Overall Quality 4.0 / 5.0 (recommended)
Gay Content 2.0 / 5.0 (a couple of secondary gay characters)
Gay Positivity 4.0 / 5.0 (mostly positive)

Out of the supernatural (straight) romances I’ve read recently, Undead and Unwed is one of my favorites so far. It’s not great literature (none of them are), but all in all, it’s just a lot of fun.

Of course, it helps for me that this book has some actual gay content.

Betsy is an urban, modern, wise-cracking secretary. Until she dies. And then comes back as a vampire. In fact, she returns as the prophesied Queen of All Vampires, a job in which she is not interested. She’s an unusual specimen for a vamp – religious icons don’t affect her, sunlight doesn’t burn her, she can control her need to feed, and she just wants restore some semblance of normalcy to her “life.”

But an evil vampire named Nostro (AKA Fred), and a seductive one named Sinclair, try to sweep her into a giant vampire smackdown. Meanwhile, her sassy friend Jessica and new gay friend Marc try to help her out, but mostly just get in the way.

It’s a fast-paced and energetic story. Davidson’s take on vampires is pretty standard – everything from garlic to sunlight gets them, with the sole exception of protagonist Betsy, who’s as non-standard as vamp’s come. She’s a cool character – through her Davidson is able to spoof vampires and romances.

Unfortunately, she’s a one-note character. I liked that note – snappy, witty, and irreverent – enough to keep reading, but the book would have been much stronger if the author had imbued her with more emotional depth. Instead, it’s just non-stop sarcasm and humor.

For example, at one point Sinclair convinces Betsy to help him by bribing her with designer shoes. It’s funny to read Betsy’s shallowness play out, but it doesn’t endear her to me.

Sinclair, the romantic interest, is an intriguing character, but the romance subplot is inconsistent. (And be advised – the romance is definitely a secondary theme) A couple of scenes reveal Sinclair as a character worthy of the central romance, but other scenes do the opposite, and at the end I couldn’t tell if Sinclair wanted to get with Betsy because he genuinely loves her, or because he wants the status she conveys on him.

The central story is also undercooked. Most of the book is: Betsy becomes a vampire, and then humorously observes what it’s like to be a vampire. The central drama about the power play between Nostro, Sinclair, and Betsy is present from the beginning, but it sits on the back burner until near the end. I wish the author had introduced a few more compelling plot points, which in turn might have given the characters opportunities to reveal more emotional depth.

Over the course of the story, Betsy befriends a young gay doctor named Marc. Like all the characters, his character is not well developed, but he’s a nice guy.

It bothers me that Betsy meets Marc when he’s trying to commit suicide. It also bothers me that he seems to lack personal agency, which is the real issue underlying “The Gay Best Friend” stereotype. Within a day of meeting Betsy, he falls into her orbit. He has no personal motivation, interest, or goals. I see this less as a slur on gay people, and more as poor characterization.

In fact, particularly in this case, consider the demographic. Sure, I would like the gay character to have a beefier role and his own romantic interest, but I’m a gay guy. The contemporary woman at whom this novel is aimed, wants to see herself in Betsy’s Ferragamo’s, and probably has a close gay friend herself.

A lesbian vampire, Tina, also puts the moves on Betsy. Betsy is put off by the advance, but everything she said was in character, and overall I thought she handled the awkwardness quite well. Tina is one of the more stable characters. She has a sympathetic belief system, and I wish she had enjoyed a larger role.

Overall, a fun if fluffy, mostly gay-friendly read. I am just disappointed because it comes so close to being a really great story, but just misses the mark. Here’s hoping the series matures in the next volume or so.

Overall Quality 3.5 / 5.0
No Gay Content

Another straight supernatural romance comedy. Refreshingly, MacAlister departs from the more common realm of vampires and werewolves to deal with demons and were-dragons.

Aisling (ASH-ling) Grey is, unbeknown to her, a Guardian of a portal to Hell. She discovers this small fact after a trip to Paris to deliver a valuable statuette, which is promptly stolen by the sticky-fingered Drake Vireo, when they both find themselves at a murder scene. Drake, a wyvern (i.e., leader of a group of dragons) escapes, and Aisling becomes the prime suspect. She must clear her own name, stop a series of gruesome murders, and prevent the destruction of the world, all the while fending off her attraction to the infuriating wyvern.

On the plus side, it’s a very funny, fast-paced, and entertaining read. You know there’s some real humor in the story when the line “You are now officially a demon lord” (p. 152) makes me laugh out loud. (Another favorite line – “This place looks like a reject from a Harry Potter knock-off,” p. 143.)

The ending is a bit anticlimactic, however. I felt unsatisfied when I put the book down, like I’d tried to make a lunch of cotton candy. (This may be personal peccadilloes, however: straight romance is not a genre I read frequently. This was just a taste test for me, so to speak).

