Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor is having a tough time getting through the Book of the Dead. That is until she strikes a deal with the Devil. Now everyone knows that bargaining with Satan never ends well but Betsy can't pass up the chance of actually finishing the cursed thing. So what is the catch?Betsy and her half-sister Laura have to go to Hell so Laura can embrace her dark heritage. It is finally time for Laura to make nice with her mother and learning all the cool, if somewhat devilish, abilities that the daughter of Satan possesses. What Betsy and Laura didn't realise is that they would actually be learning by doing. Messing with the past and future is dirty work in more ways than one but of course that's what Lucifer wanted all along. Damn her.
Book nine in the series and things started off weird. Not normal Betsy weird but 'I want to give up on the book' weird. Yes you read that right. I was going to give up on this new installment even though it is one of my favourite series and I have been following it since the start. Why? Well it was Betsy's fault. She was being extremely annoying, boring and just spoilt. Like a child who is seeking attention, I felt like I should ignore her. Luckily I have a lot of faith in the author and pushed through.
It took about half of the book before things got interesting. Very interesting. It was like the story was travelling the wrong way on a one way street and finally turned around and went the right way. Even though I had no idea why the author decided to trick me in this way I started to enjoy the book and couldn't wait to see what happened next. The second half of the book had little twists and turns which sometimes surprised me but at other times seemed logical. The second half was where all the action took place and it was worth the wait.
Getting to know Laura and her mother was a thrilling experience and made for great reading. Betsy still behaved like a brat (her words not mine) most of the time but I managed to get over it because of the content of the story that was unraveling itself. I did miss the other characters a little. Sure there were there in the background but they didn't have main parts this time around. A nice change but also a little unusual.
Fans will be left a little shocked and amazed by the ending of Undead and Unfinished. I am not sure if there will be another installment in this series or if that was the last we will see of Betsy. However I can say that if there is another Undead book there will definitely be some changes and things will surely go in a different direction than we all expected.
After a bumpy start this turned out to be a nice addition to the series and while it isn't my favourite one so far it certainly does make an impact. I am looking forward to more Betsy if it comes because there are some questions I still want to see answered. Although I am also happy to leave things how they ended or maybe I am just fed up of waiting a whole year for a new episode?
3 comments:
I have mixed feelings about this series. I loved it at first - lots of laughs. But then I noticed that there was a lot of shrieking or screaming going on with Betsy's character. Couldn't she just shout, or talk firmly? Does everything have to be screamed? After raising a daughter that has ....temper issues, I don't want to read main characters that scream and shriek a lot.
So when the books started coming out in hardback, and costing over $23 for essentially under 300 pages of screaming and shrieking...I decided to wait for paperbacks...but it seems to be a two year wait for a paperback version. Hell, I waited sooooo long for the last Betsy paperback that I bought that I don't even know if I have the latest book or not, I don't know if it's book 7, or 6, or even 8. I do know that I started to read it....and tried to read it again....I couldn't keep my interest up. I used to love the Betsy books. Maybe one day I'll try it again. I know if I buy the 9th book, it'll be the paperback version...probably in about two years.
I also tried the Fred the mermaid books - same thing with the screaming - except Fred isn't a selfish fashionista, no she's in a perpetual bad mood - always angry. Not my taste.
I used to LOVE MJD's writing.
Great review. Thanks for the heads-up about the slow start. This will probably motivate me not to put it down until the end.
OH! Thank you for the cranium's up on the bumpy start to this one. I'll wait until it's out in MPB anyway, this just confirms the decision. I love MJD, but I am a wee bit cheap....er frugal....
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