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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stocking Full of Vampires, November 18, 2008
This review is from: All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire (Love at Stake, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
We've watched Ian McPhie physically grow up over the last several books of this series and now he's headed home to Dragonesti's New York townhouse to make it all pay off in his pursuit of love with his perfect vampire woman. But what he finds when he gets home is that none of his friends recognize him, he's outgrown his coffin, woman are sure he's a 500 year old virgin, and the new guard who's supposed to be watching over him during the day is not Tony but Toni- a female who sets his blood to boiling!
Toni didn't plan to help her best friend like this. she thought she'd pop down to Central Park, prove vampires didn't exist and then go help her sick friend. Instead she got snacked on in the park by Malcontents, or at least that's what Connell the vampire who saved her calls the bad vampires. Impressed by her fighting skills he gave her the options of either A. Having her memory erased or B. Work for them as a day time guard since they are currently short staffed during a vampire war. Toni chooses the later so that she can maybe prove her friend isn't crazy, that vamps do exist. But her proof seems laughable and her luck goes from bad to worse when her friend ends up institutionalized and her boss Ian starts watching her...not to mention the no fraternization clause she signed with the company and that if the two of them are caught lip-locked her memory is history anyway!
Everything is complicated by the Russian vamps taking a sudden interest in Ian, coupled by his internet love hunt for the perfect vampire making him the most talked about vampire in the nation. Women and assassins are knocking in his door and somehow he ends up on vampire television harassed by the biggest gossip of them all. But Ian and Toni help unwrap each other just in time for Christmas with no lumps of coal in sight! This was a great addition to the series and a good find for the genre for the holidays.
The Love at Stake series in order:
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire
Vamps and the City
Be Still My Vampire Heart
The Undead Next Door
All I want for Christmas is a Vampire
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I never thought I'd fall for a guy named Ian, November 26, 2008
This review is from: All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire (Love at Stake, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
If your a fan of vampire romances then its safe to say you've thought about what it would be like to be immortal. Its not a big leap to then assume you've considered the perfect age to be for eternity. I have and one thing that I imagine would suck (no pun intended)would be to be too old, an age which is subjective but still... I've never ever thought about how the opposite - being too young forever - would be awful.
Kerrilyn Sparks brilliantly worked this into a story that made me sympathize with the hero from the start, even though he hadn't been tortured for years. I was ecstatic that he wasn't overidden with guilt over a really stupid hang-up (his hang-up is justified). Is there really anyway a vampire who looks like he's fifteen can get a decent meal without a little bit of pleasurable mind mojo? Keep reading but beware that some of the plot is revealed and I may have gotten carried away.
Towards the begining of ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS I thought this book was going to be that really rare book that just makes you giddy with happiness after you finish.
Yes, it was rife with cliches. Good vampires verses bad vampires with the ignorant humans as casualties in the middle. But for a while it was like Sparks was the first to have written such a plot. Ian, the hero, is a 400 + year old vampire who was stuck at the age of 15 for all that time (until very recently). This is something almost anyone would complain about but not Ian. Anyways, with some powerful help from genius Roman (the hero from the first Love at Stake book) he has managed to age 12 years in 12 days. And boy, did he become a handsome man. Of course, Ian doesn't know how delicious he is because in his world vampires cannot see their own reflections. Moving on, Ian isn't your average commitment-phobic hunk; he is looking for a long-lasting and fairytale love. Fortunately, he still has some faults and doesn't come off too unrealistic Prince Charmingly.
Toni is your average lonely hero with a mission. I don't think the idea that love exists has even registered in her head before. For the mortal day guard of three very high-profile vampires, Toni's job seems to be a little dull and her infamous fighting skills are only impied... until the end. But from the begining she plans to betray the good vamps. Calm down, I don't mean she's gonna hand them over like helpless babes to the evil vamps. Only that she is going to use her position to find proof that vampires do exist and her friend in the mental institution isn't crazy.
Overall it was a nice book. Not a reread-it-3-times kind of book but it will leave me with nice memories. The "I am so lucky to have found this book" faded but even cynical me strongly liked it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Be prepared to laugh and have fun with Kerrelyn Sparks' latest!, November 6, 2008
This review is from: All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire (Love at Stake, Book 5) (Mass Market Paperback)
Ian MacPhie is ready, willing, and able to find himself a woman. Just back from Texas where he spent twelve days taking the magical vampire stay awake drug, Ian finally looks twelve years older. Ian is very happy with the results because he was made a vampire when he was fifteen years old and so for the last four hundred years he has not aged one day. When he wanted to spend time with a woman, Ian had to place them under an enchantment spell so that they didn't realize he looked like a minor. He has been thinking about his life and has decided to start looking for his soul mate - the one woman that completes him. Enlisting the aid of a close female friend, Ian lets her sign him up for an online dating service. When he finally goes to the townhouse in which he spends his days sleeping, he expects to meet Tony, the new bodyguard. Only, Tony is ACTUALLY Toni, and she is not thrilled to be guarding an irreverent flirt such as Ian MacPhie.
Toni Davis has an agenda. When her friend was attacked by rogue vampires and subsequently reported the crime, everyone thought she was crazy. Everyone except Toni and Toni promised her friend she would find irrefutable proof that vampires exist. So, when Toni is attacked by the same rogues and is in turn rescued by a handsome kilt wearing avenger with long teeth, she jumps on the chance to guard them during the day so she can find the proof she needs. She doesn't expect to come into contact with one so annoyingly sexy or blatantly handsome. Ian MacPhie makes her heart jump start and beat just a bit faster - whether in desire or in anger. All Toni knows is that there is something about Ian that she can't live without.
Kerrelyn Sparks never fails to make me laugh. Never. ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A VAMPIRE truly kept me in stitches one minute and blushing the next. Ian's plans for one true love were cute; he had no idea what he was getting into when he allowed his friend to place that singles' ad. I laughed out loud more than once at the shenanigans between he and Toni. Ian loved to knock Toni for a loop and tried to get a rise out of her any way he could. More often than not, he could. His intentions were pure but the way Ms. Sparks has them go about fulfilling those intentions is what truly made ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A VAMPIRE the amazing book that it is.
Toni is loyal to her friend first and foremost. The fact that she still has bite marks from a rogue vampire attack is never far from her mind - it takes Ian MacPhie, the luscious highlander that he is to forget them. Toni had an agenda just as much as Ian did and while hers did not involve marriage, she could not help but want forever with her vampire. Add in a nasty vampire villain and my life was complete.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A VAMPIRE is a remarkable love story. Previous characters play key roles in this book so I suggest reading the series in order, starting with How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire, Roman and Shanna's love story. Readers will not want to miss a single minute of this entertaining and ultimately satisfying series. Releasing just in time for Halloween, I suggest grabbing a box of chocolate, some hot cocoa, and your favorite chair to settle in for a witty and fresh look at vampires and the women who love them.
***Natalie S. for Wild on Books***
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