Sleeping With the Entity by Cat Devon

She has a sweet tooth and a dream.

Meet Daniella Delaney. She’s all ready to open her shop, Heavenly Cupcakes, in one of Chicago’s sleepier districts. But she’s having a hard time convincing the local business association—namely Nick St. George—that she’s a good addition to the neighborhood. Daniella hopes that her famous red velvet cupcakes will be enough to melt any man’s heart. But Nick is no ordinary man. He’s got fangs.

He has a constant craving…

As leader of the Vamptown clan, Nick has no intention of letting Daniella breathe new life into his old haunts. But something about her leaves Nick hungry…for more. He can’t control her mind like other humans, a treat that makes Daniella irresistible. Could it be that, for the first time in centuries, Nick has met his match? Love is always a force to be reckoned with. But can this vampire have his cake and eat it too?

 

Sleeping With the Entity (The Entity, book one) by Cat Devon

Start date: January 17, 2022

End date: January 21, 2022

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warnings: adoption, offensive language, gambling addiction

Daniella Delaney is opening a cupcake shop in a suburb of Chicago that unbeknownst to her is unironically called Vamptown by the local vampire clan. If that bit of on-the-nose writing bothers you, you’ll like this book as much as I did. Before I proceed, I feel like I should explain my rating process. I start every book off with five out of five stars. As I read, I deduct half stars or whole stars depending on how severe I judge something to be. I was ready to give this book two stars until the very end when it fully earned the rating that I gave it.

Nick St. George, a 200-year-old serious-to-a-fault vampire, is the leader of the clan, and it’s his job to make sure Daniella doesn’t open her shop and bring an influx of human customers onto their street. Why is that such a problem? Well, their businesses (a restaurant, tanning salon, tattoo parlor, and dentist office) are vampire run and patronized exclusively, and the vampires in this universe apparently try to maintain a low profile for undisclosed reasons.

The only business in the area that seems to be run by humans for humans is the funeral home that Daniella’s family owns on the same street, which is the same building she’s planning on opening her cupcake shop in. (Because that’s not an insensitive place for a confectionery: “I’m sorry for your loss. How many cupcakes do you want for the funeral?”) The funeral home is also where the local vampires are getting their blood supply. They compel Daniella’s brother and father using mind control for untainted blood (read: without the chemicals from embalming) from the corpses.

Ew.

Somehow the vampire working as a dentist, Doc Boomer (really), has discovered a way to “rejuvenate” the blood that’s never explained and appears to be proprietary since other vampire clans don’t know about it. Special to these vampires as well is the fact they all have the same tattoo on their body that protects them from sunlight, allowing them to be out during the day. You heard me right. An insignificant tattoo somewhere on a vampire’s skin protects their entire body from the sun’s harmful rays. (So why do they need a tanning salon then?)

Nick tries to compel Daniella not to open her shop and finds that his mind compulsion doesn’t work on her, an impossibility that should freak out a vampire who is used to compelling humans for the past couple of centuries, but it only moderately annoys and intrigues him to discover why she’s immune. Daniella immediately dislikes him, figuring he’s a rude and pushy person who doesn’t like cupcakes.

The dialogue is so unbelievable and cringeworthy that I was taken back to my community college days sitting through creative writing classes with people who were only there to fulfill an elective. The author utilizes dialogue to dump exposition and characterization. Here is how a gay character is introduced.

“It’s a lovely name.” Pat sat back in his chair. “I knew a Daniella in Paris before the Revolution. Ah, those were the days …” He paused, clearly lost in the memories. “Of course his real name was Daniel. I’ve been gay for a long time. But I’ve never been happier than I am with my current partner, Bruce. It helps that he’s a vamp, too. Not that he’s been around as long as I have.” (Devon 16)

            The other gay character, Bruce, is a stereotype of a gay man that made me want to quit reading altogether in offense. Luckily, I stuck it out so I could showcase the highlights for you.

