Rhymes With Vampire: a Portero short

by Dia Reeves

[Angie]

I really enjoyed Bleeding Violet by this author, and I hope to read her other novel, Slice of Cherry, soon, but in the mean time I decided to check out her short stories. Both of these take place in the very strange town of Portero, Texas, where the unusual roams free and the citizens would rather go unnoticed.

Take Your Dead Ass Home ★★★☆☆
The first story in this collection definitely embodies Portero's weirdness. Trey is being haunted by his dead girlfriend, and just wants her to move on. Benni, however, is still in love with him and never wants to leave his side. Unfortunately, while Benni can still talk to Trey, she's not exactly in a human form. She's some kind of weird color-changing blob, so a relationship is out of the question! But she does come up with the perfect plan to get her boyfriend back, if not her body. This story was strange, but I like that, obviously. Benni was pretty annoying though, but her after-life situation was very creative.

Rhymes With Vampire ★★★☆☆
The other story is quite different from the first. It's still set in Portero, of course, but it's set during the 1920s! It doesn't really add much to the story as whole, except for the highly disturbing speakeasy where it starts out. Rebecca thinks her boyfriend is a vampire since he keeps strange hours and she saw one of his friends feeding from a human in an alley. However, Becca is terribly wrong, and the truth is not something she wants to deal with. This one was much more gory than what I've read previously from this author, but I still thought this story was a fun read. Portero is definitely an interesting place, even nearly 100 years ago.