Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper (Jane Jameson Series #1)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?

My thoughts:
At the beginning of this book I thought it seemed as though it was a cross between Queen Betsey from MaryJanice Davidsons Dead series and Sookie Stackhouse (minus being a vampire) in Charlaine Harris's Dead series.  After the beginning though it gained its own momentum and style and I really enjoyed it.  I read it on the beach last week and I found myself wishing that I had packed books two and three from the series as well, which unfortunately I had left on my bookshelf at home.

Jane Jameson is a children's librarian in the town she grew up in.  Her boss hates her, but she loves what she does.  When her favorite aunt died she inherited the family home, although everyone keeps trying to get her to admit that her married sister would be a better fit for the home,  Her mom hates that she is single, her dad loves her unconditionally and her sister thinks she is the better sister.  Then her boss fires her because of budget cuts, but really just to give her niece a job instead, and hands her a gift certificate for a chain restaurant.  One drink turns into more and she meets a mysterious handsome man.  On her way home her car breaks down, a drunk mistakes her for a deer and shoots her from his truck, and she wakes up undead three days later.

While finding her way in her new lifestyle, Jane meets people and vampires who might be friends or might have it in for her, and she has to figure out motives while avoiding telling her parents her news.  She makes a friend or two and an enemy or two and then is accused of killing a vampire.  She is learning her way in this new society, verbally sparing with potential suitors, has conflicted feelings for her sire and spending time with her ghostly aunt while looking for a new job that allows her to work nights.

It was well paced, amusing and fun.  Who wouldn't love a book about someone who worked around books and considers them her first love?

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781416589426
  • Publisher: Pocket Star
  • Publication date: 3/31/2009
  • Series: Jane Jameson Series , #1
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Original
  • Pages: 384

Meet the Author

Molly Harper
Molly Harper is the author of eight novels, including The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires and Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors. She worked for six years as a reporter and humor columnist for The Paducah Sun, covering courts, school board meetings, quilt shows, and once, the arrest of a Florida man who faked his suicide by shark attack and spent the next few months tossing pies at a local pizzeria. Molly lives in western Kentucky with her family.

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