“What are they wearing?” Bruce shuddered. “I hate the pants-on-the-floor look. I thought we were past that fashion faux pas. And look at the hair on that short one. It’s like steel wool. A good conditioner and an eyebrow wax would make a world of difference.”

“Recognize them?” Nick asked Pat.

Bruce answered first. “They are fashion don’ts, that’s for sure.” (Devon 60-61)

“The Gold Coast vamps are very natty dressers,” Bruce said. “I can’t see them hiring help wearing that attire. Tim Gunn would have a hissy fit.”

“This isn’t Project Runway,” Pat told Bruce. “This is serious business.”

“Project Runway is serious,” Bruce retorted. “I still haven’t recovered from Gretchen beating Mondo in season eight.” (Devon 62)

“They make those horror movies about clowns and then about vampires. I boycott them all. Except for the Twilight saga. Those are romantic. But I have to close my eyes for some of the fight scenes.” (Devon 124)

“They look like a bunch of zombies,” Nick said in disgust.

“With an overabundance of eye shadow,” Bruce said as he entered the Vamp Cave. “Oh, a ‘Thriller’ flash mob? I wish I’d known about it sooner.”

“Why?” Nick said. “What would you have done about it?”

“I would have joined it, of course.” (Devon 134-135)

Unfortunately, another character, Tanya, is a stereotype of a sexpot. She’s a vampire and the owner of the tanning salon on the street. She’s threatened by Daniella’s perceived closeness with Nick and throws herself at him repeatedly despite his lack of attraction to her.

“I only abstained from voting,” Tanya said. “Not from sex.” She came closer and ran her fingers down Nick’s T-shirt-covered chest. (Devon 251)

Tanya’s habit of touching Nick without his consent and relating things to sex is not only sexual harassment but assault. She’s described as not looking “like she’d eaten recently” (what does that even mean?) and having “that super-skinny look that the fashion magazines made so popular” (Devon 43). Daniella contrasts her body with Tanya’s body—“Daniella was the first to admit her own body had curves”—which pushes this into problematic areas (Devon 43). For the record, all women have curves and implying that skinny women do not is hurtful to women in general. It implies that they’re less feminine (in the vein of “real women have curves”) and, thus, lesser women. We should all strive to be better about not tearing others down and instead lift them up.

The book is rife with examples of how not to write dialogue. In going through the quotes that I set aside to share with you, dear reader, I discovered that most of the book is dialogue, which explains why there’s so much narrative exposition in it but not why it’s only done through dialogue. It goes back to that golden rule of show, don’t tell.

Meanwhile, news of Daniella’s resistance to vampire mind compulsion gets out and, still unbeknownst to her, she becomes the target of what turns out to be only one vampire named (I wish I was kidding) Miles the Mustache. A group of what Daniella misperceives as homeless “gangbangers” attempts to kidnap her outside of her cupcake shop. They turn out to be Miles’s minions. One, Andy, who seems to be the main minion, crashes a flash mob Daniella’s employee Xandra orchestrates to drum up business for the cupcake shop, and Nick sends Andy packing. Daniella is unaware of any danger up until an episode where she’s almost hit by a Hummer in the alleyway behind her cupcake shop in another attempt to kidnap her. What follows is a similar scene from Twilight.

She frowned. Maybe the concussion made her see something that wasn’t real?

“Go ahead, say it,” he dared her.

“Are you…a vampire?” she whispered. (Devon 154)

This brings me to another point: there are too many repeated references throughout this book. One-to-two is an acceptable number. Three is when callbacks/jokes are meant to be significant. This book pushes that, emphasizing everything with what seems like no cause. It’s simply bad writing. The reader is being bashed over the head at this level. I’ll include the most egregious ones. Feel free to skip over these to get to the rest of the review.

Twilight:

“Yet you saw Twilight.”

“Suz rented the DVD and I closed my eyes for the fight scenes near the end,” [Daniella] said.

