Customer Reviews

My Zombie Valentine

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

 

 

My Zombie Valentine was a paranormal romance anthology dealing some awesome authors. Angie Fox starts out the first story, and I have to say it's one of my favorites. The heroine is a voodoo love practitioner who ends up casting a love spell that brings her Mr. Right... Mr. Undead that is.

Katie MacAlister's was my least favorite it dealt with her Dark Ones. Personally I felt as if Sebastian deserved his own novel. Especially with the pain that the Betrayer brought upon him. I also though it was unfair to the readers and the heroine, Ysabelle, that her story was so short. I mean we find out in two sentences that she's an alchemist and her dad was pretty big. They should have gotten their own novel.

The third by Marianne Mancusi was also hilarious involving make up, real zombies, a low budget movie, and an actor that the heroine has been crushing on since she was 12. Really cute and fast paced.

The fourth was by Lisa Cach and had a really interesting premise. A plastic surgeon would inject, for free, Phi-Tox. Pretty soon LA women everywhere (think skinny plastic Barbie dolls with implants) are running amok craving sugar and fat. The hero is also very cute and a surfer dude.

I bought this on my Kindle and loved it. It was one of the better anthologies I have read. It was light hearted, paranormal, with each author giving her own twist to `Zombies'.

"Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo" by Angie Fox. Voodoo practitioner Amie Baptiste concocts a love spell to bring her soulmate to her. However she would ask for her money back if some other voodoo queen sent whom the magic brought forth to her.

"Bring Out Your Dead" by Katie MacAlister. Zombie life coach and English instructor to the undead Ysabelle Raleigh meets Sebastian, a vampire who claims she is his long lost beloved. She scoffs at his insistence though she thinks he is kind of cute. He must persuade her that he is serious and not just handing out a line for a quick bite in between battling despondent zombies and a teenage vampire. This entry was published as part of the Just One Sip anthology.

"Zombiewood Confidential" by Marianne Mancusi. Unaware that art imitates life even in horror movies; makeup artist Scarlett Patterson accepts a job on a B horror flick in order to work with actor Mason Marks. She quickly learns real life contains its share of horror.

"Every Part of You" by Lisa Cach. Angelica Sequiera visits the plastic surgeon for a minor fix but ends up on a date with Tom Haggerty.

These four lighthearted paranormal romances are fun fantasies starring heroines who are unsure whether to run from or towards their beloved.

Harriet Klausner

My mother bought me this book on one of her trips to Target as a joke. She reads lots of romance novels and I mock her mercilessly because of their practically X-rated covers and the fact that she's ashamed to read them in public. She thought it was weird and funny that romance stories about zombies where written at all. Anyway, I finally mustered up the will to read this book and I have to say that it wasn't all bad. Here's a breakdown of the four short stories and their ratings.

**Bring Out Your Dead by Katie MacAlister**

This story introduces Ysabelle, the counselor for revenants (AKA zombies), part time tutor, and full time owner of two souls, as she runs into a man by chance on her way to her tutoring job and passionately kisses him. Shortly after, she's attacked by a demon and his minion imps. The random stranger that she kissed saves her and she heads off to her job. Her charge is a very strange boy named Damian who is boarding up and fortifying the upstairs windows in fear of a Dark One (AKA vampire) that will be trying to kill them. The Dark One shows up and it's the random kissing stranger. His name is Sebastian and he seeks revenge against Damian's father who sold him out to a powerful demon named Asmodeus. To complicate things, he has decided that Ysabelle is his Beloved that will grant him a soul and be his for eternity. Can Ysabelle avoid or Asmodeus while evading Sebastian's strong overtures?

This is my least favorite of the stories. In just the first chapter, there are so many things introduced and explained rather than shown that it made the story convoluted and confusing. This story would have been better suited as a full length novel. The plot is complex (as seen in the summary) and there is an entirely new world to explain. The premise is interesting, but the follow through isn't there. I don't like that the story is about 5/6 typical vampire romance versus the other tiny 1/6 that's about zombies. This story feels like the odd story out as a result. There are also many typos and spelling errors that really bothered me. In addition, each chapter jumps ahead in time after the end of the last chapter, leading the characters to fill in the blanks by talking about it. I would really rather just see what happened and I prefer not to rely on the characters describing it to me every single chapter.

