Review: THE CARE AND FEEDING OF STRAY VAMPIRES

The Care And Feeding Of Stray Vampires by Molly Harper
Book 1 of the Half Moon Hollow series
Read by Amanda Ronconi
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook

About The Care And Feeding Of Stray Vampires:

Iris Scanlon, Half-Moon Hollow's only daytime vampire concierge, knows more about the undead than she'd like. Running all their daylight errands - from letting in the plumber to picking up some chilled O neg - gives her a look at the not-so-glamorous side of vampire life. Her rules are strict; relationships with vamps are strictly business, not friendship - and certainly not anything else. But then she finds her newest client, Cal, poisoned on his kitchen floor, and only Iris can help.

Cal - who would be devastatingly sexy, if Iris allowed herself to think that way - offers Iris a hefty fee for hiding him at her place until he figures out who wants him permanently dead. Even though he's imperious, unfriendly, and doesn't seem to understand the difference between "employee" and "servant", Iris agrees, and finds herself breaking more and more of her own rules to help him - particularly those concerning nudity. Turns out what her quiet little life needed was some intrigue and romance - in the form of her very own stray vampire.

©2012 Molly Harper White (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Source: Info in the About The Care And Feeding Of Stray Vampires was taken from http://www.audible.co.uk/pd?asin=B008PEACE2 on 24/06/2013.

Review:

I am, by now, an old audiobook listener and I have heard many kinds of narrators in my time thus far. Some I swore I would never ever listen to ever again. Some I tolerated but would, maybe, rather read the paperback than listen to. (And that is not complimentary in the audiobook industry.) Some I became a die hard fan of and is an auto-buy for me, just like the authors I read. However, this is the first audiobook I've listened by Amanda Ronconi and I have to say that I am fast becoming a fan. Her words are clear and distinct. The diction perfect. And the quality of her voice is not aggravating to the ears. In fact it was sampling her reading in audible which lead me into buying this book! So I bought this book because I liked the what I heard in the audible sample. And plus the fact that this is in the urban fantasy genre. However if this book was presented to me on it's own as a paperback and not as an audiobook sample I don't think it would really ping my book-buying radar because the premise is very ordinary. As in, it has been used a few times too many around the block already. Namely, True Blood series. So the audiobook sampling was, really, a good marketing strategy! The bad news is, like True Blood's Sookie Stackhouse, our heroine is also too stupid to live (TSTL). However I blame the plot rather than the character development here because it is pretty obvious that the character(s) deliberately acted stupid to create a dilemma in the story so that our heroes could show off and save the world. Pretty weak plot. Not to mention that it also has the annoying "character inconsistency" issues! But me being an urban fantasy geek, likes the vampires and the world building in the story! But even that wouldn't make me spend money on a book in this series again. If ever, I would borrow it from the library.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3
Character development = 2
Story itself = 2
Ending = 3.5
World building = 3.5
Cover art = 3
Pace = (8hrs and 55mins listening time)
Plot = 1
Narration = 4

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Half Moon Hollow Series: