Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side [Kindle Edition]

Beth Fantaskey (Author)

Book Description

The undead can really screw up your senior year . . .

Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction

 

This e-book includes a sample chapter from Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

by Beth Fantaskey.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A romance involving a high school girl and a handsome vampire may sound a little too familiar, yet this first novel quickly bursts ahead of the pack of Twilight-wannabes. Down-to-earth mathlete Jessica Packwood is completely horrified when, a few months shy of her 18th birthday, a Romanian named Lucius Vladescu shows up on her doorstep, claiming that he and she are vampire royalty betrothed to each other since infancy—what's worse, her adoptive parents verify the betrothal story and explain that her birth parents identified themselves as vampires, too. Fantaskey makes this premise work by playing up its absurdities without laughing at them, endowing Jessica with a coolly ironic sensibility and Lucius with old-world snobberies that Jessica's girlfriends find irresistible. Jessica's laidback parents serve as foils for imperious Lucius (Can I ever again be happy in our soaring Gothic castle after walking the halls of Woodrow Wilson High School, a literal ode to linoleum? he asks sarcastically); a scene at a steakhouse where the vegan Packwoods meet the carnivorous Vladescus is first-rate comedy. The romance sizzles, the plot develops ingeniously and suspensefully, and the satire sings. Ages 14–up. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Jessica Packwood is a normal teen attending Woodrow Wilson High School. Her mathematical nature has even given her a slightly geeky reputation, which is about to change with the arrival of Lucius Vladescu, who seems to be stalking her. She tells her mother about him and learns that she is really a Romanian vampire princess who has been betrothed to Lucius at birth. She knew she was adopted, but this revelation comes as a shock. It is this agreement that has kept rival vampire clans, the Dragomirs and the Vladescus, at an uneasy peace. If the marriage does not take place, war will ensue and threaten the ultimate destruction of Jessica's vampire family. To say that this is a lot for the teen to take in is an understatement. Lucius is gorgeous, old world, tender as well as arrogant, and very overprotective of her. However, she chooses to date Jake, a handsome but rather dull boy. But not all is as it seems in the vampire world, and as the story progresses, circumstances force Jessica and Lucius to take matters into their own hands; in doing so, they examine their true feelings about themselves, family, and duty. Fantaskey's fast-paced story is full of plot twists and turns that keep readers guessing until the very end. The story is highly entertaining with plenty of action, drama, romance, as well as self-discovery.—Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 435 KB
• Print Length: 373 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0152063846
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; Reprint edition (January 18, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003UV91AQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,379 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Handy tips for dating the undead November 26, 2008

By Sarah TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Beth Fantaskey's "Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side" is a tongue-in-cheek teenage vampire romance that will have you cheering for its heroine. Jessica Packwood is an adopted Romanian orphan with loving, hippie parents. Raised on a strict vegan diet, she's a math geek, and at seventeen, she's never been kissed. She's not afraid of getting dirty; she helps muck stables and does household chores on the farm as the only child. Her invisible social life goes on predictably until the first day of her senior year, when a creepy guy in a velvet coat suddenly turns up as the new Romanian exchange student living on her farm.

Lucius Vladescu is tall, dark, handsome, multilingual and irritating: he's on several medal-winning sports teams and picks up new skills with ease. He claims that Jessica is really a vampire princess, the last of her line, and that he's a vampire prince and her betrothed. Jessica is very grounded in math and proven fact, and can't tolerate his claims of being a supernatural creature (perhaps Jess's literal thinking is also a rebellion against her New Age hippie parents and their vegan lifestyle). He gives her the "Teen Vampire's Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions" to aid her in her transition (according to Fantaskey's mythology, a female vampire reaches maturity at eighteen, and cannot complete her transformation without being bitten by a male vampire), buys her beautiful prom dresses, and encourages her to embrace her intelligence, beauty and royal status.

Jessica and Lucius's clans are teetering on the brink of a full-scale vampire war if the two fail to marry as set forth in their contract, but Jessica insists on pursuing all-too-human Jake, who's none too bright but "nice." But as time goes by, Jessica finds herself slowly reaching out to Lucius and finds cracks in her carefully tended façade of scientific fact. Her world shifts from black and white to grey, and as it does, she loses her famed ability to compete in math competitions. Lucius ramps up his campaign to woo Jess, but after a series of fateful events, a horrific chain of revenge is unleashed and Jess's newfound love is in danger of being crushed.

