The Vampire and the Virgin by Kerrelyn Sparks

Day Eight of Eight Days of Love At Stake

 

Title: The Vampire and the Virgin
Author: Kerrelyn Sparks
Released: March 9, 2010
Series: Love at Stake, Book 8
How I Got It:  Purchased book

Book Summary
FBI psychologist Olivia Sotiris was looking for a cool ocean breeze, sand between her toes, and a break from her crazy, chaotic, and sometimes all-too-dangerous life. But when she escaped to the small Greek island of Patmos, all she got were meddling grandmothers trying to marry her off. Can't they see that none of the men around interests her-except Robby MacKay? Robby needs to cool off, too, since all he can think about is revenge on the Malcontent bloodsuckers who once held him captive-but then he meets Olivia, the beauty with the wild curls and a tempting smile. When a deadly criminal from a case back home tracks her down, Robby will have to save her life-along with giving her a first time she'll never forget...  

My thoughts
  Kudos to Ms. Sparks for writing this story. I loved it. If I didn't have to do that annoying thing called sleep, I would have finished it in one day. This book had a little action, romance, and humor.

I was hooked after the first few pages. I have never read about a Scottish vamp before. I've always thought their accents were cute, but I get a big kick out of men wearing dresses(oh they call them kilts-yeah whatever)! Not sure why, but I still think they are sexy even if they do wear skirts and I can see their hairy legs!

I loved the romance between Olivia and Robby. It wasn't a whirlwind romance, nor was it a slow one. It was just the right pace. I thought it was sweet that they had a long distance relationship and became friends first.

I really get sick of the caveman vamps that take what they think is theirs. Why do they always think these women are their property? Bone heads! The stalker situation reminded me of the movie, Silence of the Lamb. I couldn't tell who was who and what was going on. To me, everybody was a suspect. Ms Sparks kept me confused until the very end. There were so many suspects to look at. But when the stalker was revealed, it made sense. I just didn't see it coming.  

My Rating
5 Stars I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. Damn, I wish I could go on vacation and bring back a nice piece of ass as a souvenir!

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Secret Life Of A Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

Day 6 of Eight Days Of Love At Stake Author Spotlight

Title:  Secret Life Of A Vampire
Author:  Kerrelyn Sparks
Released:  March 2009  
Series:  Love At Stake, Book 6
How I Got It:  Purchased it for my NOOK
Lend Me Feature:  NO


Book Summary
Nothing's sexier than an man who can keep a secret.
A typical bachelor party is all about beers and beautiful women. A vampire bachelor party is no different — except the men are drinking Blissky (whiskey-flavored synthetic blood). And no one can throw a party quite like Jack, the illegitimate son of the legendary Casanova. But when the party gets out of hand and the cops show up, Jack has some explaining to do . . . if only he wasn't struck speechless by the beauty of Officer Lara Boucher.
Lara is sure there's something more than a bachelor party going on. What is Jack hiding? And why is he so interested in the recent disappearance of young women all over town? Her investigation uncovers more than she wants to know, especially about this modern-day Casanova. But if she's ever to make detective, she'll need to expose all his secrets . . . if only her heart wasn't on the line. 

My Thoughts
I circled this book so many times at Barnes and Noble, but never bought it.  I'm kinda mad at myself for not picking it up sooner.  This is the sixth book in the super funny Love At Stake Series.


I loved the story because it kept me laughing.  Jack is a fun character. He's been in past books, but nothing has really been mentioned about him except that women love him.   Even though he's the son of the legendary Casanova, and women fall at his feet, he has trouble keeping the attention of the one he really wants.  Of all the women in the world, he falls for one of NYPD's finest, a wanna be detective that is convinced that he's an alien from another planet.


Lara is a former beauty queen turned police officer after a near death experience.  She has decided to make a difference in the world by catching all the bad guys.  Little does she know, she's about to meet the ultimate bad guy. Bad boy of love, that is.

While Jack is throwing his friend, Ian, a bachelor party, things get seriously out of hand, and police are called to the scene. Lara is the would be arresting officer, if only it could have been that simple.

Jack is immediately drawn to Lara, but realizes that he can't control her mind.  At first it doesn't matter, because no one will ever believe her, but when Lara manages to track him down, Jack realizes that he has a serious problem.

Not only can he not manipulate her mind, but he finds that he doesn't want to.  After years of persuading women to do whatever he wanted, Lara's immunity to his powers is exciting.  He realizes that she likes him naturally and he wants to earn her love.

He plans to be as sweet and romantic as he knows how, but when she keeps pressing him to trust her with his secrets, it quickly creates a dangerous glitch in Jack's master plan.

