Undead and Unworthy (Queen Betsy, Book 7)
Berkley Hardcover - Berkley Hardcover
Release date: 2008-06-24
Hardcover
Author: MaryJanice Davidson
American Horror Fiction, American Light Romantic Fiction, Fiction, Fiction - Romance, Romance - Paranormal, Newlyweds, Sinclair, Eric (Fictitious character), Taylor, Betsy (Fictitious character)
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Undead and Unworthy (Queen Betsy, Book 7)
Date undefinedThis was a quick read like her other books but I did not like the ending but after reading Dead And Loving It(A Fiend in Need) made everything come together in the end. Also the first killing of the fiends really made me sad because it was my favorite character. This book has quite a bit of blood and not a lot of laughs. Personally the cover sucks-if it was in a bookstore I would have just walked past it and picked up another book.
Undead and Unworthy (Queen Betsy, Book 7)
Date undefinedI've loved the Undead series so far, but Betsy has used up her "I'm new at this and so don't take it seriously" gimmick. That author Davidson seems to be taking the character in a new, slightly tougher, direction is good. Not that I want the lightheartedness to go away, but Betsy needs to evolve for the series to maintain some momentum. This book is arguably a bit thin, but if, as promised, it serves as a bridge to a new level for Betsy, it's worth it. I'll be buying the eighth book in the series to see whether Davidson delivers.
Undead and Unworthy (Queen Betsy, Book 7)
Date undefined
This comedy vampire thriller is number seven in a series which incongruously combines chick lit, romantic comedy and vampire thriller - from the viewpoint of the new and very incongruous Queen of the Vampires. Imagine a cross between "Sex and the City" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and you've roughly got the idea.
The plotlines of the first six books were all more or less resolved in number six, "Undead and Uneasy" so "Undead and Unworthy" kicks off which Mary Janice Davidson (MJD) calls a new "story arc" - she also says that this will be a trilogy.
The full list of Queen Betsy stories to date is
1) Undead and Unwed
2) Undead and Unemployed
3) Undead and Unappreciated
4) Undead and Unreturnable
5) Undead and Unpopular
6) Undead and Uneasy.
7) Undead and Unworthy
There is also a "Queen Betsy" story in "Dead over Heels" which is a collection of three paranormal romance novellas. In my opinion you will get most out of these books if you read them in order: I would start with "Undead and Unwed" and work on from there.
The "Queen Betsy" books are told in the first person by Elizabeth Taylor, who prefers to be called Betsy for obvious reasons. The first words of the series are "The day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry."
Betsy is a former model and is still a fashion fanatic: at the start of the series, on the morning of her disastrous 30th birthday, she is working as a secretary. Her main interests are designer shoes, designer clothes, and her cat. In quick succession she gets fired, loses her cat, and is killed in a car accident. It is a great surprise to her when she rises again as a most unusual vampire. It is even more of a surprise when, through a sequence of bizarre events, she becomes queen of the vampires.
At the start of this seventh book, the initial chaos which results from Betsy's accession to the Vampire Throne appears to have died down. Then, in quick succession,
* Betsy's ghastly and recently-deceased stepmother Antonia starts
haunting her
* Local detective Nick Berry, who is also the boyfriend of Betsy's best friend Jessica, asks Betsy for some discreet help in solving the horrible murders of a number of gangsters - he suspects that a rogue element of the police force has found a way to get rid of local criminals without the tedious business of gathering evidence or attending court by paying a vampire or fiend to murder them.
* Betsy and her friends are attacked by a pack of ungrateful fiends.
There will be a lot of confusing and amusing shenanagans before all this is sorted out ...
Mary Davidson has great fun with the incongruity of mixing up the vampire genre as in Laurell Hamilton's "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" series (or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Chick-Lit romantic comedy a la "Sex and the City." This series is way over the top, fairly sexy, and usually very funny.
An interesting comparison with other authors who have written entertaining comedies by combining incongruous genres would be with Marianne Mancusi and Robert Frezza.
In the same way that this book gets plenty of laughs by combining chick lit with Vampires, Frezza write two very funny books which combined Vampires and Science Fiction ("McLendon's Syndrome" and "The VMR Theory") and Mancusi combined chick lit with time travel in "A Connecticut Fashionista at King Arthur's Court" and "A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest." Anyone who likes this book is likely to enjoy all four of those, and vice versa, if you have read and enjoyed one of those books you may well enjoy this one.
OK, this is never going to win the Booker Prize or any other great award for classic literature, and it is fairly raunchy, so not suitable for children. However, if you have the right sort of sense of humour, it is pretty good fun. I can recommend "Undead and Unworthy" and also enjoyed reading the rest of the series.
