Undead and Unfinished by MaryJanice Davidson

Product DetailsPub. Date: July 2010
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Series: Betsy Taylor Series, #9
ISBN-13: 9780425234358
ISBN: 0425234355

SynopsisVampire Queen Betsy Taylor returns in the ninth novel in the New York Times bestselling series. Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor is having a tough time getting through the Book of the Dead-until the Devil strikes a bargain. She offers Betsy a chance to finish the cursed (literally!) thing, and finally discover all its mysteries. There's just one catch... Betsy and her half-sister Laura have to go to Hell long enough for Laura to embrace her dark heritage (after a rebellious youth of charity work) and finally make nice with her mother, aka Lucifer. That means interacting with their family's past. In doing so, they're impacting the future in ways they never anticipated. Of course that's what Mother wanted all along. Damn her.

My thoughts:

This week I felt like I hit the library jackpot. When I walked by the new shelf there were two books that I had been wanting to read just sitting there waiting to be checked out with no need to request and wait. I decided to read this one first. As usual it was a quick, funny read. I realized as I started that I must have not read the eighth book in the series because the events that had happened prior to the start of this one weren't ones I knew about. I guess I'll have to look for that one soon.

Most of this book takes place between Laura and Betsey as they travel through time so that Laura can learn to use her powers to travel in all dimensions so she can eventually take over for her mother, the devil, during her anticipated retirement. Through their travel they realize that what they are doing is messing with their own time line but that they always were there so the time line has always been interfered with. Betsy is as usual, she is sarcastic and self involved but is starting to recognize more and more that she is this way. One of her visits takes her to see herself in the future which opens her eyes to ways she would like to change.

This is a good summer book. I just wish I had read the book that came before it first, but with a library book I didn't really have the luxury of waiting to read it. I wonder how much longer Davidson will continue the series. I enjoyed her series about Fred the Mermaid but I believe she has ended that one already. I'm just not sure how much is left for her to do at this point.