Review: 158. Nice Girls Don't Live Forever by Molly Harper...

After reading Molly Harper's Jane Jameson books 1 and 2, how could I not pick this one up?

Title: Nice Girls Don't Live Forever (Jane Jameson #3)
Author: Molly Harper
ISBN-13: 9781416589440
Paperback: 324 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2009
Purchase at IndieBound, Amazon, The Book Depository
Source: Waukesha Public Library

drey's thoughts:
Molly Harper's Jane Jameson is absolutely adorable--snark and sass and all things nice. She starts off the book by breaking things off with Gabriel. Or did she? She's not sure. To occupy herself instead of moping about, she focuses on re-opening the bookstore she inherited from Mr. Wainwright and joins Half-Moon Hollow's Chamber of Commerce, where she gets roped in by blonde-cheerleader-from-hell-turned-chamber-president to get donations for their charity event. Jane's already regretting signing up when Mr. Wainwright's nephew shows up and generally annoys the heck out of everyone.

Then weird things start happening--threatening letters, exploding deliveries, vandalism, and Jane thinks someone is trying to kill her. Who could it be? And why? After all, snark never hurt anybody... But then Andrea is kidnapped. And Jane finds herself smack dab in the middle of drama from Gabriel's past.

Nice Girls Don't Live Forever had me totally laughing out loud, and yes, I snorted. My favorite passage has to be when the front of Jane's house is smeared with durian, and she spends the day wondering what the stench is coming from. Followed really quickly by Zeb's explanation that people have been killed by ripe durians falling on them. Yep, felled by a fruit.

**going off on a tangent... I used to say that when the Portugese swung by the Sultanate of Malacca back in the 1400s, instead of using the traditional keris to fight the cannons and guns, the locals should have lobbed durians with catapults at the Portugese ships... Who knows, they might've driven them off instead of being colonized! Yes, the fruit smells that bad. But it's oh so yummy!! **done with tangent

Anyway. Back on topic. If you haven't read Molly Harper, you should. If your preference is not of the fanged variety, try her chick-lit. If it is of the fanged variety, pick this up (start with #1, Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs).

drey's rating: 3.5/5 Very Good

Challenge: 100+, Support Your Local Library

146. Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men by Molly Harper...

About the book:

Forever a bridesmaid, Never an undead bride

Once a devoted children's librarian, Jane Jameson now works at a run-down occult bookstore. Once a regular gal, she's now a vampire. And instead of a bride, she's an eternal bridesmaid--which leads her to question where exactly her relationship with her irresistibly sexy sire, Gabriel, is headed. Mercurial, enigmatic, apparently commitment-phobic vampires are nothing if not hard to read. While Jane is trying to master undead dating, she is also donning the ugliest bridesmaid's dress in history at her best friend Zeb's Titanic-themed wedding. Between a freaked-out groom-to-be, his hostile werewolf in-laws, and Zeb's mother, hell-bent on seeing Jane walk the aisle with Zeb, Jane's got the feeling she's just rearranging the proverbial deck chairs.

Meanwhile, Half Moon Hollow's own Black Widow, Jane's Grandma Ruthie, has met her match in her latest fiancé. He smells like bad cheese and has a suspicious history of dead spouses. But Jane's biting her tongue. After all, would a nice girl really think she has a future with a vampire?

drey's thoughts:
Molly Harper so does NOT disappoint with this follow up to Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs! I laughed out loud at Jane's kvetching about the bridesmaid's dress--holy moly it's UGLY! Molly's descriptions, and her dialog, will have you laughing out loud. The characters are entertaining; I cannot believe the extent to which Zeb's mother will go to, to get Zeb to marry Jane instead of Jolene. And speaking of the werewolf, the "quality family time" with hers, is downright scary.

There's a bit of drama (wouldn't be interesting if there wasn't, now would it?), a dash of Bridezilla, and a whiff of corniness. But it all adds up to an enjoyable read that doesn't require much thinking, so if you're looking for entertaining & quick, pick this up.

Next up: Nice Girls Don't Live Forever, coming in January 2010. Is it too early to beg for a review copy now?

Title: Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men (Jane Jameson #2)
Author: Molly Harper
ISBN-10: 1416589430
ISBN-13: 978-1416589433
Paperback: 376 pages
Publisher: Pocket Star Books, 2009

Challenges: 100+, Pub, Vampire, Series

132. Nice Girls don't have Fangs by Molly Harper...

About the book:

Unemployment Sucks

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?

drey's thoughts:
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs is a funny, sassy, entertaining read. Jane has a really, really bad day. She gets laid off from her librarian job, due to "budget cuts", and instead of a severance, she gets a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to a bar. So what's a girl going to do? Why, drown her sorrows, of course. But does her day end there? No way. Her car dies on the way home, so she's walking. In the middle of the night. In the dark. And then she's shot. By a drunk who mistook her for a deer. Really. Can it get any worse?

Well, if you're not a fan of the fang-y blood-drinkers, then yes. Because she wakes up three days later, a vampire. Not only is she undead, she can see ghosts--ok, just one - her Aunt Jettie. And she has to get used to the rules of vampire living. Her sister's a witch (ok, not really, but I don't like to use the "b" word, if you know what I mean...), her mother's a control freak who's freaking out that Jane lost her job (never mind the "other" stuff), and just in case all of this isn't enough on her plate, she ALSO has to deal with someone determined to paint her a murderer. Of vampires. Ever been in a room where everyone's hostile because they think you might kill them next? Only they could most likely get you first? Yeah. Fun.

Molly Harper strikes a balance between a vampy romance and an entertaining whodunnit in Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs. I'm trying to get my mitts on the follow-up, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men--wish me luck! And yeah, the dead m"a"n in question is here, and he's yummy. Otherwise this wouldn't be a vampy romance, now would it?

Title: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs (Jane Jameson #1)
Author: Molly Harper
ISBN-10: 1416589422
ISBN-13: 9781416589426
Paperback: 355 pages
Publisher: Pocket Star Books, 2009