I found the characters generally unlikeable. Sebastian in particular is insufferable with his forceful attempted seduction of Ysabelle before they know each other at all. Another extremely annoying character is Sally, Ysabelle's spirit guide. She consistently speaks in the most infuriating mixture of very bad French and English. I don't know if it is supposed to be funny, but it really made the story hard for me to finish. It seems as if the author didn't know enough French grammar to make a properly speaking character and this awful character's mode of speech was the fall back. There is literally no reason why this character needs to be there. The only part I really like is the end with its small surprising twist.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins

**Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo by Angie Fox**

Amie Baptiste has no man in her life, but she has a fulfilling life with a successful business. She wants to find love, but also doesn't want to turn into her mother, who had a great many lovers, all who left her broken and sad. Being a voodoo practitioner, she decides to use a spell to find her soulmate. The spell works in that it brought her an incredibly handsome man named Dante, but she didn't expect that he would be dead. Amie immediately tries to rid herself of him, but he's no ordinary zombie. He now has three days to woo her or he will return to his grave forever.

This story is really cute. The basic story line is similar to the first story in that two people meet and immediately fall in love, but the woman is in denial and the man has to make her see their love. Angie Fox made the characters much more endearing, thus making the basic plot seem less male chauvinist dominated. Dante is a total sweetheart. He is willing to do anything for Amie, even if it means his permanent death. I like how his tragic past is revealed, giving his character layers as the story progresses. My favorite character of the story is Isoke,a Kagamoto dragon with a three foot wingspan. This mini dragon is the greatest comic relief. It's just the right amount in the right places.

This story succeeds in that the plot is fairly simple with few characters that can be developed easily, without confusion and unnecessary complexities.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

**Zombiewood Confidential by Marianne Mancusi**

Romeo George's new zombie film, Isle of the Living Dead, is filming on a desert island, starring action star Mason Mark and high maintenance, demanding Cissy Max. Derek, the makeup artist, just hired Scarlet because he was desperate to fill the position even if she hadn't quite finished cosmetology school yet. She has had a huge crush on Mason Mark since his days as a singing, dancing child star, but knows that people like that thrive off of fawning peons and try to take advantage of them. Mason really likes Scarlet as well, but is contracted to be in a relationship with the insufferable Cissy by the studio to generate interest for the film. While all this drama is going on, the extras playing the zombies are acting in increasingly strange ways, including biting the stars and repeatedly observing how delicious Mason's dog smells. When the crew and extras keep disappearing, Scarlet thinks there is something really wrong. With this zombie film come true, can she and Mason stop the zombie apocalypse alone on a desert island?

This is one of my favorite stories of the anthology. The return to the flesh-eating variety of zombie is refreshing and makes me feel right at home. The writing flows really well, making it an enjoyable, fast read. Humor is infused throughout the story along with the typical romance conventions. It's kind of like a more romance focused Shaun of the Dead. The romance aspect succeeds well in organically establishing the attraction between Scarlet and Mason, which made me care about the couple. In the first two stories, there really wasn't any build up to the romance which made the story flat and made me more unwilling to suspend my disbelief. The two stars and the director are obvious parodies of famous zombie film directors, macho action stars, and slutty starlets, but there is a dimension to them that also makes them good, relatable characters. Scarlet serves as the everygirl of the story: just a normal person trying to make a living and pay her rent. Although she is justifiably horrified by the zombies and at having to kill one of her friends, she is no simpering damsel in distress. I really like her and I rooted for her through the whole story. The ending is kind of an implausible romance ending with a twist. Overall, I'd say this story rocked.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

**Every Part of You by Lisa Cach**

Angelica Sequiera is in Dr. Velazquez's office to just fill in 6 shallow acne scars in her face with fat from her chin. Nothing major. She doesn't exactly want to advertise this, but a rude surfer dude type guy named Tom Haggerty keeps asking her probing and insulting questions. She gets the procedure done and while she is under anesthetic that makes her loopy, the doctor asks if she wants Phi-Tox, a formula of Botox that he has made himself. She resists, but the doctor skillfully manipulates her and takes advantage of her loopy state and injects her. Later, Tom gets her phone number from her friend that works at the plastic surgeon's office and she reluctantly goes on a date with him. They don't mesh well at first, but through conversation, sailing, and picnics, they grow to fall in love. After she comes back from their trip, there are increasing cases of women bingeing on sweets, including herself and her friend. They soon realize that women are turning into zombies that only crave sugar because in a last ditch effort to stave off the paralyzing effects of Phi-Tox. It's only a matter of time before the effect gets worse in Angelica. Can she and Tom find an antidote and save Dr. Velazquez's clients from certain death?