The novel’s real weak link, however, is the characterization. Don’t get me wrong, I like Aisling. She’s smart, sharp-tongued, and no nonsense. She’s also one-note. She deals with every situation with the same degree and tone of humor. As a result, she doesn’t feel fully fleshed out. One or two scenes of real, heartfelt emotion would have been well-placed.

Meanwhile, the author tries to tread a fine line between creating a believable attraction between Aisling and Drake, while maintaining a mutual disdain that promotes sexual tension. She overshoots. Drake’s an irritating character, and Aisling annoys me with her continued infatuation. Again, it’s the one-note thing. If MacAlister had given Drake one or two really good scenes to display his basic good-guy-ness instead of his arrogance and selfishness, I’d buy into their romance a lot more readily.

Overall Quality 4.0 / 5.0 (recommended)
No Gay Content

Vane is a werewolf (the author uses the term “Were-Hunter”) on the run from his pack, who have betrayed him and his brother Fang. Then he runs into a human named Bride (I’m totally not making these names up) for whom he falls hard. In fact, it turns out she’s his mate, and they either get together or Vane turns into a virtual eunuch for the rest of his life. But how can he convince a human to love a werewolf, especially a werewolf who’s being hunted by his own pack?

Okay, yeah, it sounds pretty silly, but it’s actually a compelling and well-realized story. Although the central emphasis falls on the straight romance (and trust me, we’ve got some major straight girl wish fulfillment goin’ on), the story itself has enough meat to pull even me into the story. I’d almost call it an action-adventure more than a romance. The plot moves at a fast pace, and I like the characters quite a bit. That helps involve me in the story tremendously – both Bride and Vane are likable, flawed, complex people.

I also like the fact that the book deals with a werewolf; I think vampires are overdone.

I find some aspects of Kenyon’s mythos odd, and I don’t really understand her terminology – are vampires and daimons the same thing, or sometimes, or never? Why are were-creatures called Were-Hunters? What’s a Dark-Hunter? I’ve heard Kenyon compared to Anne Rice, but I don’t find the mythology she’s created to be as intuitive.

Unless a romance makes you sick, I’d recommend this action-adventure story to anyone who enjoys supernatural fiction. Although this is not the first book in Kenyon’s series, it’s a standalone that’s easily readable out of sequence.

Overall Quality 3.5 / 5.0
Gay Content 5.0 / 5.0
Gay Positivity 5.0 / 5.0

I have a lot of problems with this book, but overall I think Mr. Krach shows a lot of promise as an author (for one thing, the writing improves as the novel progresses, especially at the end).

I came very close to quitting the book about 100 pages from the end (which should tell you something…! don’t know what, but something) but ultimately decided to stick it out (which should also tell you something…but again, you can just make up what that something is).

Mr. Krach seems to have a natural affinity for writing fettered by an amateur blindness to common writing mistakes and a tendency toward inconsistency. He’d begin a paragraph with a very nice turn of phrase (there were many times throughout the novel when I thought to myself, “Wow, I like how he phrased that”) and then end the paragraph with a clunky block of prose.

Where he could have said: “Grinning, John said, ‘Hi, how’s it going?’” Mr. Krach would regularly say something awkward, like “John said, ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ He grinned broadly while he spoke.”

Similarly, the author sprinkled the novel with completely irrelevant short scenes detailing events in another part of the city or world. Where was the editor for this book? By contrast, I read Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain” in the middle of reading this novel. The prose of “Brokeback Mountain” is raw and unyielding, while “Half-Life” conjures an image of a young, eager author sitting at his computer typing away.

But Mr. Krach’s greatest writing weakness falls under the “telling versus showing” category. Yes, creative writing professor love this criticism, but they have good reason – telling rather than showing a story bleaches the narrative of drama and reduces reader engagement. The reader becomes more passive, simply absorbing the story, rather than participating actively along with the protagonist. Stated more plainly, a story told is more boring than a story shown.

That said, the ending defied my expectations, not because it was a surprise ending (it wasn’t) but because the characters actually managed to grow a little bit, and the burgeoning relationships became nice commentaries on interpersonal dynamics. I just wish we had seen a little bit more what developed for Adam’s friend Dart.

Regarding the gay scales, the major characters in the novel are all gay, and the story concerns their relationships (romantic and platonic). Hence the “Gay Content” scale is a full 5.0. And none of the characters are dealing with coming out or facing any issue about homophobia, nor is there any anti-gay violence in the novel, all of which is pleasantly refreshing.

Overall, the novel was worth the time I spent reading it, mostly because I enjoyed getting to know the characters, but it will be a long while before I re-read it, because I was ultimately disappointed in them. The novel would have been much, much stronger if the editing had been more skilled, if I’d been able to detect some greater depth to the characters and theme, and if the author had more successfully injected some humor into the work.