Customer Reviews

Vampyres of Hollywood

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm a fan of vampire fiction and I got hooked within the first few pages of this book. A highly satisfying mystery, if just a tad bit more gory than I would have liked. I enjoyed the interesting devise of first person narrative from both main characters-identified by a gun for the cop and lush lips with fangs for the vamp. Highly enjoyable! If you like vampire fiction, I'd also recommend Lynsay Sand's Argeneau series.

Hollywood cop, Peter King is under pressure to solve a bizzare string of murders. Some of Hollywood's greatest talents are being murdered--in exceptionally disgusting manners. King is well-equipped for the job--his mother was a bit player herself and stays current on all the stars. Still, if he doesn't act quickly, he'll be out on the street. One thing he knows is, Scream-Queen Ovsanna Moore seems to be the connecting link to all the victims. What King has to decide is whether she's the killer or the next victim.

Ovsanna Moore has followed in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother starring in countless low-budget Hollywood monster films. Only a few know her secret--that they weren't really her mother and grandmother at all but Ovsanna herself. Over five hundred years old, Ovsanna helped create Hollywood and has made herself Queen of the area. Orson Wells, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolf Valentino, and several others are among her creations and, despite rumors to the contrary, they're still alive--or at least undead. But they're very worried--a vampyre hunter is on the loose and if Ovsanna doesn't vanish, they've decided they'll force the issue.

Authors Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott combine to create a vision of Hollywood that's exact enough in the details to make the suspension of belief required to accept vampyres running the place to see easy. Ovsanna, in particular, comes off sympathetically--with her cynical attitude toward Hollywood, her willingness to fight for what she's made her own, and her ability to control some of Hollywood's scariest ancient stars. Bringing in old-time stars like Orson Wells adds a nice touch.

VAMPYRES OF HOLLYWOOD rides a bit on the recent vampire wave, but it's definitely an enjoyable addition to the genre, with the Hollywood angle adding to the interest.

I am still in the process of reading this book but so far im about a quarter into it and I can tell its only going to get better. If you like vampires and appreciate a good book then I highly reccomend you give this book a try. You wont regret it :)

I didn't have high expecttions for this book, but I picked it up because it's received pretty good ratings all over. I'm glad I did.

Folks, if you came to this book looking for "literature", you came to the wrong place. This is just fun, through and through. It's pretty gory; I'd describe it as less Stephen King and more Charlaine Harris (True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse), but the style is all their own. The characters were well-fleshed (no pun intended), the dialogue crisp and believable, the story inventive, and the writing tight and fast-paced.

Let me put it this way: the first thing I did when I finished it ten minutes ago was hit the web looking for news of a sequel. I didn't find any, but I'll keep an eye open.

I loved it, very faced paced, good horror and gore, I read alot, it was entertaining, great characters!

A serial killer is knocking off some of Hollywood's hottest celebrities in gruesome attacks worthy of a Hollywood horror set. Unfortunately, this is no set, and the slain celebrities all have one thing in common: their connection to scream queen and studio head, Ovsanna Moore.

Beverly Hills police detective Peter Moore is on the case. He has pieced together the clues which inevitably lead him to the sexy and seductive Ovsanna Moore. But what he doesn't know is that Ms. Moore is actually a 500-year-old vampyre, and the Chatelaine of Hollywood in charge of all the vampyres residing there: the Vampyres of Hollywood.

Despite her vampyre heritage, Ovsanna is actually one of the good guys, and very much wants to help Detective King and the BHPD find the killer that the tabloids have dubbed the Cinema Slayer. But can she do this while still keeping her true identity under cover?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I'd probably place in the mystery or thriller genre, even though it was light-hearted and funny at the same time, all while still being paranormal due to the inclusion of vampyres. The dialog was quick, snappy, and very action-oriented, which kept me reading into the wee hours of the morning. ;)

Another unique element was the use of two different first person point of views telling the story, such that one chapter would be told in the first person by Ovsanna, while the next was told by Peter. Though you might think this would get confusing, it didn't at all. Besides staying consistent in the switch between characters, each chapter heading was also denoted with either a gun or a set of fangs. (Cute, huh?)