…

“That’s what we want humans to think. We don’t want you going all Volturi on us.” At her blank look, [Nick] said, “You didn’t see the sequels to the Twilight movie?” (Devon 155)

“Do you want us to swear on a copy of Twilight?” Nick mocked her. (Devon 169)

Happy Days:

She was helped by the fact that the receptionist looked like Mrs. Cunningham on the classic TV sitcom Happy Days. (Devon 34)

“Well, uh, you look a little like Mrs. Cunningham from the classic TV show Happy Days,” Daniella said. (Devon 208)

“I’m glad Andy didn’t behead you. I thought maybe he was influenced by the Happy Days marathon on cable TV last night and the fact that you look like Mrs. C’s twin sister,” Bruce said. (Devon 310-311)

Prohibition:

“The brick buildings all along this block were built in the 1920s. That was an exciting time. The Roaring Twenties with flappers dancing the Charleston and men bootlegging alcohol during Prohibition.” (Devon 26)

“Those were the days,” Lois said wistfully. “Chicago had hundreds of jazz clubs. We bobbed our hair and wore short skirts. Not short by today’s standards but certainly by that time period’s. We were brash and bawdy. When Prohibition arrived, we kept the party going in back-alley speakeasies.” (Devon 143)

“The tunnels were built during the Prohibition by bootleggers wanting to move their product.” (Devon 292)

“I was turned into a vampire within an hour after my last encounter with him. Not that Miles was my sire. I was turned by the bartender at the speakeasy.” (Devon 309)

The Regency period:

Or maybe he’d take her on his mahogany desk in his library the same way he’d lifted her onto her stainless-steel worktable in her shop. Only in her ongoing fantasy he continued his seduction, loosening the fastening on his ultra-tight Regency buff breeches and freeing his manhood… (Devon 184)

He’s not a man, he’s a vampire, was Daniella’s first thought. A Regency vampire with the nickname Prince of Pleasure.

He even looked like a Regency rake at the moment. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead with Byronesque flair. All he needed was a cravat. Or to walk out of a pool the way Colin Firth did as Mr. Darcy in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice all wet and sexy. (Devon 194)

“Nick told me a little about his background.”

“He did?”

“He’s a Regency vampire.” (Devon 244)

He had that English-accent thing going on again, which she found to be incredibly sexy. A darkly erotic Mr. Darcy. Oh yeah. (Devon 289)

Dictionary definitions that are copied and pasted into the text:

“What are you doing now?”

“Checking the definition of druid. It says a druid is a priest, magician, or soothsayer in the ancient Celtic religion or a member of a present-day group claiming to represent or be derived from that religion. And under soothsayer, it says a person able to foresee the future.” (Devon 237)

While she was awake, she Googled the meaning of underwear dreams. Underclothes may represent your hidden attitudes and fears. If you dream of feeling ashamed at being seen in your underwear, this may indicate an unwillingness to reveal your feelings.

Reading on, she saw that the color of her underwear in the dream could also have meaning. She was sure it wasn’t white. She thought it was black, which could represent dark thoughts. (Devon 127-128)

“Listen to this.” She read aloud, “’Legend has it that Irish druids kept vampires locked in the hollows of ancient oak trees. Twice a year, during their druid celebrations, they’d feed unlucky people to these starving vampires. This practice was featured in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.’” (Devon 236)

There’s a lot of back-and-forth, will they/won’t they between Daniella and Nick in which they make out but don’t seal-the-deal. Nick implies that vampire/human relations are “unwise,” but it isn’t stated until much later that that is because either or both parties will die if they have sex. As it turns out, the reason Daniella is immune to vampire mind control is because she’s part druid and vampire. How this is discovered is cliché. Daniella’s father has been away on a cruise, and he returns to hand Daniella a letter that her late adoptive mother made him promise to give to her Halloween morning in the year that she was twenty-nine. The letter reveals that Daniella is half druid and has a touch of vampire ancestry. Pat, the tattoo artist member of Nick’s vampire clan, recommends taking Daniella’s blood to confirm Daniella’s mother’s claim. Nick finds a different way:

“It seems there’s a better way to test you than taking your blood.”

