoring her talent in lieu of just writing explicit over the top porn scenes. Unfortunately for me and Kathleen, we obviouly want an ACTUAL story. Sadly I don't know whether I will continue to follow MJD's books after this debacle.

I bought this book used so there are alot of reviews already. I just want to say I enjoyed every one of these weird stories. Not every book has to be enthralling or mesmerizing some can just be fun to read. That is this one. From a vampire who is frightened to make love to a woman because of his strength, to a werewolf who finds his mate on a city street ringing santa bells because she smells like fresh peaches.

Next we have a blind werewolf doctor who finds he can see one fabulous woman that he needs for his mate, and guess what she is not human either. The last story is about the fiend George from Betsy and Sinclairs Vampire stories. It was cute and made for four out of four cute stories. If you need to buy it used like me, do it. It is well worth the money and the wait.

This is an odd collection of story outlines, packaged and sold as short stories. Two are very similar. Only the cute one about Betsy's pet revenant is at all interesting.
An unhappy trend in publishing seems to be to take unedited and disconnected story ideas and cobbling them together to make a book..several authors are lending their names to this, and it shows a lack of integrity and disloyalty to devoted fans.

If you read any of the Undead stories, you are familiar with George the Fiend. Poor guy suffered under Nostro's rule for a really long time. Betsy took over though and now he's getting better. He had been knitting, but now he has a girlfriend. I love a happy ending.
All of the stories in this book are cute, sexy, sweet and very good. This is a compilation of some Wyndham werewolf short stories that you may not have read and really they are ESSENTIAL reading for any fan of MJD. Buy this book, it's worth it.

This book was ok. I really liked the George the fiend story. Of course I read that one first, so that might have something to do with it. The first 3 stories were ok, but they could have been really good stories if there was a little bit more attention to plot/character details and a lot less sex. Most of the first 3 stories seemed to be about sex. I know plot/character development can be difficult in short stories because there isn't as much time to build in details, but it should not be substituted with a lot of sex details instead. I dunno, to me the first 3 stories seemed less like the writing style I've really liked in her series. That being said, the 4th was worth reading. I've always been interested in George the fiend, and it's nice to get some dialog out of him! :)

Like other reviewers I really feel that MJD has sold out to the "Sex sells better than quality writing" concept. When I first began reading the Undead books and Derik's Bane, I was instantly hooked by how witty they were and how funny they could be. I'm a woman who hates shoes and maybe couldn't relate fully, but I immediately fell in love with Betsy! So I was extrememly excited about this book and bought it shortly after it came out if only to finally get a story about George the Fiend. But I found with all of the novellas that again the plots were all the same, but more importantly while they were really funny in parts, they mostly just blew me away . . . no, rolled over me with a steam truck . . . with all the overdone, over the top, porn-esque sex scenes. I mean the first novella isn't terribly long and the last half is all sex. I don't mind a few sex scenes, but if I had somehow missed sex-ed or the last 5 years of my life and needed to catch up on todays late-breaking erotica this would be the book to do it.

I suppose I should be surprised when I'm buying a book from the "Romance" section, but at the same time I always felt the MJD books while containing a usual sex scene or two, didn't necessarily belong in the "Romance" department. Well unfortunately this one deserves a slot right up there with Harlequin - same plot, insert character A - and so much over the top sex that it's ruining the quality of her writing.

Sex doesn't always sell, but I'm afraid MJD is starting to think it's the only way to sell her books, and for someone who has realy become a fan of her writing this is terribly disheartening.