Customer Reviews

Undead and Uneasy

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This episode of the Betsy the Vampire series (book 6) is all about Betsy. Just Betsy. While the other friends make almost guest appearances, this book shows Betsy's maturing as a Vampire Queen, and how she is coming into her own in the world of vampire diplomacy. This book is different from the other books in the series in this way. Betsy is still charming, funny, annoying, and vain, but she is a force to be reckoned with who is ever under-estimated by others. I agree with another reviewer that the Editorial reviews give away way too much plot, so I am reticent to discuss particular details of the book for fear of even more spoilers. But I liked the book due to its advancement of the overall plot and the underlying message that Betsy is Queen --and no one to mess with.

Betsy Taylor, Queen of the Vampires, is down to the wire on the wedding plans; she has just two weeks to the big day and she has yet to pick out a wedding dress. Her groom isn't being very helpful, Sinclair feels that the wedding is unnecessary as the Book of the Dead already recognizes them as married. He is getting grumpy and Betsy and he are not getting along.

While she finalizes the plans she faces one of her biggest obstacles to date. Unfortunately when Betsy needs everyone the most, no one is there for her; everyone has disappeared, leaving the Queen of the Vampires alone. Betsy is forced to fend for herself for the first time since she woke up Undead.

The best part of this book to me was the visiting Werewolves. While Betsy struggles through her days solo, we get an unexpected visit from Antonia's Werewolf family, the Wyndhams. The initial meeting between Betsy, Michael, Jeannie, Lara and Derik, was hilarious and fun. I hope they make a habit of appearing as I have missed them.

While I enjoyed this book, I couldn't love it like I have all the other Undead books. With Betsy's eclectic entourage MIA, the story was missing a lot of the laughs and action each of them usually draw. I really felt the void each character's absence left.

The ending was a bit anticlimactic to me and I couldn't help muttering "duh!" when Betsy finally put the pieces together. There was also a bit of unfinished business; Derik has an odd reaction to BabyJon and we never find out why. This is still very good read but not quite the great read I am used to by Ms. Davidson or this series. I gave this a 4 star rating, but I would say it is more 3 ½ stars.

I got this book today and powered through in about an hour and a half. I smiled a lot and laughed a little.

Mary Janice Davidson clearly set out to isolate Betsy and force her to act on her own. Betsy does, and in the process, really comes to understand that she Is The Queen. My problem with the book is that I like the other characters; the ones who seem to have gone on sabbatical this time out. We have minimal interaction with Mark, Sinclair, Antonia and Garrett while Tina, Jess, Nick and John are fairly powerless to help our Betsy. My biggest problem was with Betsy's mom and sister, both of whom acted completely out of character.

It seems like I'm complaining more than I intended to. I'm really not. Undead and Uneasy is a classic MJD romp which is quick, fun and leaves you looking for more. Which is what I'm doing. Looking for more. So MJD write quickly, because I want to know what happens next. Okay?

The latest installment of the MaryJanice Davidson's Betsy the Vampire Queen series is a little darker than the previous five. Undead and Uneasy marries the Betsy series with the Wyndham Werewolf series bringing both groups of characters together in a mirthful clashing of vampire and werewolf culture.

Betsy is preparing for her imminent wedding to Eric Sinclair, Vampire King, even though the Book of the Dead proclaims them to already be married under vampire law. Without warning, her friends and family begin to disappear; some die, some leave of their own volition, some are kidnapped, and some are kept away by coincidence, but it leaves Betsy alone with Derik and Michael of the Wyndham werewolves to discover what has happened to everyone she loves.

Betsy Taylor's usual smart mouth is tempered a bit by the worry she has over Jessica who is on death's door due to cancer. She is also forced to visit Jon Delk, the hunky teenage vampire killer who has a crush on her, which she handles with aplomb. Due to circumstances beyond her control, she finds herself in custody of BabyJon and is forced to let go of some of her selfishness in order to care for him. Even though Queen Betsy seems to mature a bit in this novel, Davidson splashes much pop culture into the plot and Betsy still talks, and thinks, like a shallow valley girl from California rather than Queen of the Vampires but without as many snappy, sarcastic musings as usual. Even as Davidson tries to grow the series, she is strangling it from refusing to let the plot and characters expand.

The plot seems somewhat recycled with Betsy concentrating on holding onto her humanity, but for no good reasons except that she is stubborn. While the series began as a lighter, humorous, romantic paranormal novels rather than the serious and more violent writings of authors such as Kim Harrison, Lilith Saintcrow, or Laurell K. Hamilton, Davidson's soda pop seems to have lost its fizz. It looks as if this may be her last vampire novel to see the light of day.

If I'm reading the author's acknowledgements/preface/introduction rightly, then this is probably the last volume in the series about Betsy, Queen of the Vampires. And the somewhat crowded feeling, as if a few too many things were happening and being crammed all into one book, reinforces that suspicion.

That said, it's always better for a book to have too much happening rather than too little. And since we already know that the series is lightweight, if some of the action is improbable for the characters involved, or flat-out silly to think someone would ever do that, well, that's part of the series: several of the characters have always been purely stereotypes for the sake of laughs. Either you learn to live with that, or don't.

For those of you who haven't read other books in the series, you really should read them in order; the events of this book make no sense unless you already know who the players are. Don't try and read this one first just because it's easily available, thinking that if you like it, then you'll go back and read the rest of the series. Doesn't work that way. You've gotta already know about Betsy's dad and stepmother, about her half-sister Laura and who Laura's mother was, about why Jessica has a mansion full of weirdos. Some of what you need to know isn't even in the series directly; the whole thing about Antonia and Garrett is from a novella contained in an anthology of Davidson's werewolf series stories, Dead and Loving It (ISBN-13: 978-0425207956). (No, I don't really know why a book of werewolf stories has a title as though it were mainly about vampires.) That said, to give you an idea of whether the series is for you at all, you should know how it stacks up against other vampire series. Davidson writes humorous romance; she's not a fantasy writer first and then a romance writers. The vampires in this series are fairly traditional as to powers; they are not "out" in society nor considered legally human; mostly, they lead lives separate from humans, not holding down "day jobs" or trying to socialize outside their own kind. Several of the volumes have murder mystery plots; others are more frivolous. There are no deep, dark thoughts of immortal life and its meaning, nor any attempts at deep explaining why and how vampires exist at all. Even when there's eeeevillll, it's a rather superficial sort of evil. The vampires are a mixed bag between evil and neutral characters. There are numerous other supernatural beings: ghosts, werewolves, the Devil - but other than those beings, this is pretty much our world, our time, our Minnesota - it's not a separate fantasy universe.

As far as the plot itself in this volume, I think that between the publishers' reviews and all the rest, you don't need me to tell you more. Let me say that I'm a bit tired of the Booke of the Dead. Enough happens to enough of our regular characters to feel that Davidson has tied off a lot of loose ends, again hinting that it's the last book in the series. Perhaps one of the most unusual events in this volume is: Betsy actually realizes that she's whining. And makes an attempt to deal with it.

In short: if you've been reading the series, you've gotta read this one. If you haven't been reading the series, don't start with this one. And if you prefer your vampires dark, brooding, and discussing their immortality, lack of souls, and all the other philosophical implications of their condition, this is not where you're going to find it. But if you're looking for easy-reading humor with snappy dialog and just enough plot to hold the humor together, then this should be your cup of tea.

I'll admit it was better than the previous one, but still not as funny as the first. Weird things are happening two weeks before the wedding. Basically, everyone has disappeared. And yet, Betsy has no idea that something is wrong. She assumes they have abandoned her or are pouting off somewhere for something or other. Not until the Antonia's werewolf pack comes to visit and attempts to kick her a** into admitting where Antonia is. Then she begins to wonder, hmm, maybe Sinclair and Antonia, and pretty much everyone else really is missing or kidnapped, etc.