Feeling snarky, she said, “Is this going to be multiple choice or essay test?”

“Neither. It’s a heat sensor test. The surveillance camera takes your image, and our computer can decipher the percentages—druid, human, and vampire.”

“That’s much better. Taking blood is so old school,” she said. “How long until we get the results?”

Nick glanced at his smartphone’s screen. “Right about now. Yes, here it is. Preliminary results show that you are one-half druid, one-quarter human, and one quarter-vampire.”

“That’s just wrong. I am way more human than I am vampire!”

“You’re right. Updated final results. Forty percent human, fifty percent druid, ten percent vampire.”

“So what does this all mean?”

“That you should have sex with me.” (Devon 266)

Ignoring the obvious terrible science used to discover this, now that they know that Daniella isn’t fully human, she and Nick can have sex without risking their lives despite the fact Daniella’s still a large percentage human. I don’t know. It didn’t make sense to me either. Additionally, Nick claims vampires can’t have kids, so there’s no explanation for how Daniella has vampire ancestry.

“Can vampires have kids?”

“No.”

“Then how did I get vampire blood? Did my mother have any?”

“She was cremated, so there’s no way of knowing at this point,” he said.

“So my birth father could have been a vampire?”

“He had to be a hybrid himself or you would have a higher percentage of vampire blood in your body.” (Devon 266-267)

None of it made sense. Nick’s clan votes on and decides they must have sex. When a vampire has sex with a druid, the vampire becomes stronger, and their clan needs to be stronger to fight off attacks from Miles and his crew. Miles wants to have sex with Daniella first because apparently only the first vampire to have sex with a druid gets powers. Nick’s clan doesn’t need him to be stronger to fight off Miles; Miles should stop pursuing Daniella once she and Nick have sex, right? Wrong. Miles compels Lois, the Prohibition-era vampire who’s been working part-time in Daniella’s cupcake shop, to kidnap Daniella, which shouldn’t be possible because vampires are immune to mind control. Don’t worry, they explain it at the end:

“I’ve heard that if a human has unrequited love for a vamp shortly before she is turned by another vamp, she will remain vulnerable to the object of her feelings even after the transformation,” Doc Boomer said. “It sounds complicated, I know, but then we are dealing with vampire lore here.” (Devon 310)

As it turns out, it’s all been a ploy for Miles to get at Nick, who killed Miles’s family members back when Miles was a human. Miles became a vampire to exact revenge against Nick. Daniella is a pawn in his plan of vengeance. Spoiler for the ending coming up. Miles has Daniella at knifepoint against the wall of Nick’s business, a tacky bar and grille with one of those mounted fish on the wall.

As if on cue, the fish started singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” before falling to the floor and shattering, a large shard of wood from its base bounced up into Daniella’s hand. Without even thinking, she immediately lifted it over her shoulder and jammed it into Miles’s chest with all her might. (Devon 305)

            It was at this point that I knew I needed to give this book the lowest rating I’ve ever given a book. I have few words for how hackney an ending this was. I can’t explain the probability of the mounted fish falling off the wall or of it splintering when it fell, or the likelihood of a splinter being large amount to stake a vampire bouncing off the floor and landing directly in Daniella’s apparently wide-open hand, or the likelihood that she would grasp something flying into her hand instead of panicking. It’s all unlikely. Stars and moons aligned for this.

            There are a couple subplots badly wedged into the story and brought up at the very end to get readers to read subsequent books (Suz’s sudden Italian romance on vacation and her father’s unexpected engagement), but I will not be reading any further. Reader beware, this book is terrible.

 

Works Cited

Devon, Cat. Sleeping With the Entity. St. Martin's Press, 2013.