The Best Paranormal Romance

Write a new comment 5 comments

1. Permalink # mlle. x said

   OK, this is a book about a vampire, Etienne, whose only passion in life lately has been writing video games. He sits alone in his basement all night making the games & the crazy psycho killer of the novel is another game-writer who wanted a job with Etienne and didn’t get one.

   Then the heroine, Rachel, is a coroner with no social life. But seriously, no social life. She tells us over and over again – gee, I never go out, gee, what’s there to do at night, gee, I caught my last lover having sex with my roommate and that was years ago in college. Her first major bonding experience with Etienne post-crossover is…spending a whole night with him playing video games. 10 hours straight. It made me feel sad.

   Look, if you can get past this, maybe you will like the book. But I couldn’t find Etienne sexy, no matter how silvery his eyes or impressive his physique. Not just because he spends all his time in a basement with his computers, or because – as he admits one morning to his mother – he hasn’t had sex in two or three decades. No, it’s because he’s such a puppy dog. He’s a kid. Bashful and a little dumb where women are concerned and eager to please. He acts a lot closer to twenty than three hundred.

   Plus, and maybe I’ve just been reading too many of these vampire novels lately, but I am a little tired of the part of the novel when the heroine says something flip and a little rude and some older yet wiser vampire chuckles and observes, “Isn’t she delightful?”

   Also, this is a novel in which the vampires think that biting people is really taboo. They don’t bite one another, they don’t bite humans, they don’t even appear to be very interested in biting. Where’s the fun in that? They do, however, make all sorts of interesting blood cocktails. That’s nice, but…eh.
   Rating: 2 / 5

   Reply

2. Permalink # Lady Hecate said

   Like “Bite me if You Can,” “Love Bites” was the same story, different people, except Etienne had more Kindness for the person who he transformed, wherein Lucian did not. So far, the books that I have read of Sands’ do not fit in with the category of Vampire Romance, except for Single White Vampire, but more of Vampire transition, if there was such a category. Once again, one of the Argeneau vamps turns someone and then has to deal with the transformation. Except for Single White Vampire, which was cute, Sand’s books can merely fit into the “Fiction” category but hardly romance. Love Bites is not “a keeper” and will give it to the library. It was boring and easy to put down to go and clean house! If I had not ordered “A Bite to Remember” and “Vampires are Forever” I would not have even considered buying any more of her books, as money is hard to come by these days. But, since I did, now I am stuck with them and will read. Who knows….I might be surprised! There is always hope.
   Rating: 1 / 5

   Reply

3. Permalink # Jackline Hunter said

   Rachael works at the morgue on the night shift. She sleeps through the day, albeit she loves the sunlight. She sometimes uses this as an excuse for her lack of a social life – being asleep during the day and at work all night.

   Rachael is overcome with the flu, when she encounters what she assumed a corpse with a bullet wound straight to the heart. Instead, her body is really Etienne, a 6’4″ blonde vampire, whose body is in stasis because of the heart wound delivered to him by his (rather dorky) villain, Pudge.

   Technical Note: Sands’ vampires are really ancient humans but with nano’s (nanomachines) in their bloodstream. (She calls them “benign parasites,” although, technically, this seems more mutualism than parasitism.) These nano’s feed off blood to regenerate wounds, etc. Heart wounds can be fatal if a bullet is lodged in there for a while, as that would prevent the nano’s from doing their job. No curse, eternal damnation, or any of that dark stuff involved.

   Rachael does her job removing the bullet for forensics, whilst recording her progress (Scully-like from X-Files). Etienne’s body is allowed to heal, and he escapes. Nothing happens for a while — well, the vampires celebrate a birthday by going to the movies and Etienne’s car gets blown up as he walks towards it; as a result, his body becomes utterly charred – and he’s back to the morgue as a “crispy critter.”

   Rachael, whose memory has been altered by Etienne’s last appearance, has been having dreams about Etienne. She encounters him in his blackened charred form. Definitely dead for sure, right? Instead, however, bits of Etienne’s char flakes off and skin has regenerated beneath. Etienne’s assassin, the villain of the story, Pudge comes and attempts to behead him, resorting to this since his first kill attempt (bullet through heart) failed. Instead, he accidentally slices through Rachael.

   In the intermittent confusion, Pudge escapes and Rachael is “turned” into a vampire by Etienne, who feels responsible for her death wound. Later, we will find out that Etienne also liked her from the very beginning. A vampire can only “turn” one lifemate because of population limiting reasons. (Incidentally, only one baby is allowed per 100 years.)

   More technical details: much of the blood in the transfusion comes from IV’s hooked to bags of blood. Sands’ vampires have fangs which “jump out” at the sight of blood. Apparently, these fangs work with straws, quite fortunate, for the vampires who don’t like the taste of blood.

   When Rachael is conscious again after her transformation, she goes through pages and pages and PAGES of denial. (Pain to read through since her excuses were a bit off-beat.) A good fifth of the book is spent on denial and disbelief of vampires.

   Despite thinking Etienne is some crazed cult maniac, she finds him to possess sex-appeal. They share dreams that are almost steamy, but not quite sexy. (Unfortunately, the same description goes for Sands’ other explicit scenes.) After a while, Rachael accepts her new existence as a vampire. She is determined to continue her life as is despite her change in mortality.

