Bite Me-Parker Blue

Bite Me
Parker Blue
Bell Bridge, Oct 2008, $14.95
ISBN: 0980245389

Val Shapiro is a teenager who is part succubus, but seven-eighth humans. All her life she has tried to suppress the demon she calls Lola as if it was a separate part of her. Two things appease Lola’s appetite: sex and the bloodlust of battle. Since she almost killed a boy she kissed, Val uses Lola’s bloodlust to fight vampires killing humans.

One night when she is fighting a vampire, she discovers her sister Jen has snuck in the back seat of her car. When they return home, their mother kicks Val out and forbids her any contact with Jen and her step-father agrees. Needing a job, Val obtains work with the Special Crimes Unit that deals with paranormal crime; executing vamps preying on humans. She is assisted by a sidekick dog who is a hell hound and who becomes her friend. She is partnered with Dan, a man she likes more than is safe for his well being due to Lola, but she is unable to dampen the sparks between them. They search for a vampire lair while the vampire Alejandro has started a movement to get humans to donate blood to a blood bank and they will be paid in cash or enthrallment. Val has to rescue Jen before she is turned and find her missing stepfather.

The heroine’s mom comes across like Cinderella’s stepmother, throwing out of her home the offspring she loathes to protect the daughter she loves. Jen’s father seduced her using his incubus powers and the woman has never forgiven him and struck back at him through a surrogate: his child. Teenagers will empathize with Val whose differences set her apart from her peers, but make her a strong SCU operative. Parker Blue provides an entertaining romantic supernatural thriller that fans of Stephanie Meyer will want to bite into the tale.

Harriet Klausner