Can a vampire queen with a shoe obsession and zero patience for the undead bureaucracy actually carry a murder mystery AND a Christmas wedding subplot at the same time? Because that's basically what MaryJanice Davidson is attempting here, and honestly? She mostly pulls it off.
I found this series during Sophie's nap time about three weeks ago - started book one while folding laundry and by book four I was sitting in the dark nursery long after she woke up, pretending I hadn't noticed, because Betsy Taylor was mid-rant about something and I wasn't ready to stop. That's the thing about this series. It's not sophisticated. It doesn't pretend to be. Betsy is shallow and self-absorbed and genuinely baffled by her own vampire queen status, and somehow that's exactly the energy I needed after a week of mediating arguments about whose turn it is to pick the dinner show.
Betsy's Tombstone Is Already In The Ground And She's Fine With It, Actually
The setup here is peak Betsy: her mom just casually mentions over lunch that she went ahead and had the tombstone installed. In the dirt. With the date. While Betsy is still very much walking around drinking blood and complaining about her undead in-laws. Betsy visits her own grave with her friends like it's a mildly inconvenient errand, and that scene - the sheer normalcy of how she processes it - sets the whole tone. This is a woman who treats death the way I treat the pediatrician waiting room. Annoying, unavoidable, let's just get through it.
The actual plot runs two tracks: ghosts keep showing up asking Betsy to fix their unfinished business (because apparently being Queen of the Vampires means you're also on ghost customer service), AND a serial killer is targeting tall blond women in Minneapolis. Betsy is tall. Betsy is blond. You see where this is going. The two threads don't always weave together as neatly as you'd want - there are a few moments where the story just kind of jumps and you're like, wait, when did we get here? - but at 5 hours 23 minutes, it never has time to lose you completely before it course-corrects.
Finished this in three sessions: school drop-off, one very successful nap time (Sophie slept 90 minutes, I'm still suspicious), and my garage car time. Survived at least 30 pauses. Still made sense every time I came back. That's the Betsy series superpower - the voice is so consistent, so her, that you can step away for two hours and slide right back in.
Nancy Wu Is Doing A Lot Of Work Here (Some Of It Very Fast)
Okay, so. Nancy Wu gets Betsy. Like, genuinely gets her. The exasperated sighs, the dramatic disbelief, the way Betsy delivers a completely unhinged observation about vampire politics like it's a normal Tuesday - Wu nails all of it. I laughed out loud twice during school drop-off, which is a problem when you're still in the carpool lane.
But. There's a but. Some listeners say Wu speed-narrates, and I felt it in a couple of the longer dialogue exchanges - like she was trying to outrun the word count. Not constantly, but enough that I caught myself rewinding once or twice to catch a line I'd missed. And Laura's voice - Betsy's half-sister, the Antichrist (yes, really) - is described by other reviewers as nails on a chalkboard, and I don't fully disagree. It's a choice. Whether it's the right choice is debatable.
I listened at 1.25x, my standard survival speed, and it worked fine. Wouldn't go faster with this one.
Who Should Actually Listen To This
If you want paranormal romance that takes itself seriously, go somewhere else. This is comfort food with fangs. It's the audiobook equivalent of rewatching a sitcom you've already seen - you know nothing catastrophic is going to happen, the couple is getting together, and the jokes land because the characters are genuinely fun to spend time with. Let Me Love You gave me that same low-stakes warmth when I needed it - different world, same feeling of just being happy to hang out with the characters for a while.
If you're mid-holiday chaos and you need something that will make you laugh in the school pickup line without requiring you to remember six subplots - this is it. Not groundbreaking, but sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. Sometimes you need Betsy Taylor arguing with a ghost about Christmas decorations while also being a serial killer's potential next target.
My book club would love this (if I ever have time for book club again). Car time approved. Nap time approved. Just maybe don't listen while actually driving the carpool lane unless your poker face is better than mine.
