Claimed by Rebecca Zanetti

A DARING RESCUE

Emma Paulsen is a geneticist driven by science. But she’s also a psychic, so when a dark, good-hearted vampire frees her from the clutches of the evil Kurjans, she realizes he must be the man who’s been haunting her dreams. But with a virus threatening vampires’ mates, Emma may discover a whole new meaning of “lovesick”. . .

A DEADLY DECISION

As King of the Realm, Dage Kayrs has learned to practice diplomacy. Still, it’s taken three hundred years to find his mate, so he’ll stop at nothing to protect her—even if it means turning his back on his own kind…

 

Claimed (Dark Protectors, book two) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: September 15, 2021

End date: September 19, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: intimate partner violence, child abuse

            I liked that this book had an actual plot unlike the last book in the series. Emma Paulsen and Cara Kayrs were captured by the Kurjans at the end of Fated. Cara is rescued, and then Emma is rescued offscreen. Claimed starts by showing what happened offscreen. Emma has been whisked off in a helicopter on her way to a Kurjan named Franco who wants to force her to be his mate. Dage teleports (because that’s a power that some vampires have in this series apparently) to Emma’s location and kills the Kurjans in the helicopter before teleporting again with Emma to an area not far from the helicopter crash site. From there, Emma is reunited with her sister and introduced to her new in-laws.

Fated by Rebecca Zanetti

 

MARRY ME

Cara Paulsen does not give up easily. A scientist and a single mother, she’s used to fighting for what she wants, keeping a cool head, and doing whatever it takes to protect her daughter Janie. But “whatever it takes” has never before included a shotgun wedding to a dangerous-looking stranger with an attitude problem…

OR ELSE

Sure, the mysterious Talen says that he’s there to protect Cara and Janie. He also says he’s a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Of course, the way he touches her, Cara might actually believe he’s had that long to practice…

 

Fated (Dark Protectors, book one) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: August 30, 2021

End date: September 1, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: unhealthy representation of BDSM

I knew from the first scene that I wasn’t going to like this book very much. The story opens with Cara Paulsen being forced to flee her home by a stranger. Janie, Cara’s four-year-old daughter, wakes her up crying that “the bad men” are coming, and Cara’s reaction is to comfort her daughter who clearly had a nightmare. Then Cara hears noises in her house and immediately believes it’s the evil people. For being a scientist, Cara doesn’t think like one. If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. She doesn’t believe she’s being robbed or any other explanation for why someone might be in her house. Her immediate reaction is to run into the bathroom and try to escape through the window, which is at least logical. When the intruder bursts into the bathroom, what she has to say isn’t logical:

“You have the wrong house.” (Zanetti 3)

            I’ll let that reaction rub you, dear reader, the wrong way like it did me.

At Grave's End by Jeaniene Frost

 

SOME THINGS WON’T STAY BURIED…

AT GRAVE’S END

It should be the best time of half-vampire Cat Crawfield’s life. With her undead lover Bones at her side, she’s successfully protected mortals from the rogue undead. But though Cat’s worn disguise after disguise to keep her true identity a secret from the brazen bloodsuckers, her cover’s finally been blown, placing her in terrible danger.

As if that wasn’t enough, a woman from Bones’s past is determined to bury him once and for all. Caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful vamp, yet determined to help Bones stop a lethal magic from being unleashed, Cat’s about to learn the true meaning of bad blood. And the tricks she’s learned as a special agent won’t help her. She will need to fully embrace her vampire instincts in order to save herself—and Bones—from a fate worse than the grave.

At Grave’s End (Night Huntress, book three) by Jeaniene Frost

Start date: July 25, 2021

End date: July 27, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: sexual harassment, torture, sexual assault, offensive language

I’ve been reading this series purely out of spite. It started off with me despising Cat and chuckling at how badly written the rest of the characters are. I love to send snippets of the outlandish dialogue to my friends. I enjoy picking apart the plot to expose all the holes. (Where are the editors?) I love to hate it. The writing is awful, but each book gets a tiny bit closer to good writing.

