Bitten & Smitten

At first I was intrigued. I like chick-lit. I like vampires, and in the beginning I enjoyed Ms Rowen's blend of the two. Then she jumped on the popular bandwagon begun by "Twilight" and I lost all interest in and respect for the main character. There is a scene (spoiler alert!) where the vampire love interest nearly kills the heroine because he just can't help himself. She recovers, forgives him, decides it's a true indication of how much he loves her, and I'm supposed to buy that. I like romance books where, yes, there is discord between the lovers, but no violence. If the guy/vampire/whatever you're dating nearly kills you, run away. Don't walk, run, and run fast. Don't attempt to justify his actions (he loves you so much! Or this is all your fault because you are so gorgegous and irrestible!) This is not romance; it is the mantra of abused women everywhere, and it annoys me no end to see it sold as romance. Yes, I know, the hero is, after all, a vampire and one can argue it's his nature - but violence against women is violence against women, and letting any male, human or otherwise, away with it because he/it is so goodlooking is just plain wrong. Granted, some women find this appealing because they want a man who'll change because he loves them so much. These are the women who write to serial killers in prison. The rest of us want a relationship, not a project, and a healthy one at that.

**No real spoilers**

Bitten & Smitten is a funny and light paranormal read. Sarah Dearly is a former wannabe actress turned executive assistant in an advertising company. Even if life hasn't panned out for Sarah the way she thought it had, she seems pretty content with the simple thrills in life like shopping, drinking and just the hope of finding "the one." Sarah's simple uncomplicated life is cut short when she goes on a blind date and is, unwillingly, turned into a vampire. She has troubles coming to the reality that vampires even exist and she has no time to adjust when her sire and blind-date-gone-to-hell gets murdered by vampire hunters on the same night she's risen to her new life as a vampire. The hunters seem dead set on the fact that all vampires are evil blood sucking fiends, which they don't all turn out to be. Sarah does her smartass best to get away from them while throwing in some self defence moves accompanied by some snarky comments. In this life and death moment, she stumbles upon a dark and handsome stranger. Usually at this point the girl is swept up in the sexy strangers arm and kills the hunters with his spare arm. Not in this tale. He just wants to be left alone and in a very hesitant way ends up helping anyways despite why he's really there. As she ventures on, she seems to pull off being the heroin instead of damsel in distress. With this strange encounter and sharp turn in priorities, Sarah starts her new complicated life with many twists and turns ahead. Instead

Sarah as a character is a little annoying at first, a bit shallow and dense at times while she deals with her transformation. She quickly becomes loveable and witty in the most serious of situations. Her sarcasm and lack of tactfulness makes her charming and tends to attract many new people to her oh so complicated life quickly. She's definitely no prude and has no problem jumping up and wrapping herself around something that she wants. Who can blame her with all the walking sex gravitating towards her? The secondary characters all bring their own charm to this light hearted fangy book. Enjoyable read. Probably a good filler book for mostly more serious readers.

This book was not as good as i thought it would be.
Sarah goes on a blind date from hell, literally. The blind date that Sarah's friend Amy set her up on turns out to be a vampire, and her wants to spend eternity with Sarah. He turns her against her will then ends up on the wrong end of a stake. Now Sarah is on the run from the vampire hunters. She runs into Thierry, a 600 hundred susidal vampire, who saves her from the hunters and teaches Sarah the ropes of how to be a vampire.
This book was a bit of a bore. Not much really happened and i found the relationship between Sarah and Thierry a bit lackluster. There was no real spice and i coild not really see what Sarah found so appealing about Thierry. I would not reccomend this book to others.

I throughly enjoyed this book, and am eagerly awaiting her next one! Her characters are interesting, and she adds just enough sex to keep it HOT! A great first book! The fact that the book setting is in Toronto makes it fun, knowing where the places are she writes about.