I’ve had the Glory St. Clair series by Gerry Bartlett as one of my challenges this year and I have no idea why I’ve waited this long to read it. The first novel, Real Vampires Have Curves was a really fun read. It was hard coming up with a summary for this novel, but I think Amazon summed it up nicely.
Plus-sized vampire Glory St. Claire has a new business venture and an old, on-off boyfriend. Blade wants to protect her from the techno-freak vampire hunter stalking the streets of Austin, but it’s time for Glory to explore her own powers.
I have to say, that I really liked the quirkiness of Bartlett’s writing style. Not only does she give us a fun new character to love, one who isn’t a size 2 and still flaunts it, but she adds a problem that is totally believable of a 400 year old vampire. I mean, after 400 years, you would think a vampire would start to acquire a lot of stuff. Not the problem you were thinking it was, huh. That’s the beautiful part about this novel, all expectations are thrown out. I will say that there were parts that were a little obvious on how they were going to end up, but we’re dealing with a vampire culture that is trying to blend and they don’t keep tabs on all the new trends. I think that aspect is what makes the vampires so much more intriguing to me. We’re dealing with vampires who haven’t kept up to date with the times and they catch up as they need to.
The plot went well with the atmosphere that Bartlett was trying for. We have a serious to the vamps conflict, but it wasn’t earth shattering. They’ve had to deal with vampire hunters before, but never one who has had technology behind them. It’s a new fight and while it energizes some, it made Glory realize that she’s been neglecting her vamp powers for all the wrong reasons. While the resolution was left open for future novels, the final conflict did end in an interesting way. Well, the ending did leave me with a few questions, but mainly involving the relationship between Glory and Blade. All throughout the book it seems like Blade wants to get back with Glory, but then everything at the end screams “friends only”. So I’m interested to see how Real Vampires Live Large goes with this.
Overall, I’m impressed. I was a little disinterested in the series in the beginning, but now it has my attention. So far, it’s been fun and easy to read. It’s easily comparable to the Queen Betsy series by MaryJanice Davidson and I’ve been looking for a new light series to read. I do have Real Vampires Live Large sitting next to me to read, so I’m going to go start it.
Read Order:
Real Vampires Have Curves
Real Vampires Live Large
Real Vampires Get Lucky
Real Vampires Don’t Diet (1/6/09)
Also reviewed by:
Amberkatze’s Book Blog
Seems like a fun series and one I would be interested in reading. I bought all the Undead and….-series (when there were about 3 or 4 books out) but never read them before they all went to a friend as a b-day gift. I have thought about getting them again, but this also sounds like a fun series. Thanks for posting.
Sounds like a great read! Thanks for the suggestion. I’m always looking for another vampire series.
Oh, this sounds very fun. That is an interesting problem for a vampire to have – a pack rat thing! Plus, if you were going to live forever, you’d need the stuff again, presumably.
I guess I should mention that the majority of Glory’s store has clothes. As in clothes from the 20s, 50s, 60s, etc. Would you really want to keep those clothes around for who knows how long in the hopes they come back in style?
I kinda want to read this series!
the title of this one is intriguing by itself.