Vampyres of Hollywood Review is Up

The review is more detailed than what I posted here.

TCM is pretty cool if you’re willing to read new books by unproven authors and review them. Hope, you’d probably do really well with it–lots of them are eBooks, which I have trouble with reading on a screen. They have separate mailing lists to find reviewers for “adult” and “general” publications, as well as separate lists for the reviews themselves. If you’re willing to review adult material, I’ve gotten the feeling that they have a difficult time finding enough people for that side.

This is the first book I’ve actually reviewed for them. I started to review an adult novel, but couldn’t get past the first few pages for all the mechanical errors. They had no problem with it, no fusses.

I think many of the reviewers are authors because if you’re a reviewer, you can get your own work reviewed and featured, free.

Edit: Their site is gone, so here’s the review:

Everybody knows that Ovsanna Moore is third-generation Hollywood royalty—beautiful, intelligent, and powerful, head of her very own studio. She doesn’t just act, but writes, directs, and produces her own films.

What the world does not know is that Ovsanna has been around since before California was “settled,” and that she’s the Chatelaine of Hollywood—every vampire there must answer to her. When a Vampyre Hunter starts killing in her territory, her responsibility is to stop him. It will be the end of her long life if she doesn’t end the hunt (and the Hunter) quickly and quietly.

Peter King, the police detective assigned to the case, is under pressure to get what the media are calling the “Cinema Slayer” shut down immediately. If he doesn’t, his career is over.

I laughed out loud several times while reading, and that’s always a good sign. The characters as drawn could probably have figured things out more quickly than they did with a little more basic detective work (like, oh, interviewing everyone involved), or at least it seemed that way to me. The Hollywood atmosphere and references certainly felt “true,” showing Barbeau’s experiences to good advantage.

If you’re looking for a light, fast, and funny read, Vampyres of Hollywood fits the bill. It doesn’t ask you to do any deep thought, and while the murders are horrific, the authors don’t dwell on the gore. There’s really not that much of the paranormal going on for most of the book (other than the existence of the undead), so Vampyres might be a good choice as an introduction for readers new to the genre.

Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott