Vicky London
I downloaded Holiday with a Vampire from Harlequin as part of their free ebook offerings this past Christmas. There are always quite a few Christmas anthologies out each year but the Christmas/vampire theme is fairly unique, so I was interested in checking it out. Warning: spoilers ahead. Sorry I couldn’t resist…
Christmas Cravings by Maureen Child
Grayson has been a vampire for 150 years and each Christmas he goes back to Wyoming to the home he built for his wife and child who were tragically murdered. For some reason his business manager has sold the property without telling him and Tessa is now living in his house and running it as a B & B. This story has a weak premise with some of the best lines I’ve read in a while (and by best I mean worst).
Most Cringeworthy:
“…her core exploded into a frenzy”. Probably the weirdest euphemism for vagina that is way overused in romance novels. Exploding?…blech.
“…spearing her with his length until he was buried so deeply inside her, Tessa would have sworn he was touching her heart.” Ouch! He must be like two feet long…
Most Groan inducing line:
“God help you then, because I can’t.” Spoken by the hero as he crushes the heroines lips with a bruising kiss.
Grayson is kind of a half-assed vampire. He can hear the heartbeats of mice but doesn’t notice when a crazy stalker human sneaks up and hangs a dead deer on the porch. The conflict is also never fully explained. Why does anyone care who Grayson supports to be vampire king? Why is he so important, and why do the other vampires want to kill him? Worst ending ever: he magically becomes alive, heart beating at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. Of course that means that everything is okay now; he can actually stay and love Tessa and marry her. Just as long as all the other bad vampires get the word on the grapevine that he supports the old king. Not sure why this would keep them away. Now that he’s a weak human he can’t really protect Tessa so they’re pretty much screwed. Awww, it’s a Christmas miracle.
Fate Calls by Caridad Pineiro
Fate Calls was a much better story especially when compared with Christmas Cravings. Connie volunteers to do some Christmas soliciting as Santa for her law firm. Her bell ringing is driving Hadrian crazy. She disturbs his day sleep and the vampire contemplates making the annoying Santa his next meal. Little does he know that beneath the costume is a pretty Cuban girl who is looking for love. This story is very well written and amazingly well developed in a short amount of pages. Pineiro creates a full and interesting background story for Hadrian. It would have been nice to have as much for Connie but it didn’t impair my enjoyment of the story at all. It’s worth it to buy this book based on this one alone. Having never read any of her Calling Series I would definitely be interested to read more.
You can order this book from Amazon by clicking on the cover above. It is also available from Harlequin in ebook form.
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