Book 59, 2020

Real Vampires Live Large by Gerry Bartlett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Brought my book from work home to finish. It was Real Vampires Live Large by Gerry Bartlett, and it's the second part of the "Glory St Clair" series, featuring voluptuous vampire, Gloriana 'Glory' St Clair. Story is told by her, in first person pov.

Glory is busy running her boutique, Vintage Vamp's Emporium, while managing her on and off relationship with ancient vampire Jeremy Blade. Things are going well until a notorious vampire hunter firebombs her shop, nearly killing Glory and the other vampires who live in the apartments above the shop. They are saved by her shape-shifting guard dog, Valdez. Blade is enraged and goes after Westwood, who was rumored to be in Argentina. In the meantime, someone from Glory's past returns, her roommate, Flo, is acting out of character, and Blade assigns another guard dog to protect Glory. When she learns the man from her past is working with the Energy Vampires (EVs), Glory is alarmed, especially when Kaplan implies that she has a lot of untapped power that his boss would like to use. Glory worries that Flo is becoming addicted to the illegal drug the EVs are creating by siphoning the power from other vampires, and she must still be on her guard against Westwood's hunters. Things come to a head when the leader of the EVs holds Flo hostage and demands that Glory surrender herself to him to save her friend. However, Gloriana St Clair isn't going down without a fight.

This was paranormal lite for the most part. It was a fun read with just enough danger to keep it from being too fluffy. Glory is a lively, spunky character, the plot moved at a good pace and made sense, and the sex scenes were hot. My only complaint is that having two main plots/antagonists was almost too much. One storyline/enemy per book, please!

Favorite line: "Talking dog saves sleeping vampires."

Good read, four stars.