This is the other story that I enjoyed the most in this book. Instead of a straight romance story, this one focuses on a larger message about how the expectations of society can become poisonous and make us into zombies that have no will of our own. The women in the story all get plastic surgery based on the mass media's vision of the ideal woman and how others (like creepy, manipulative Dr. Velazquez) view them. Tom represents what true love should be: a man that will love every part of you as you are. He is my favorite character with his surfer dude demeanor, frank way of talking to people, and hidden layers that people who make assumptions about him would never see. The first things he notices about Angelica are the very things she has been led to think need to change to be beautiful: her nose, her breasts, and her butt. Unlike those trying to push surgery on her, he finds these characteristics of hers sexy and unique compared to the typical vision of what beautiful women should look like. The romance between Tom and Angelica is sweet and steamy. This is easily the hottest story of the book, so if you don't like sex scenes, you should stay away from this one. I really like how the story starts as a typical romantic comedy and then ends with a crazy zombie epidemic. Overall, this story is fun, sexy, and sends an important message to its readers.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

I picked up this book at the local Wal-Mart because it was $1.99, and I seen Kate MacCalister's name as one of the contributing authors. I have been planning to read her Dark Ones series for a while now, but just haven't gotten around to it.

This is a book of 4 short, zombie-toned stories. The first story, Bring Out Your Dead (Kate MacCalister) was enjoyable. The story contains characters from her Dark Ones series. Although I haven't yet read this series, I didn't feel lost. The zombies were just hilarious. I will definitely be reading the Dark Ones series in the future.

The second story, Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo, was enjoyable as well. Amie (practices voodoo and owns a voodoo type shop) had lived a life without true love. She decides to do a spell to bring her one true love to her and she got more than what she bargains for; she answers a knock at her door to find she's raised a zombie claiming to be her true love!

The third story, Zombiewood--Confidential, wasn't as good as the two previous stories. It revolves around the making of a zombie movie on a remote island. Lets just say the zombie extras start having cravings for brains.

The last story, Every Part of You, wasn't bad, but it was a bit weird. Ever heard of sugar-craving zombies in LA? It's not your typical zombie themed story.

Overall, this book is an enjoyable weekend read, or just for a rainy day.

Book Hollow
[...]

This book is composed of four novellas from well known paranormal and steampunk writers with the common theme being love and zombies. For the most part, there's no falling in love with actual zombies - well, the traditional kind with limbs and such falling off. In fact, the closest these stories get to traditional zombie horror films is the third story by Marianne Mancusi, "Zombiewood Confidential" where they are actually on a film set and those zombie extras with all the makeup? Well they might be actual zombies.

Each story was an entertaining read, a little on the quirky side with a bit of sexual stem going on, but each author took the idea of zombie and turned into something funny and a little different. My biggest disappointment is no shotgun made it into the stories. How can we have a zombie parody if someone doesn't pull out a shotgun?

The anthology opened strong with Katie MacAlister's, "Bring Out Your Dead." She manages not only to throw in a hunky Dark One (aka vampire) but the heroine also has two souls (her handicap) and is a volunteer counselor to recently brought up revenants (aka zombies) who are struggling with their new un-dead state. Funny with lots of 'braaains' that will make any zombie-fan laugh.

If you get a kick out of zombie movies and would like something on the spicy and funny side, definitely pick up this book.

I enjoyed the short stories in this book. It helps to see if I like the way the authors write to see if I want to purchase their other books. Katie MacAlister has better books out there than this story, though.

I like Katie MacAlister, a lot, and no disrespect to the other authors, but she is the reason I picked up this anthology. I was very excited about getting it and chose it over several others I had on my "to buy" list. Unfortunately though, I didn't read anything about it other than who wrote it. Then, as I began to read the Katie MacAlister story, I realized I've read this before. In Just One Sip. Now I am having a hard time getting into the other stories because I already feel slightly deprived, as a quarter of this book isn't anything new.