Carnival of Fools

This is another VF read from earlier in the year, same month as Undead and Unwed. Hence reading two vamp romances at the same time. In similar fashion, the characters seem to have questionable intelligence. However, at least this one had two enjoyable enough mysteries intertwined with the romance.

A Girl’s Guide to Vampires is the first entry in the Dark Ones series by Ms. MacAlister. Joy and her friend Roxy end up in eastern europe working a book fair (Can I haz your job, please!). They decided to add a vacation to the trip and travel to the village of Roxy’s favorite author, who is supposedly an Immortal One. Immortal Ones are doomed to walk the earth alone forever, drink blood and pillage, that is until they meet their True Love. This woman can save their souls, but this is always very rare. Roxy hopes she runs into one and if she plays her cards right, finally lose her virginity.

Joy secretly loves these books, which is why she indulged Roxy. But she’s a simple gal on vacation doing her best to find a hot European man. She doesn’t believe in the myth. There’s a gothic carnival going on in the village with odd people flocking to this small area. There’s basically nothing else to do, so the two girls join the fair and hangout with the workers. Murder strikes one of the workers and some spooky shit starts happening to Joy. It’s as if she is seeing through the eyes of a vampire, one that is close by feeding. After a near fainting post-vision, Joy thinks she’s either going nuts or there must be some truth to the Dark Ones. Roxy encourages her to seek out this vampire as only True Loves can see through the eyes of their beloved. Oh I should mention at the start of the book, a psychic tells her she will be caught between two dangerous men. Well, at least one guy is hitting on her telepathically, but which one? The hot mysterious carnival worker with a past, named Raphael? Or a local villager named Christian she meets in the hotel bar?

This book isn’t that great, but I didn’t mind finishing it. There were sufficient sexy times as apparently every man in that village wants to sleep with Joy. However, the sex scenes were a bit ridiculous, one involving cherry flavored massage oil someone just had lying around. And another with Joy having sex outside in a dark cave while a murderer is on the loose in the same vicinity! I mean honestly, why don’t you just give the killer a locator. Needless to say, I have not kept on with the series. But I hear the other books are less silly and have more suspense. If I didn’t have 1000 books on my to-read list, I might pick up one at the library one day. Recommend for fans of ‘Lost Girl’ and if you like to read Twilight for the humor.

Read my other reviews including one for Undead and Unwed on my blog.