In the next book in Molly Harper’s beloved Half Moon Hollow paranormal romance series, Gigi starts her first job (at Vampire Headquarters), gets over her first love, and may even fall for her first vampire!
Gigi is no longer an innocent teen. All grown up and looking for love, her family and friends worry she’ll go for the sexy, alluring vampire instead of a nice, safe human. But sexy and alluring, with a penchant for biting, could be just what Gigi wants...
- ISBN10 1476706042
- ISBN13 9781476706047
- Publish Date 24 March 2015
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Simon & Schuster
- Imprint Pocket Books
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Pages 368
- Language English
Reviews
MurderByDeath
I'm going to go with 3.5 stars on this one.
If you're a Molly Harper fan, this one is not a disappointment, but it's not her best. If you've not read Molly Harper before, this is not the book I'd suggest starting with (that would be the first Jane Jameson book, Nice Girls Don't have Fangs).
A couple of things that held back my full enjoyment: for starters, the title has no bearing on the story at all. I have absolutely no idea what it is supposed to refer to and I kept waiting for it's basis to be revealed.
Additionally, there's usually more of a mysterious element to the plot, and this one lacked any such questions. Well, that might not be true: there was some mystery at first about who was behind Nik's odd behaviour, but that's solved well before the end of the book. I guess you could say the book had a rolling plot: questions/mysteries pop up and are solved as the book progresses.
The final climatic scene, however, wasn't in any way a big reveal; I can't believe anybody who reads this doesn't know who is going to walk in that door. I still had a great time reading this though - I love all the characters in Half Moon Hollow and Ms. Harper is an ace when it comes to writing characters I love to read about. Plus, if there was such a thing as a "snark" ranking, she'd be #1 on the list. Her humor is mine and I'll gladly read just about anything she writes.
Melanie
I love my trips to Half-Moon Hollow. While I’m still behind on Jane Jameson series, which is set in the same town with the tons of character overlap, I’ve stayed up-to-date on this series and the Naked Werewolf series. This book focuses on Gigi, Iris’s little sister from the first book in this series. I loved Gigi. She is quite the computer geek, which speaks to the geek in me. Our hero is a vamp that works for the council. He has some pretty cool powers that the council finds handy, he can see who has handled objects.
The pop culture references are always a big hit in Half-Moon Hollow series, or any Molly Harper series for that matter. I love the characters who are all a lot of fun.
Narration
I love Amanda Ronconi’s narration of all of Molly Harper’s books. She has a great way of bringing out the snark in some great characters. She also does well with some different accents and the male and female voices. I’ve listened to her do this and the Naked Werewolf series. I still need to get back to Jane Jameson series, which is on my TBL list for this year.
EBookObsessed
Gigi’s story began with the novella, I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas. I remember being quite ticked off when it ended abruptly. I was unaware when I started it that it was an incomplete story but now that Rebound Vampire is out, grab a copy of both so it flows better. In the novella, Gigi was applying for a summer job with the Vampire Council and she was being stalked by a ghost? a vampire? we weren’t sure because he moved so fast Gigi never got a clear glance at him. We were left wondering if someone sent him after Gigi? Why was he hiding from her, yet stalking her? Is he shy or does he mean her harm?
We pick up as Gigi gets ready to start her summer job at the Vampire Council office. She is part of a team that is going to program a database where vampires can search their descendants, like an anti-ancestry.com. Her team consists of three other tech-geeks, including a nerd named Marty who quickly crushes on Gigi. This makes it harder on Gigi when her team names her Team Leader, leaving it her job to go to Ophelia and tell her Marty doesn’t seem to know anything about programming.
Ophelia has never been much of a friendly, works-with-you kind of boss, but she especially has it in for Gigi. Gigi has helped her best friend, Jamie, work through the complex vampire-friendly college application progress to get enrolled into the same college that Gigi attends. As Jamie’s blood mate, Ophelia isn’t happy with either Jamie and Gigi’s friendship or Gigi’s attempts to “steal” Jamie away. So Ophelia is happy to leave Gigi saddled with a co-worker that will hinder her work with the Council.
Meanwhile, Gigi gets kissed/attacked in the Council’s parking lot by the same vampire she’s been fantasizing about for the last few months. It is only her brother-in-law Cal’s obsession with safety that saves Gigi from being a vampire snack. When she gets home and tells her family what happened, Cal decides he is going to have one of his old friends look into the situation for them. Nick walks into the house to find — surprise, surprise — that it’s Cal’s friend, Nick, who is the stalker/attacker but he doesn’t remember ever meeting or stalking or kissing Gigi. Gigi’s not sure if she is more confused or just angry that Nick doesn’t remember her at all. Especially since she’s been daydreaming about his kiss since Christmas.
Since Nick is the mysterious attacker and has been stalking Gigi since the Fall, and doesn’t remember any of it, Iris and Cal want Gigi and Nick to stay away from each other until they have more answers. So being smart adults, they meet secretly and simply hope that Nick doesn’t try to attack Gigi again.
Gigi’s work at the Council office points out a prior case where a witch bespells a vampire to go on a killing spree. With the help of relocated Irish witch Nola, Gigi goes on a Witch Hunt at the Council’s office to try and figure out who and why someone might have a grudge against Nick enough to turn him into a psychotic killer.
THOUGHTS:
I love Molly Harper’s series. She brings fun to her paranormal worlds and makes vampires even more entertaining. This was as enjoyable as the rest in the series and brought an intriguing question of what was going on with Nick and who was responsible.
I was left with at least one question that I don’t believe was completely answered and one item which I think will bring a (small) change to the series that I am not entirely happy about. We’ll see what the next book brings and whether we’ll get more satisfactory answers in the future.
I have listened to all of Molly Harper’s novels on audiobook, and even if I had read this story, I would still hear all the characters in Amanda Ronconi’s voices. She was a wonderful job giving each character it’s own personality.
Cocktails and Books
Gigi was definitely meant for a dark and brooding vampire, and of course Nik is probably all the more mysterious and enticing because all of the over protective vampires in her life want to keep them apart.
There is villain that keeps causing hijinks and it really works for the story. This is a first person story, and while that’s not always a favorite of mine, Molly Harper always has such interesting characters that I easily enjoy their inner monologues.
I definitely recommend this one, it’s a fantastic story that does a decent job of introducing new readers to the series world.
Reviewed by Sheri for Cocktails and Books