Jess is a multifaceted character full of her own talents and a fierce independent streak buried under teen insecurity. She does not pine endlessly over Lucius; rather, her affection for him is gradual and increasingly hard-won. Lucius is irritating and all-too-human: intelligent, cunning, and always dangerous, we see a frightening transformation as his vampire uncles come to the US to chastise him for breaching the treaty. He struggles constantly against his own desires and the effects of years of physical and psychological abuse (there are graphic scenes of violence and a good deal of swearing) as he slides into a terrifying spiral of detached violence.

The narration is divided between Jess's observations and first-person letters penned by Lucius to his uncle (often containing amusing recollections of encounters with the feisty Jess). This narrative trick wasn't always a smooth transition, but it allows readers to get a better grasp on the otherwise mysterious Lucius's upbringing and vampire traditions. The writing is briskly paced and lushly evocative (lots of high level vocabulary, particularly from Lucius). The vampire universe is lushly drawn and utterly engrossing; much like Twilight's vampires, Lucius can go out in sunlight, survive grave injury, and possesses great strength, but he can't transform. The relationships between Jess and her best friend Mindy, Jess and her adopted parents, and Jess and her evil rival Faith Crosse bring back all the awkwardness and insecurities of high school and first love in a believable portrait of a girl discovering her larger-than-life heritage and her fight to hold onto the vampire she loves. A haunting love story set against a backdrop of a combination of high school and of ominous Romanian woods populated by craggy fortresses and howling wolves, this will be sure to appeal to fans of Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) and other teen vampire fiction.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it. May 16, 2009

By Jessica Kennedy

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Originality: 5
Characters: 4
Writing: 5
Setting: 4
Plot: 5
Passion: 4
Overall: 27/30 90% = A
Cover Bonus: 0

First off, I need to address why I ended up reading this book. I was NOT going to read this. I'll address some of these reasons *cough* cover *cough*, *cough* title *cough* later. Until I read Beth Fantaskey's guest blog on Wondrous Reads. This guest post [..] in and I purchased my copy that very afternoon. And please note that if I can help it I do not buy books that I can't purchase in Kindle format. I will wait until it's out on the Kindle before buying the physical book. Not with this book. I HAD to have it. Now, on with my review.

Originality:
I awarded this element of the book a 5 not because it was "truly" 100% original but it's execution was original. I have never read a book where a young male swoops in and insists on wooing a young female into being his beloved for fear that if he fails his family and her family will throw themselves into all out war.

Characters:
Jessica (woot! my name!) is someone that I immediately related to. It's strange though because we are incredibly unalike but that doesn't matter because ultimately she was just an average, teenager blossoming into a young adult and all that entails with that change. She was real. She was also very mature, unwilling to rush into anything with out thinking it through. Her parents were a wacky pair but they too where amazing parents.

Lucius. Now Lucius is a guy that I could fall head over heels for. He's 110% chivarly. His accent (yes!) had me lured in from the get go. He was way too funny at points that I was wiping tears from my eyes. But I did hate him in this book too. He gives up and I can't stand a weak male lead character just as much as I can't stand a weak female lead character, but I have to give him credit because Jessica does not make it easy for him, not in the least. He does evolve and seeing him do that is very fulfilling.

The other characters play some huge roles too. (I read this a while ago so I can't think of their names!)

Writing:
Now this is what [...] in! Beth's writing is phenomenal. I only read that guest blog and couldn't get enough. It seems to come naturally to her or something. Everything flows so well. Nothing is pressured, nothing is presumed to happen. I hate it when I "know" what's going to happen and I never felt that with this book. The ending was just craziness but it all worked out and I really hope to be able to continue learning about Jessica's world.

Setting:
The setting was just the coolest to me! It's set in Lancaster County Pennsylvania. This is just north of where I live so it felt very familiar to me. Some of the story took place in Romania, I believe, which is where Lucius comes from. There's some amazing castle scenes that I just loved! I would have loved more of that in this book.

Plot:
The plot was awesome. I hate giving away any major details concerning books so I'm just going to paste a bit of the first chapter here instead of me rambling off every detail that I can think of.

Excerpt: (briefly, read the rest here)

Chapter 1

The first time I saw him, a heavy, gray fog clung to the cornfields, tails of mist slithering between the dying stalks. It was a dreary early morning right after Labor Day, and I was waiting for the school bus, just minding my own business, standing at the end of the dirt lane that connected my family's farmhouse to the main road into town.

I was thinking about how many times I'd probably waited for that bus over the course of a dozen years, killing time like any mathlete would, by doing the calculations in my head, when I noticed him.