What bothers me about his book so much is that the action is flat. Every book lately seems to be about nothing important, just the daily goings on of Betsy Talyor. Even a book that could be about something, is written the same way. Betsy doesn't know or admit to there being any wrongdoing, therefore, ho, hum, wake up, feed the baby, visit friends, buy shoes, etc. Borrrring stuff. Secondly, Betsy is a winy b***h. She is the epitome of the stupid blond popular girl in school (at age 30?) who assumes the world revolves around her. Any yet, supposedly EVERYBODY who comes across her loves her? Then she has the nerve to put down her step-mother as being the same type.

Sorry, but it is so hard to enjoy a book when you can't help but hate the character. I read the first 170 pages, scanned and read the last 40. I don't feel as though I missed anything important.

Betsy Taylor is looking forward to the happiest day of her life. Well, perhaps not the happiest, but she plans to at least make it a close second. She's marrying Sinclair, the Vampire King. The marriage is all about Betsy, because to Sinclair, they're already married and she's already the Vampire Queen. To Sinclair, there's no reason to go through with all of the preparations for the marriage and the actual ceremony itself - other than it is what Betsy dearly wants.

With a cool $3 million to spend, Betsy is sure that the wedding will be perfection - if she can only find the perfect gown, the perfect invitations, the perfect cake and make all of her guests behave perfectly. She's just sure that the wedding will make up for the fact that she and Sinclair can't have a baby together.

Putting her undead heart and soul into the preparations, Betsy goes full steam ahead, willing to bulldoze anyone who gets in her way. However, one problem does crop up that would prevent the wedding from going ahead as planned. Despite Betsy's determination, she can't have a wedding without a groom. When Sinclair goes missing, she must find a way to hold it all together, and still find him in time for the wedding.

UNDEAD AND UNEASY is a hilarious romp through the life of the cheeky, vain Vampire Queen. Although the heroine is extremely selfish, she's certainly up to the task of finding her lost groom, endearing readers along the way. Author Mary Janice Davidson's characters are a real riot, and the plot and subplots are masterfully written. All in all, I found UNDEAD AND UNEASY to be a real page-turner - a fun and enjoyable read that I'd recommend to other fans of the series.

The problem with writing a series if you are a mediocre writer is that you don't keep track of things that you have already written. Thus, you have characters inexplicably gaining a decade in age like Betsy's mom did in this book, or you have a significant portion of the plot devoted to Betsy finding a wedding dress, when she already bought one two books ago. You have inexplicable timelines that make no sense, and ...well, etc. etc. etc.

I thought the first Undead book was funny, fresh and something new. That was before I realized that MJD has only two stock characters that she recycles in every one of her books. The last couple of Undead books have been horrible, this one, is merely bad. So there is some trending upward. The main character can only be a total idiot for so long before it gets tired. While the book attempted to address this somewhat and there was finally some growth from Betsy's character this book, it's too little, too late. The series is tired, and should be retired.

MaryJanice Delivers another installment of her Queen Betsy stories.
I really liked this book. I loved when the werewolves came, and how she talked to them "Dildo breath." and other catchy lines. I laughed out loud a few times.

I liked that Betsy and Sinclair finally tied the knot.
Jessica being cured was really cool. I didn' think she'd die--but how she was cured was unpredictable.

I can't wait until undead and unworthy.

The last several books in this series have been disappointing, lacking much of the wonderful humor of the first book and seeming more like episodic short stories. However, with this installment, MJD has taken much more time with a plot that has actual danger and suspense, resulting in a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Because many of the characters don't come into play until the conclusion, a lot of the amusing interactions are missing, and some of the relationships seem unnecessarily strained (particularly with Lara). The reader definitely needs to have read all of the previous novels first to understand the various relationships and previous plot references. But we do get to have great fun with the werewolf contingent, which makes up for a lot.

We finally see Besty come into her own and vanquish a worthy foe in an unexpected manner. The book should have been longer, and the "marriage" at the conclusion was given short shrift, all things considered.

To sum up, not as quite as good as the first novel in the series, but definitely a good read with some (but not enough!) of the dry wit that will leave most readers anxiously awaiting further adventures of the Queen of the Vampires.