Kerrelyn Sparks: All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire

Review by Vicky London

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 . . .

After reading Spark’s latest in the Love at Stake series, it made me remember why I lost interest after book two. A series has to interest me a lot to keep me reading books 3, 4 and 5. It also made me remember the things I liked about the first few books. The vampire world is interesting and clever the way it revolves around Romatech; it’s employees and it’s synthetic blood products.

The weak point for me in this book came in with the two main characters Toni and Ian. These two aren’t real deep thinkers. Toni seems to think that she can just prove that vampires really exist to spring her friend from a psychiatric hospital. She doesn’t really think that one all the way through and comes off as not having a lot of common sense. When she comes clean about her plan it of course has to become a point of conflict between her and Ian. Manufactured conflict is one of the biggest turn offs for me in romance.

Ian, meanwhile isn’t the sharpest of the fang-tooths. He’s almost 500 years old but has never learned how to flirt with a woman. He is also convinced that he can only date a vampire because she’ll “understand” him better. This despite other vampires (including his boss) who have successfully married humans. It just seemed to me that the characters were thinking and talking the way the plot required, rather than what would come naturally to them.

Release Date: December 1, 2008
ISBN: 9780061118463

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