I found myself not liking Lara or her friend Latoya.  I hate nosy chicks that can't seem to follow directions.  If someone tells you a situation is dangerous, can't you just go with that.  Curiously can leave your seriously dead.  I'm guessing they were rookie cops, because they were very lame at their jobs.

My Rating
I give Secret Life Of A Vampire four stars.  It was funny and very entertaining.  It's a nice change to read about vampire that live normal lives-minus the blood drinking.

The only problem that I have, and i realize that I've had this same problem for a minute.  Please somebody just go ahead and stake Phineas!  I can't take another reference to the po po, or Dr. Phang, the love doctor.  Ms. Sparks, you are killing me with the slang.  I am seriously starting to get offended here.  I know it's meant to be funny, but it's  starting to become very annoying. Just teleport his ass into the sun and be done!


Read an excerpt of Secret Life Of  A Vampire

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All I Want For Christmas Is A Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

Day Five of Eight Days of Love At Stake

Title:  All I Want For Christmas Is A Vampire 

Author:  Kerrelyn Sparks

Released:  October 2008

Series:  Love At Stake, Book 5

How I Got It:  Purchased ebook for NOOK

Lend Me Feature:  NO 

Book Summary

Toni Davis’s Christmas Wish List

1. Springing my best friend from the psych ward.
2. Living somewhere that doesn’t have coffins in the basement. Occupied coffins.
3. Finding Mr. Right. Please make him tall, dark, handsome, and ALIVE.

This Christmas isn’t so merry for Toni. Her best friend’s been locked up in a mental hospital ever since she told the police she was attacked by vampires, and the only way for Toni to get her out is to prove that bloodsuckers really do exist. So she’s taken a job as a bodyguard for the Undead, but she gets more than she's bargained for, especially when she meets Ian MacPhie, a Scottish rascal looking for Ms. Right.
Although Ian’s nearly five centuries old, he looks and acts like a twenty-seven-year-old hunk. How can a dead man be so damn sexy?  Could Mr. Wrong be Mr. Right?  One forbidden kiss could lead to an eternity of passion—and all it takes is one moment under the mistletoe . . .

My Thoughts

Okay, this book was good and disturbing in so many ways.  First let me explain the hot mess that is Ian's life, and then I'll get to Toni's.

 Ian is the too cute, century old vamp that's stuck in a fifteen year old body.  Sure he's deadly, but all the ladies think he's a little too young below the belly button to get freaky with him.  It's a hard knock life for a vamp trying to get laid.

So, when Ian has the opportunity of the lifetime, thanks to  Roman Draganesti, he goes for it.  The secret and still experimental stay away drug is just what Ian needs.  Although the drug is painful to use, with each use it ages a vamp a year.  And right now, years are exactly what Ian wants.

 He's gotten to the point in his life where he just wants to settle down and have his own Ms. Right.  All the other vamps around him are in love and he just wants the chance to have someone love him.  

So, his friend Vanda, one of Roman's ex harem girl agrees to help him out.  Anyone who knows Vanda, knows that her help is not always the help one needs. 

Instead of fixing him up on a date or two, she creates Ian an online persona on a local dating site that has human and vamp women stalking him and demanding a chance to be his one true love.

For awhile, Ian enjoys the attention, but when his attention focuses on Toni, a female co worker that won't give him the time of day, all sorts of fun begins.

Toni's attracted to Ian, but...he's a vampire.  She only agreed to guard them so she could prove that her friend is not crazy, but Ian is totally hot...and arrogant.  And what's with him and the fan club? 

My Rating 

I give this book four stars because it was a great read.  Toni and Ian were so cute together.  It was about time for Ian to have a happy ending.

I was also glad to finally see the vamp war amped up.  I love the way Kerrelyn Sparks tells her stories.  A little bit of love, some crazy friends, and a whole lotta disasters.

Read an excerpt from All I Want For Christmas Is A Vampire 

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The Undead Next Door by Kerrelyn Sparks

Title:  The Undead Next Door
Author:  Kerrelyn Sparks
Released:  January 2008
Series:  Love At Stake, Book 4
How I Got It:  Purchased ebook for NOOK
LendMe Feature:  No

Book Summary:
Three signs that something is very different with your new man:
1. He sleeps all day . . . which would be annoying except he's so attentive at night.
2. He's attacked by sword-wielding assailants, yet insists he can handle it on his own.
3. He never seems to age.
Heather Westfield has always lived a quiet life, but that all changes when she helps a very handsome, very mysterious stranger. There's something not quite right about Jean-Luc, but still, she's never been with a man so charming, so attractive . . . so wonderful. Now if only a murderous villain wasn't after them, they might get their happily-ever-after.