The ending did get wrapped up rather quickly, though I wasn't necessarily disappointed by it either. Actually, my only real disappointment was that it was the end of the book.... and I wanted more! This was a great read and I'd certainly love to read more like this from Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott in the future.

*Vampyres of Hollywood* stands in homage to the B horror flicks for which its heroine Ovsanna Moore and its co-author Barbeau are famous. In the best hack cinema tradition, Barbeau and Scott drench the scenery with blood, innards and ichor, borrow from every source that can't run away fast enough, and finish with an outrageously over-the-top finale. It's not great literature, but as every B-movie fan knows, the mess is all part of the fun.

Ovsanna Moore is a five hundred year old Vampyre with an attachment to the film industry. She loves it so much, in fact, that she has faked her own death twice and now poses as her own granddaughter carrying on three generations of movie stardom. She's a one-woman version of the Barrymores. In the present day, Ovsanna runs a film company, Anticipation Studios, producing and usually starring in gory schlock horror films. As the novel begins, life is imitating Ovsanna's art: actors and other people connected to Ovsanna's film business are being found murdered in intensely gruesome ways (most of them being "found" in more than one spot). As the "Cinema Slayer" racks up a body count and terrorizes Tinseltown, world-weary Detective Peter King of the Beverly Hills P.D. pursues an investigation that quickly leads him to Ovsanna Moore's doorstep. He ends up learning more about the "underworld" of Hollywood than he ever dreamed might exist.

*Vampyres of Hollywood* owes a heavy debt to author Kim Newman (*Anno Dracula,* *The Bloody Red Baron*) and the fictional universe of Vampyres: The Masquerade and its "vampire clans." I also detected loud pounding echoes of the movies Death Becomes Her (1992), Fright Night (1985) and Quentin Tarantino's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). There are a lot of clever in-jokes--Ovsanna seems to have known everyone who ever wrote literature or made movies even slightly related to vampires and had a front row seat for every major historical event. She even tells us something we didn't know about the real fate of Jack the Ripper. But all the explanatory asides by Ovsanna filling us in on Vampyres and her history become a bit tedious, and I found myself skimming chunks of digression to get back to the story.

If you're knowledgeable about vampires and movies, you'll enjoy collecting the trivia references and sly jokes. You probably won't want to read this one on your lunch break, but if you have a beach vacation coming up, *Vampyres of Hollywood* is lively, undemanding entertainment.

For me this was a fun and unusual (but in a good way) mystery. The book slowly reveals the characters secrets while still progressing to figure out who is causing all the chaos.

The view of Hollywood is something that will attract anyone who likes to find out what actors and actresses do. While (of course) the stars of Hollywood are not really vampires, many of the cold-blooded behavior, the favorites getting roles because of romantic entanglements, and many other touches are, I am sure, true.

If you like the paranormal and you like mysteries this would be a must read for you.

I bought this book simply because I enjoyed Adrienne Barbeau's first book ("There Are Worse Things I Could Do") very, very much. And I am not disappointed with her latest book! This novel is fast-paced, fun, sexy, scary and intriguing. The story, which was co-penned by Michael Scott, rolls along, revealing lots of surprises along the way. All in all, this is a light, fun, scary read -- perfect for reading by the pool this summer.

My only complaint is there are some grammar problems. The authors don't seem to know the difference between "farther" and "further." And some other questionable grammar rears its head here and there, such as the writers meaning "I couldn't care less" but writing "I could care less." Common mistakes like those do distract, but the overall effect of the novel is quite charming. Perhaps a new editor should work on Barbeau's next book. However, this is a fun book. Buy it, buy it!

Ovsanna Moore-horror film scream queen, Peter King-hero detective for the Hollywood Police Department, and an enormous amount of "ancients"- very aged and devilish vampires from all over the world, and from the beginning of time. These "people"-and I use the word lightly-make up the characters in this story.

I absolutely loved it. This book is captivating, action packed and informative. I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you believe or not!!

This book rates the highest with me-6 stars. This book is very well written and is so suspenseful you won't be able to put it down.