Scan barcode
A review by marpesea
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks
2.0
This started off entertaining— a vampire scientist team is developing a faux human delivery source for synthetic blood (aka a real doll with blood circulating). During testing, the head honcho breaks a tooth and needs a nighttime dentist who just so happens to be a lonely lady in the witness protection program...
And I’m gonna spoil some shit— consider yourself warned.
It starts off strong, but after that it kind of stumbles along. The romance jumps around in fits and starts— within a page the heroine will go from loving to hating to loving our hero with no real reason why.
This book doesn’t really seem to like women.* It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test and we hear an awful lot about breasts and butts, but very little about our hero’s proportions (except for his massive manhood!). The interesting characters with agency are almost all men- the hero, his vampire enemy (who hates synthetic blood and wants to eat people), their other enemy (our heroine’s dad and leader of the CIA task force to kill all vampires), the scientists, bodyguards, pizza delivery person, can driver, etc. We have the mother of one character who’s an administrative assistant and delightfully sassy, the vapid talk show host with overblown breasts (the book makes a note to mention the vampire
plastic surgeons) and the harem of female vamps who live in the hero’s mansion. That’s right, most of the female characters are petty and only after our hero’s vampire sex skills.
Our hero has a harem of lady vamps who he services via telepathy (aka vampire sex). He’s really not into it, so he usually just broadcasts it out and they all listen in. Our hero is surprised that his lady love (Shanna? Sorry I’m tired and don’t remember her name) is upset he regularly has psychic sex with them all— he has to because these women obviously can’t take care of themselves (never mind that the most vapid and petty is also a successful model). Also, it shouldn’t matter because -physically- he’s a virgin.
That’s right! He was a monk and has never had *actual* sex. (Or would that be human sex?). And so obviously they’re gonna get married and also? After confessing his sins he can touch crosses because God forgives and suddenly my smutty afternoon romantic vampire read has become a story of religious redemption.
Know your audience book! Is this a smutty vampire romance? A sex farce with a real doll? A military struggle between multiple factions? A spy story? A religious parable?
Recommended for about the first 60 pages, feel free to continue skimming for lackluster “vampire sex.”
*Yes, at the end some of the evil vampire women kill their master, but it comes 1- a bit too late to for them to have any real agency and 2- one of them says something like “yeah, I’ll fuck whoever I want now.” So either female vamps are obsessed about sex or the evil vamp was a controlling rapist or the harem system is controlling and gross.
And I’m gonna spoil some shit— consider yourself warned.
It starts off strong, but after that it kind of stumbles along. The romance jumps around in fits and starts— within a page the heroine will go from loving to hating to loving our hero with no real reason why.
This book doesn’t really seem to like women.* It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test and we hear an awful lot about breasts and butts, but very little about our hero’s proportions (except for his massive manhood!). The interesting characters with agency are almost all men- the hero, his vampire enemy (who hates synthetic blood and wants to eat people), their other enemy (our heroine’s dad and leader of the CIA task force to kill all vampires), the scientists, bodyguards, pizza delivery person, can driver, etc. We have the mother of one character who’s an administrative assistant and delightfully sassy, the vapid talk show host with overblown breasts (the book makes a note to mention the vampire
plastic surgeons) and the harem of female vamps who live in the hero’s mansion. That’s right, most of the female characters are petty and only after our hero’s vampire sex skills.
Our hero has a harem of lady vamps who he services via telepathy (aka vampire sex). He’s really not into it, so he usually just broadcasts it out and they all listen in. Our hero is surprised that his lady love (Shanna? Sorry I’m tired and don’t remember her name) is upset he regularly has psychic sex with them all— he has to because these women obviously can’t take care of themselves (never mind that the most vapid and petty is also a successful model). Also, it shouldn’t matter because -physically- he’s a virgin.
That’s right! He was a monk and has never had *actual* sex. (Or would that be human sex?). And so obviously they’re gonna get married and also? After confessing his sins he can touch crosses because God forgives and suddenly my smutty afternoon romantic vampire read has become a story of religious redemption.
Know your audience book! Is this a smutty vampire romance? A sex farce with a real doll? A military struggle between multiple factions? A spy story? A religious parable?
Recommended for about the first 60 pages, feel free to continue skimming for lackluster “vampire sex.”
*Yes, at the end some of the evil vampire women kill their master, but it comes 1- a bit too late to for them to have any real agency and 2- one of them says something like “yeah, I’ll fuck whoever I want now.” So either female vamps are obsessed about sex or the evil vamp was a controlling rapist or the harem system is controlling and gross.