What I’m Reading: Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs

The vampire has been seriously warped in recent fiction. Anne Rice turned them all into dark, mysterious, sensual beings. Stephanie Meyer took that stereotype and added “sparkly.” On the flipside, we’ve got Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which (while awesome) goes pretty far in the other direction — vampires are soulless monsters, except for the few that have or want souls, and don’t care who they chow down on. The comedy, though, makes the likes of Buffy Summers work. We’ve also had several stories about vampires “coming out” in the real world, like the fantastic Bite Club series from Vertigo Comics or the Southern Vampire books/True Blood TV show.

Now, Molly Harper has rolled together the best elements of each of these to make something new in her novel, Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs. After hearing about the book on J.C. Hutchins‘ Hey, Everybody! podcast, it sounded like something I should read, even though I had to delve into the dreaded “romance” aisle of the bookstore to find it. Make no mistake, though, while there is a love story in this book, it’s secondary to the comedy and character. This is no Harlequin volume, friends, this is something genuinely funny.

Jane Jameson is having a bad day. In the last few hours she’s been fired from her job at the local library, gone on a bender at a tacky restaurant, been fatally wounded by an equally-drunken hunter, and revived by a new acquaintance, who happens to be a vampire. As she tries to adjust to her new life as one of the undead, she’s also got to deal with unemployment, the ghost of her favorite aunt who she now can see hanging around her all the time, and telling her overbearing mother that she’s going to further embarrass her in the town’s social circles. Oh yeah — and someone is trying to kill her permanently.

Jane is a really strong character — she’s a sweet, bumbling “good girl” who has a streak of bad in her that she’s afraid to let out. Her best friend, Zeb, is an anomaly — a male kindergarten teacher — and highly protective of her. Aunt Jettie, the ghostly Golden Girl, is a dash of real joy as she spectrally besmirches Jane’s less-than-supportive relatives, and her father is a very rounded character, a needed piece of stability in her life.

There are a few weaknesses. Gabriel, the vampire that sires Jane, is very much a cipher. He isn’t developed enough for my liking, but I suspect that’s because Harper is saving things for the two planned sequels. That’s actually my other problem — there’s a lot of set-up in this book for things that aren’t resolved: Zeb’s new girlfriend, the mysterious past of the “blood donor” Andrea… one of my favorite scenes in the book, concerning Jane discovering an out-of-the-way bookstore she’s somehow never seen before, doesn’t really go anywhere. I don’t mind books in a series, I just don’t like it when I finish Book One feeling like there should be more chapters left.

The book is fun, with a sense of humor to it that’s sharp, entertaining, and totally unlike any of the other tepid, tedious vampire novels that have become en vogue. It’s well past time someone was allowed to have fun with vampires again, and that’s where Harper delivers.