One Foot in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

 

YOU CAN RUN FROM THE GRAVE, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE . . .

Half-vampire Cat Crawfield is now Special Agent Cat Crawfield, working for the government to ride the world of the rogue undead. She’s still using everything Bones, her sexy and dangerous ex, taught her, but when Cat is targeted for assassination, the only man who can help her is the vampire she left behind.

Being around him awakens all her emotions, from the adrenaline kick of slaying vamps side by side to the reckless passion that consumed them. But a price on her head—wanted dead or half-alive—means her survival depends on teaming up with Bones. And no matter how hard she tries to keep things professional between them, she’ll find that desire lasts forever . . . and that Bones won’t let her get away again.

One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, book two) by Jeaniene Frost

Start date: July 2021

End date: July 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warnings: sexual harassment, transphobia, bad writing

It’s been nearly five years since the events in Halfway to the Grave. Catherine “Cat” Crawfield has settled into her new life as Special Agent Catrina Arthur or maybe it’s Cristine Russell or Red Reaper or Brunette Reaper or somehow still Cat despite staging her death under that name. Not even a quarter of the way into the book, everyone gives up on any of the new names and all the characters call her Cat. The reason she needed a new name in the first place is because she killed the governor of Ohio at the end of the previous book, and a prerequisite to working for the secret government agency was to fake her death. Her mother, teammates, and even a new friend, Denise, call her by her old name except when they’re in public, but they don’t even seem to remember to do that all the time. Because of her noncommittal to her new identity, it wouldn’t be difficult for bad guys to track her down (spoiler alert: that’s what happens).

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

 

FLIRTING WITH THE GRAVE . . .

Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father—the one responsible for ruining her mother’s life. Then she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.

In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner—are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn’t have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress book one) by Jeaniene Frost

Start date: July 11, 2021

End date: July 12, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Content warning: sexual assault, offensive language 

I’m going to admit something tragic. I only chose to read this book because I was curious to see how the author would write the story past the premise. I knew full well I wasn’t going to like it, but I read it anyway.

The main character is Catherine “Cat” Crawfield, a 22-year-old who lives at home with her single mother and elderly grandparents in the backwards, little town of Licking Falls, Ohio. She has put off going to college initially to take care of her grandparents, but she spends most of her time killing vampires as retribution for the vampire who ruined her mother’s life. You see, Cat is a vampire hunter who’s also a half-vampire.

Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson

From Just-Laid-Off Secretary to Queen of the Undead… 

It's been a helluva week for Betsy Taylor. First, she loses her job. Then, to top things off, she's killed in a car accident. But what really bites (besides waking up in the morgue dressed in a pink suit and cheap shoes courtesy of her stepmother) is that she can't seem to stay dead. Every night she rises, with a horrible craving for blood. She's not taking too well to a liquid diet. 

Worst of all, her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious, power-hungry vampire in five centuries—a badly dressed Bela Lugosi wannabe, natch. Frankly, Betsy couldn’t care less about vamp politics, but they have a powerful weapon of persuasion: designer shoes. How can any self-respecting girl say no? But a collection of Ferragamos isn’t the only temptation for Betsy. It’s just a lot safer than the scrumptious Sinclair—a seductive bloodsucker whose sexy gaze seems as dangerous as a stake through the heart…

Undead and Unwed (Queen Betsy, book one) by MaryJanice Davidson

Start date: Tuesday, July 8, 2014

End date: Friday, July 11, 2014

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

            When the novel begins, Elizabeth "Betsy" Taylor is already (un)dead. The day before her death unfolds in that she is late for work, fixes the copy machine for her incompetent coworkers, and chases after her cat who is stuck in snow on the other side of the road. A truck hits her while she crosses the street and her body slams into a tree, killing her. She wakes up in a funeral parlor dressed in a tacky, pink power suit and her stepmother's last year, knock-off designer shoes. It's her mission to recover her designer shoes from her stepmother, which she does within the first forty pages, and then the rest of the novel is focused on other vampires mixing her up in their politics.