Last year I read Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey. I enjoyed it, but it was not without it's problems. However, I was charmed enough to be excited when an ARC of the follow-up book, Jessica Rules the Dark Side, showed up... and to read the special wedding short story on Beth Fantaskey's website. Like I said, I enjoyed the first one, and I didn't mind the short story so much... but this book was not great. Frankly, I only made it to page 120...and then I skimmed the last few pages. Not good. In Jessica 2 our American heroine has found herself in Romania, married to the perfect guy and running the countryside old school style...oh, and she's also a Vampire. As his bride Jessica's responsibilities are to uphold the honour of the house and the political dealings of the estate. So, when one of the members of the court turns up dead it is Jessica's duty to find the killer. One small suggestion implicates her husband, Lucius, and now Jessica has to find the real killer to exonerate her husband. Mysteries so do not do it for me. Ever. Strike that, rarely. They have to have a pretty unusual hook to them or have some sort of entertaining fantastic element to keep my attention. This, however, did not. Like I said, I made it just far enough to see it was a mystery, and then skipped ahead to see who the culprit was... which was exactly who I thought it would be... this is another reason why I don't generally do mysteries. Blah. As far as the Wedding story goes - I actually found this to be more worth reading than the second book. I read the whole thing, I enjoyed it. Perhaps that is where this series should have stopped, with the wedding as punctuation. It really did not need to expand to this second book. It hurts it more than anything is gained. Personally, I would rather see the other series by Fantaskey expanded - Jekel Loves Hyde. That was a tremendous idea and a great book. If we are going forward, please, do more retellings. That was much stronger than this. 2 out of 5 stars. Meh.- review courtesy of www.bibliopunkk.net
