If you’re looking for a light summer read you might want to try Undead and Uneasy by MaryJanice Davidson. I’ll forewarn you that it has its moments of silliness, but if you approach it knowing that, you should might be okay. Maybe. Perhaps.

Most of the humor in the book occurs because of the heroine, Betsy. Or I should say, Queen Betsy. You see, Betsy is a 30-year old super master vampire with powers that other vampires would die for. Sorry about that.


Betsy can:

• walk outside on a sunny day;
• go for several weeks without needing to feed;
• survive being stabbed through the heart (it hurts a bit, but it’s not life threatening);
• drink holy water;
• attend church or other religious ceremonies.

However, Betsy is also:

• incredibly vain and egocentric;
• petty and shallow;
• dense as a thick fog.

These qualities can make her character a bit irritating.

Anyway, this installment in the Queen Betsy series finds Betsy finally preparing for her wedding to the incredibly handsome Sinclair, the “King” of the vampires. Sinclair makes it clear that he’s not interested in the marriage ceremony because according to vampire lore, he and Betsy are already married. He sees no reason for participating in a wedding, a human tradition. This results in an argument between he and Betsy and as a result, Sinclair leaves.

Betsy’s best friend Jessica is still battling cancer. This is a theme that you’d think wouldn’t fit in a lightweight book like this but it does. It gives Betsy someone to worry about besides deciding which shoes to wear and helps balance out the ridiculous machinations of the heroine. Jessica spends most of the book in the hospital and things are at times pretty grim.

Marc, the gay physician that lives in Jessica’s mansion with Betsy and Sinclair, suddenly disappears. Garrett and his werewolf girlfriend Antonia (who also live in the mansion) disappear as well. And Tina, another live-in vampire, is away in France attending a meeting. As a result Betsy ends up mysteriously alone and unable to reach anyone. Not even Sinclair, who has never left Betsy alone for an extended period of time. However since Betsy is such an airhead someone else has to connect the dots for her. Duh. Thus the central “plot” in the book focuses on Betsy’s attempts to find out who’s responsible for Sinclair’s disappearance.

Okay, you can probably tell that I wasn’t incredibly pleased with the book, even though I’ve read the other books in the series and knew what to expect from Betsy. The problem is that the “Betsy is a dumb blonde” theme can be a bit tiring. I’m not sure where MaryJanice Davidson is going to take this series because it’s starting to get repetitive. Let’s see: Betsy obsesses over some new designer shoes. A mystery occurs. Betsy has sex with Sinclair. She selects a new designer outfit. Betsy works on the mystery. She gets new shoes. Betsy stumbles upon the solution to the mystery. The End.

But then again perhaps the fans of this romantic paranormal fantasy series really like these qualities about Betsy. I wonder: is it just me?

So I went looking for other reviews of the book. Although what I found was a mixed bag the reviews were primarily positive. At Amazon.com, 79% of the 63 reviewers gave it 4 or 5 stars. Interesting. It doesn’t affect how I feel about the book though. I still think MaryJanice Davidson spends too much time trying to make us laugh about Betsy’s flaws which tends to overshadow and weaken the plot. Because so much time is spent on this effort the book, at 270 pages, feels more like an extended short story than a complete novel.

Unless you’re a big MaryJanice Davidson fan and are willing to overlook Betsy’s tiresome personality, I recommend that you borrow Undead and Uneasy from the library. I really wanted to like this book more but I just couldn’t get past the heroine’s tendency to plod along oblivious to the people and events around her.

For more about MaryJanice Davidson’s Betsy the Vampire Queen series see:

Undead and Unreturnable