Vampires in Manolos? Really?
There's a moment—somewhere around the halfway mark—where the brooding vampire love interest, Sinclair, is reading Betsy's diary because he thinks she's dead. It's supposed to be this tragic, heavy beat. But because this is Betsy Taylor we're talking about, the "tragedy" is sandwiched between complaints about retail wages and designer footwear.
I'll be honest: I went into this expecting to hate it. My brand is dread. My brand is Shirley Jackson. My brand is *not* a vampire queen working at a Macy's equivalent in Minnesota. But I was shelving the paranormal romance section at the library—the one with the neon covers that glare at you—and I needed something to drown out the sound of the fluorescent lights buzzing.
So, I hit play. And I didn't immediately turn it off.
Nancy Wu Saves This From Itself
Wu is doing some heavy lifting here. If you read this on paper, Betsy might come across as insufferable. She's shallow, she's loud, and she's obsessed with shoes while people are dying. But Wu gives her this specific cadence—a sort of snappy, self-aware valley girl grit—that actually makes her likable.
Wu understands the assignment: this isn't *Dracula*. It's a sitcom with fangs. Her comedic timing is sharp, especially when Betsy launches into a stream of expletives (a personal highlight for me). There's a distinct difference between her "Betsy" voice and the rest of the cast, which kept me from getting lost during the chaotic dialogue scenes. Wu pulls off that same trick in Convenience Store Woman, where she finds the quiet, unsettling humanity in a character who most narrators would flatten into a punchline. She captures that specific exasperation of a woman who just wants to sell shoes but keeps getting interrupted by undead politics.
Where It Bleeds (and Where It's Anemic)
The pacing is weird. I had to crank this up to 1.25x speed. At normal speed, the "horror" elements (and I use that term very loosely) drag. There's a revenge scene later in the book that should have been visceral—a moment where the comedy drops and the monster comes out. Instead? It felt flat. The narration lost its energy right when it needed to commit to the bit. Like watching a horror movie with the lights on.
Also, if you're looking for actual scares, look elsewhere. Shirley (my cat) slept through the entire climax. The closest this gets to genuine menace is a dull Tuesday compared to Book of Life, which at least commits to the darkness underneath its supernatural romance. The "villain" plot is predictable enough that I figured it out while scanning barcodes on a stack of James Patterson novels.
Who Gets a Bite
If you want paranormal romance with zero pretense and a heroine who'd rather discuss clearance sales than vampire lore, this is your jam. Skip it if you need your undead fiction to actually feel dangerous—there's no dread here, just designer shoes and snark.
The Librarian's Verdict
Is it high art? Absolutely not. Is it a palette cleanser after you've traumatized yourself with something heavy? Yeah, actually. It's like eating a bag of Skittles for dinner. You know it's bad for you, but it's colorful and keeps you awake.