My Thoughts:
My first thought was...daaaaaamn this cover guy is hawt!  Come stay next door to me!

I'm still not sure why I have been missing out on this series.  So far, I have read three books from the series and have not been disappointed.  I love these flirtatious, but deadly vamps.

Jean Luc (swoon) is the latest vamp in the Love At Stake to find his bride to be. Now I immediately had a problem with him back in book three.  First of all, he's a fashion designer...what?  What kind of vamp can skewer his opponent with his mighty sword, and design the latest fashions in his spare time?  Gay much? 

Anyway, Jean Luc turned out to be a real sweetie.  He sees Heather stealing his designs, or so he thinks, and demands to know who she's working for.  In the process of interrogating her, he manages to flirt with no shame.

In order to pursue her, he offers her a designing job.  It is considered an honor to work with the famed designer since no one has ever personally met him.

Being a few hundred years old, sometimes these vamps need to lay low and come back as a grandson or great grandson so the public won't figure out that they never age. But, if laying low means missing the opportunity to to court (yeah, these old people say court) Heather, Jean Lu is totally against it...until being near him puts her on the top of his worst enemies' hit list.

Now Heather and her family have been thrust into the position of knowing a little too much about the vampire world to be allowed to leave it.  The only option is to give herself to the charms of the handsome, Jean Luc. And Jean Luc wouldn't have it any other way.


My Rating:
I had so much fun reading the latest in the series.  I give it a 4.5.  The only problem I had was how Heather's weight kept coming up.  So what if a girl is curvy.  Her model friend kept trying to make her feel bad about herself.  If anything, that racehorse really needed to eat something and put some pounds on her little ass.  Being thin as wind is soo not sexy! 

Read an excerpt from The Undead Next Door

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Be Still My Vampire Heart by Kerrelyn Sparks

Day Three of Eight Days Of Love At Stake

Title:  Be Still My Vampire Heart
Author:  Kerrelyn Sparks
Released:  April 2007
Series:  Love At Stake, Book 3
How I Got It:  Purchased ebook for NOOK
Lend Me Feature:  No

Book Summary:
If it was still beating. Angus MacKay has been undead for almost five hundred years and it's not often something, or someone, surprises him. Until Emma Wallace. The sight of this luscious agent from the CIA's elite Stake-Out team was enough to stop Angus in his tracks. But then he discovers that she's a vampire slayer, intent on killing the "monsters" who killed her parents. And it's Angus's job to stop her.
The only good vampire is a dead vampire. It's been Emma's motto since she committed her life to the destruction of these things. Now Angus MacKay wants to convince her differently.
Sure, he's a sexy Highland warrior who seems to have stepped off the cover of a romance novel, complete with brogue, kilt, and sword, but he's also one of them. And it's her job to kill him.
The war is on, but will it end in the destruction of one or both of them . . . or in total surrender to a passion for the ages?


My Thoughts


I truly get tired of the heroines that think they can take on the world alone.  And they have the nerve to get mad when they are labeled as a damsel in distress.  Please get over yourselves because their are a host of other labels that would fit.  Can we say stupid...

When will we puny humans learn that we are no match for vamps.  They are so much stronger, faster, and can make us do whatever they feel like, just to amuse themselves.  Then, they fall in love with us...or they kill us.

I vote for the first one.  If we were all smart, we'd just make friends with all the  good vamps and have a little sex on the side.  No killing please.

Anyhoo, this book centers around Emma, another member of the infamous Stake Out Team.  She thinks she's Buffy the Vampire Slayer simply because her parents were killed by vampires.  Okay, I can get with that, but when she goes out on her own trying to avenge someone who is already dead by getting herself killed...problem.

As always, there are better ways to handle all things.  Like I said, be friends with the good vamps.   Especially when a good, hawt vamp in a skirt, sorry kilt is trying to protect you.

Angus is one of the good vamps, and while the good vamps are on the verge of going to war with the Malcontents, the bad vamps, he still finds time to protect Emma.

Of course Emma is not having that, but in the end, she'll sue for the love of Angus.  Yes, sue, she subpoenas him and everything.  You will die laughing when you read why.


My Rating
Have I told you how much I love these books?  Kerrelyn Sparks outdoes herself each time.  She writes the craziest romances ever!  In this one, she kicked the fun up a notch, so I'll give it four stars.


