I had heard good things about a series of books by Maryjanice Davidson featuring the new Queen of the vampires. Since I tend to like books and movies about vampires, I hunted up the first book, Undead and Unwed. I really enjoyed it and quickly picked up the second book, Undead and Unemployed. I recently finished reading Undead and Unappreciated, the third book in the series.
I want to share a little bit of background information on the series in general before I specifically talk about Undead and Unappreciated. There could be spoilers for people who haven’t read the first two books yet. The series focuses on Elizabeth - Betsy - Taylor, an expensive shoe obsessed young woman that woke up a vampire after her death in an accident. Betsy adjusted to her new life as best she could. She told her best friend Jessica as well as her family. Jessica and her mother were very accepting. Her father and step mother preferred to pretend that Betsy was dead. Betsy ended up working with Eric Sinclair, a very powerful vampire, and Tina, a vampire very loyal to Eric to overthrow a very powerful, evil vampire. Betsy wasn’t harmed by things that harmed other vampires which made her very unique. According to the Book of the Dead, a sort of Bible for vampires, Betsy was the Queen of the vampires and Eric was her consort. Betsy wasn’t happy about ruling with Eric for 1,000 years and tried to push him away. She ended up working with him to stop a group that was killing vampires. Betsy also had to deal with the fact that her step mother was pregnant.
Betsy wasn’t happy when Eric returned from a trip to Europe. She didn’t know or care why he’d gone. She had just been glad she hadn’t had to deal with him for a while. She had inherited a vampire nightclub that she was trying to run. The staff didn’t like the way she was running things. She was still trying to adjust to the idea that Antonia, her stop mother, was having a baby when her father let it slip that Antonia had a baby many years before. Eric and Tina shared that the Book of the Dead said that Betsy’s sister would be the daughter of the devil and take over the world. Eric had thought the book was referring to the unborn baby, which was why he hadn’t told Betsy. She was very upset that he’d kept something else from her. She decided to read the Book of the Dead for herself so she wouldn’t have to rely on Eric to know what the book said even though if the book was read too long it would make a person insane. Betsy lost track of time and turned evil for a while, doing things that she felt horrible about once she was back to normal. She had to try to make up for what she had done while trying to find her half-sister.
I’m not sure exactly how long after the end of Undead and Unemployed that Undead and Unappreciated had started. At the beginning of the book, Eric and Tina returned from a trip to Europe that had lasted several weeks. Betsy had no idea why they had gone and didn’t bother asking. Betsy was good at blocking out things or ignoring them completely when she didn’t want to deal with them. The reason for the trip remained a mystery. I’m not sure if it will be explained in the next book or not. Once Eric and Tina were back, not much else was said about the trip, so I guessed it wasn’t too important, though I could be wrong about that. This book did have a different plot from the first two books, but it did build on events that had happened in them. Some things will make more sense if the books are read in order.
The Book of the Dead was mentioned in the first book since it was considered very important to vampires. The books sounded rather icky since it was written in blood on human skin. If the book was read for too long at one time, the person - or vampire - reading it would go insane. The book had been written hundreds of years ago and contained information about Betsy and her sister. Neither of them were identified by name. Eric had figured out that Betsy was the Queen because the book said that a female vampire that wasn’t harmed by certain things, like sunlight or holy water would be the Queen. Eric read the book in small bits at a time to learn things that he didn’t always immediately tell Betsy about. Betsy got mad once she found out that he had known about her sister and hadn’t told her. She decided to read the book for herself, totally ignoring everything that she’d been told about it before. That did add some complications since she read it long enough to turn evil for a short time. I did think it was interesting to see how the book changed her. I did like that more about the Book of the Dead was shared. Another interesting bit about the vampire world created for this series was shared after Betsy got a pedicure.
Most of Undead and Unappreciated focused on Betsy trying to find her half sister once she knew about her. According to this book, the devil was a woman and had possessed Antonia long enough to get pregnant and have the baby. After the baby was born, the devil didn’t care for taking care of a newborn and left Antonia’s body. The baby was adopted and would be old enough to be in college once Betsy started looking for her. Eric and Tina had concerns since the Book of the Dead said that Betsy’s sister would take over the world. I did think this part of the story was interesting even though it really didn’t add much mystery to the book. Once Betsy actually started looking, it took her practically no time to find her half sister. That didn’t make me like the book any less, though I would have enjoyed a stronger mystery. There was a small amount of action and some violence later in the book.
Betsy and Eric continued to have a turbulent relationship. Betsy was shocked when she finally realized her true feelings for him. Eric has been constant in what his feelings were for her since the first book. Their relationship did suffer for a while in the aftermath of Betsy being evil. Their relationship did improve once they finally talked a few things over. I liked it better once they had worked things out and Betsy wasn’t trying to pick fights with him all the time. There were a few sex scenes between them. The scenes were descriptive without being too graphic. The scenes may be too descriptive for some readers. Anyone that doesn’t like to read those types of scenes may want to stay away from this book.
Undead and Unappreciated was written in the first person point of view from Betsy’s perspective like the first two books were. All of her thoughts and feelings were shared about what was going on, making her the most developed character. Her thought process can be unique and did add a lot of humor to the book. She could be thinking about one thing and quickly get distracted by something else. That seemed to happen most often with shoes. When Betsy read the Book of the Dead, her entire thought process changed. Her obsession with shoes went right out the window. She did seem to be a little more logical about a few things during that time, but she just wasn’t Betsy anymore. It was interesting to see how much she changed when she was under the book’s influence.
Several other characters have also been in all of the books with Betsy. Eric quickly became important to the series once he was officially the King and Betsy’s consort. He hasn’t received as much attention as Betsy, so he hasn’t been as developed. Tina was a very old vampire that actually made Eric a vampire. Tina still looked the young age she was when she became a vampire. Even though she was older than Eric, she looked to him as a leader and was very loyal to him. Jessica was Betsy’s best friend and had never been bothered by the fact that she was now a vampire. Jessica was very rich and used her money to help people. She and Marc, the young doctor that became Betsy’s friend in the first book, tended to make decisions without Betsy’s input. George was a feral vampire that had been created by Nostro. He enjoyed refusing to let new vampires eat when the first rose, which turned them into savage creatures. Betsy wouldn’t stake them and George seemed to be attached to her. He showed up at the house and moved into the basement where he started acting more normal. Betsy’s father and Antonia were in a few short scenes. Antonia continued to hate Betsy and not want her around.
Undead and Unappreciated was another very funny, entertaining book in the series about Betsy. There really isn’t much mystery in them, so people looking for that, or a more serious, dark vampire book should pick something else. People that have read and enjoyed the first two books should definitely pick up this one.
Undead Series
~ Undead and Unwed ~ Undead and Unemployed ~ Undead and Unappreciated ~ Undead and Unreturnable ~ A Fiend in Need (Short Story in Dead and Loving It) ~ Undead and Unpopular ~ Undead and Uneasy ~
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