   Etienne, however, wishes to keep her in his home as long as possible. He makes her drink bad blood to deliberately sicken her, so that she would be dependent on him for food. (A wee bit childish. We’re talking an approx. 300 year old vampire trying to “trick” his lovemate, here…) On the other hand, “the Argeneau family,” requires that Rachael be convinced to lie about Pudge kidnapping her in order to solve the problem of the assassin. Etienne postpones telling her this, and eventually, this leads to Rachael’s distrust.

   Apparently, Etienne is a solo game-programmer (which is rather unrealistic, nowadays). He created “Blood Lust,” which just happens to be Rachael’s favorite video game. This, along with other reasons, builds up Rachael’s “liking” of Etienne. But, sad to say, there isn’t really much love in this book, despite the title. There is, however, a whole lot of what seems like light infatuation and sex that’s significant enough only for brief casual flings.

   In Love Bites, Sands’ romance abilities are really non-existent. There’s a beach scene and underwater sex scene, but it’s described bereft of the “umph” – for the lack of a better phrase – that a scene as emotional as that deserves. Although not as perverse as Bangs (Night Bites) to have shallow characters just lust after each other, yet act and think like children, Sands’ characters tend to, also, think in crude ways.

   I had to force myself to read through the bulk of the novel, telling myself that the sooner I’m done with this, the sooner I can focus fully on the next (and hopefully less horrid) book. Rachael’s reasoning for a few chapters near the last part of the book deprecated to that of a 8 year old — in language, as well as logic! I understand that writers have deadlines to meet, but having to distort what is supposed to be a college/med-school-educated character instead of a bit of revision just further destroys Rachael’s character.

   My rating for this book is primarily set by the lack of passionate-love-romance in the book. However, there are a few random perks that had me smiling.

   The drinks offered by the Night Club were interesting, and if they were complemented with a bit more love in the resultant sex scenes, that might be worth an extra star. The vampire wedding was one of the better-written scenes, but the concept of such really detracts from the idea of a proper vampire… I guess the last bit would be my own personal requirement that vampires act a certain way — I mean, the “creatures” in this book might as well be called nano-droids, rather than vampires.

   The penis biting was a bit amusing, and perhaps one of the sexier, but still not really sexy scenes, as both characters end up sickened by the clash of nano’s. Etienne’s family discovering this first-hand, as they deliver the blood, is also worth a smile.

   Note: Apparently, vampires cannot bite each other – as that would lead to a profusion of nano’s in the biter’s and ingestor’s bloodstream. Nano’s consume blood and if there are too many of them the vampire, who does not have enough blood to feed them, is weakened.

   As for naming: a vampire named Lucern — Lucerne? as in Safeway Select? Etienne already sounded too feminine to be a macho vamp name.

   Anyway, if you’re up for the steamy, brooding, intelligent/wise, *dark*, vampire of passion, love, and eternal nights – you won’t find Him here; if you’re not up for a light read with pathetic vampires, then skip this, rather than be wrongfully disappointed. (…)

   Rating: 3 / 5

   Reply

4. Permalink # Deborah E. Allen said

   I know Ms. Sands books are suppose to be funny, but they are not they are just supid and silly. This story is about Etienne Argeneau Vampire and his love interest Rachel Garrett Mortician, they meet at Hospital Morgue because Etienne has been shot and apprears to be dead well we know he is not!!!! Etienne has a stalker killer after him who blows him up in his and his car and is constantly trying to find ways to kill him. This is where I have my problem with the story The Vampires in these books have no great powers just mine readers it is nothing interesting about them in this story he doesn’t even defend hismself, nor was he able to stop the attack and then the kidnapping of Rachel his love interest he just keeps saying he had to think of away to stop Pudge the villian in the story. I found Ms Sands developed Pudges character an story line better than she did the main to charaters in the story. If somebody is trying to constantly kill you and your girlfriend you are going to do something about it like go on the offense, I Started rooting for Pudge!!! and that sick!!!! Very stupid silly story!!
   Rating: 1 / 5

   Reply

5. Permalink # S. McCullough said

   The is the second Argeneau Vampires tale by Lyndsay Sands, if read in the author’s intended reading order. This is the story of Rachel, a morgue attendant who is working her usual night shift when a dead man is brought in twice. Yes, it the same dead man. Etienne has been killed twice, once by a bullet through the heart and then again burnt to crisp. Rachel finds herself sickeningly attracted to what she assumes is a corpse. Things aren’t as they appear of course and Etienne is a vampire. Rachel saves Etienne’s life and then he repays the favor. The only way he can save her life though is to ‘turn’ her into a vampire. Etienne must than house her and teach her all the ways of the vampire. The portion of the book dealing with Etienne showing up in the morgue, revealing himself to her, and then saving and turning her is top-notch storytelling. I was enraptured by the book at this point and convinced I had found a winner. After Rachel is turned the book begins a downward spiral from which it never quite recovers. The tale becomes just plain silly when the focus turns to romance between the two vamps. This includes some of the cheesiest and just plain odd dialouge I have ever come across in my years of romance and/or paranormal reading. Even the sex scenes are yawn and cringe worthy. The end tries to recapture some of the book’s earlier enjoyment with the showdown against Etienne’s rival/stalker. But by this point, the book stumbles into another downfall. The ending delves straight into the old tried and true formula romance. There is a misunderstanding between the couple and one of the couple runs away. They spend some time apart, and finally come back together again, after both admit how miserable they were apart. Ok, I think we’ve all read that plotline a few too many times. Except for the beginning of the story, this book shows none of the comical fun and romance of “A Quick Bite”. I must say, I am a little disappointed.
   Rating: 2 / 5

   Reply