Read an excerpt from Be Still My Vampire Heart

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How To Marry A Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

Day One of Eight Days Of Love At Stake

Title:  How To Marry A Millionaire Vampire
Author:  Kerrelyn Sparks
Released:  July 2005
Series:  Love At Stake, Book 1
How I Got It:  Purchased it for NOOK
Lend Me Feature:  NO

Book Summary
So what if he's a bit older and usually regards a human female as dinner, not a dinner date? Yes, Roman Draganesti is a vampire, but a vampire who lost one of his fangs sinking his teeth into something he shouldn't have. Now he has one night to find a dentist before his natural healing abilities close the wound, leaving him a lop–sided eater for all eternity.
Things aren't going well for Shanna Whelan either...After witnessing a gruesome murder by the Russian mafia, she's next on their hit list. And her career as a dentist appears to be on a downward spiral because she's afraid of blood. When Roman rescues her from an assassination attempt, she wonders if she's found the one man who can keep her alive. Though the attraction between them is immediate and hot, can Shanna conquer her fear of blood to fix Roman's fang? And if she does, what will prevent Roman from using his fangs on her...

My Thoughts
This book had me cracking up nonstop.  How is it that vampires do the same dumb stuff that humans do?

Roman Dragonesti is a brilliant scientist, a powerful millionaire, and a vampire coven master.  He's got money, friends, and a harem.  Yep, he's got a vampire harem of women that would love to rock his world.  Despite that, he longs to have one woman that could truly love him.

Shanna Whelan is a dentist that is in danger of losing her practice as well as her life.  She's in the Witness Protection Program because she witnessed her friend's murder and the Mob has put a hit out on her.  On top of that, she can't function as a dentist because the site of blood brings back too many painful memories.

Here's where all the fun begins.

Like I said, Roman is a brilliant scientist because he has discovered a way to make synthetic blood.  This invention is wildly popular with most good vamps because it encourages them not to bite humans.

There are still vamps that prefer the thrill of biting and taking blood straight from the source, so Roman's assistant Laszlo has come up with a new idea.  They have invented a sex toy called VANNA (Vampire Artificial Nutritional Needs Appliance) that you can screw and bite. 
 
Yes, a VANNA is just like the Kimber doll from the FX series Nip/Tuck.  LOL!  Ok, maybe I got carried away with that, but you get the gist.

VANNAS aren't just vamp sex toys,  they come equipped with veins that you can fill with blood so if the need to bite ever strikes, you don't risk biting a human.

The idea was great but the trial test was a disaster. Since Roman is the HVIC (head vamp in charge), he gets the first go at the VANNA.  Well Roman enjoys biting the doll, but recoils when he realizes that he has lost one of  his fangs!

Now imagine a one fanged vamp and I dare you not to laugh.  The whole scenario was  funny as hell.  Despite his anger and utter embarrassment, Roman seeks out an all night dentist to repair his fang.  If he doesn't get it repaired before the sun rises, he'll forever be the butt of all vamp jokes because after tonight, it can never be replaced. 


Since they don't have vamp dentists, they seek a human dentist that is open at night.  They locate Shanna's office, unaware that the Mob has also found her and are on their way to kill her.  Being the good guy that Roman is, he helps her escape in exchange for getting his winning smile back.

In the process of hiding Shanna and helping her get over her fear of blood, Roman begins to fall in love with her.  The odds are stacked against them though.  Shanna turns out to be the daughter of a CIA agent that has put together a team of psychics that can resist vampire mind control whose sole mission is to rid the world of blood sucking vampires.

My Rating
I give this book five stars.  I loved the romance between Roman and Shanna.  Normally I hate heroines that have too much of the goodie too shoes qualities, but Shanna was very likable.   I also love the world that Ms. Sparks has created.   Vamps that have regular lives and jobs.  They love, they live, and they suck...sometimes.


Read an excerpt from How To Marry A Millionaire Vampire

Don't forget to enter my first contest to win Book 8 of the Love At Stake Series, The Vampire and the Virgin

My Very First Contest!!!

Starting Sunday,  I will be doing a review fest featuring Kerrelyn Sparks called Eight Days of Love At Stake.  I will be doing an eight day review of all the books in the series.

I absolutely loved reading this series, and couldn't wait to get to the next book. 

And to show love to all of my followers, I have decided to offer my paperback copy of her latest, The Vampire and the the Virgin.

This is my very first contest.  It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here.  The contest will start today and end on June 25 at 8pm central.

The winner will be announced on my blog on June 26.   I will contact the winner and they will have 48 hours to contact me to claim their prize.  After this time has expired, I will randomly select another winner.

This contest is only open to US residents.


Contest closed!