And suddenly that familiar stretch of blacktop seemed awfully desolate.
He was standing under a massive beech tree across the road from me, his arms crossed over his chest. The tree's low, gnarled branches twisted down around him, nearly concealing him in limbs and leaves and shadows. But it was obvious that he was tall and wearing a long, dark coat, almost like a cloak.

Passion:
The passion in this book gets to a boiling point a few times. The pot never spills over but that's okay. The true meaning of love is what matters in this book. They are teenagers with hormones but it never steals the scene completely. It was kind of sad at times for Jessica and Lucius because they both end up fighting their hearts.

Cover & Title:
You probably noticed that I did NOT give any bonus points for the cover. That's because I HATE it. I mean it's not the ugliest thing but what hurts me to look at it is the title and the cover together. It just doesn't make sense. Even after you read it you're still not going to like the title. The cover kinda makes sense but not the title. There is a "guide" book in the story but it's not what I would have picked, at all. I can't really make a suggestion as to what I would have named it but almost anything would be better than what it is. Or at least a cover that reflected a guide book in some fashion.

Overall:
I LOVED this book. I had the hardest time putting it down in any fashion. It made me laugh and I might have teared up a bit at a point, but ultimately it made me smile. It was a true love story with teenaged angst and super natural twists. I didn't mention the vampire element in any of the above because it's really not what swayed me to loving the book. Lucius could have been just any normal exchange student and the story would still make sense, minus the impending uproar between the two vampire clans of course. :)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Hero's jerky behavior turned me off June 2, 2010

By Madame X TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

My opinion of Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side changed about a dozen times as I read the book. At first, I didn't like it much - because I took an immediate dislike to Lucius, the vampire prince whose arrogant, totally unsympathetic attitude was anything but seductive. It took me a long time to warm up to him at all. He's a guy who wears a mask pretty much 24/7, so the only way we get to see his true self is through the letters he writes to his uncle Vasile. The letters are funny, charming, smart, and because he's writing to an equal/superior, his ego is less dominant. So I started to like Lucius because of his letters, especially because it's mostly through the letters that we see him grow and change.

Once I realized that Lucius was going to evolve, and improve, as a romantic lead, I got really into the book. Really, the story only makes sense because Lucius is such a jerk at the beginning - otherwise, why would Jessica want to turn down a handsome, wealthy vampire prince offering marriage and a glittering, glamorous future?

And then the book takes a pretty dramatic turn. I want to avoid spoilers, so that's all I can say. Like I said, it took me (and Jessica) a long time to warm up to Lucius. Around the halfway point, we'd both been convinced. Jessica was ready to believe he's a real vampire and consider his offer of marriage; and I was ready to root for him. And just as that happens, the whole game changes. To make a long story short, Lucius starts acting like a jerk again. An even bigger jerk than before. Because we still get to read his letters, we know what he's up to, but frankly, I didn't care. I'd just BARELY started to like the guy, and I don't think his good intentions were enough to justify some of the nasty things he did.

Basically, what it comes down to is for the first, say, 30% of the book Lucius is a jerk; and then for the next 30% we get to really like him, and then for the final 30% of the book he is - at a minimum - ACTING like a jerk again. Well, that means that for 60% - two-thirds! - of the book, the romantic lead is a jerk, unworthy of his protagonist.

Jessica is pretty charming throughout; she's just a sensible, likable high-school girl. Like in a lot of teen vampire romances (ahem, Twilight, ahem), she has a choice between two hunky guys: dark, dangerous Lucius and sweet, uncomplicated Jake. Frankly, I didn't think either was the right guy for her. Lucius tries to convince Jessica that it's a choice between a boy and a man, or between a sweet romance and a passionate one. I think the right guy for Jessica would be more of an equal (it takes Lucius a long time to believe Jessica is his equal, and I don't think that he ever really acts like it) and he'd know that there's room for some sweetness in a passionate romance. The right guy would be somewhere in between Jake and Lucius - and unfortunately, he's not in the book.

More About the Author

I'm the author of Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, Jessica Rules the Dark Side, and Jekel Loves Hyde. I was raised and still live in rural Pennsylvania, a place that features prominently in my books. (There's nothing unusual about getting stuck in Amish buggy "traffic" where I live.)
I've been a burger-slinger at a diner called "Diffy's," a teenage tax collector, a journalist, and now a part-time professor at Susquehanna University. But my most fun job is "YA author," because I get to interact with so many interesting readers.
Thanks for looking me up here on Amazon!