Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin

My instincts were right with this one. All year I've been showcasing urban fantasies without much interest in reading any of them (well, except for Jim Butcher, but he's hardly a debut author). Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin stood out from the bunch right from the start. For me,  it was a great and long-overdue introduction to the urban fantasy genre.

Rardin invented a great deal of vampire mythology, but she saw fit to keep all the traditional aspects as well. One can fend a vampire off with a cross, and holy water will cause even the most deadly vampire to back off. And see all those tiny stakes in an ammo belt on the cover girl's hip? Well, she's got a nifty gun to go with them. Poof. Another vampire up in smoke. And she's got lots more gadgets, too, several that I can readily envision on the silver screen with computer generated imagery.

But the vampires are not all bad guys. Vayl--short for Vasil--is one of the good guys, even though he's an assassin. Jaz is his assistant. Their assignment is to take out a plastic surgeon who specializes in reconstructing the faces of terrorists. Turns out this plastic surgeon has connections. And compared to his bosses, he's strictly small-time.

The pace is quick; the dialogue is snappy and the action is high. And just when you think you know where the plot is going, it takes a twist that you never would expect. The last battle has a lot of great how-can-they-possibly-win moments. However, one complaint I have is that except for a brief aside, the story ended rather too abruptly after the final battle. I wanted more! Jaz and Vayl were supposed to discuss all this stuff on the trip home! Now I have to read the next book to find out what they discussed.

Oh, yeah. Right. That's the whole idea.

Something unique--after the ending of the novel, there's a brief interview between Jennifer Rardin and her character, Jaz Parks. And it leads right into an excerpt from the second book, Another One Bites the Dust. Very clever. I wonder if this keeps up in the subsequent books.

In case you haven't caught on by now, this novel's a lot of fun. It has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, as well as some bittersweet moments. The vampire-human sex scene that I feared never occurred (thank God). I'd love to see it come out in mass-market paperback as a boxed set.

Linkfest!

Amazon Links: (US, UK, Canada)

Jennifer Rardin's website, myspace, facebook

My interview with Jennifer

My original debut showcase

Review part one: Opening Chapters

Review part two: Piling on the Problems 

ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY - Piling on the Problems

Jennifer Rardin's strength as an author appears to be piling problem after problem onto her characters. She also has a knack for metaphors and imagery, such as:

"No," he said quietly, his eyes on the wall, as if someone had projected some horrifying memories there.

and:

The magic snapped past me, leaving me mentally singed, as if I'd stood too close to a burning soul.

Jaz is an easy character to like. As I said in my previous post, she's something of a headcase, so much so that I wonder if she shouldn't go for a psych eval. She has a tendency to think of things that make her giggle at highly inappropriate moments. For example, when told about demons that eat souls, she has a mental picture of a waiter asking a demon how well his soul tasted, as if he were at a soul resturant.

All her family baggage--and there's a lot of it--has places in the pile of Jasmine's problems. Plus, Vayl has decided to bestow a gift upon her--a gift that makes them as close as man and wife, and that makes his "late" wife--who made him a vampire (not giving awything away here since it's in the blurb)--insanely jealous.

(Which brings up an interesting problem. When you pledge 'til death do you part, what happens to that vow once you're both undead? I guess technically you have died, so your vows are clear?)

In fact, their mission to save the nation almost seems like a backdrop against which they must solve their personal problems and resolve age-old conflicts. I have a few issues. Supporting characters tend to give Jaz valuable information with very little prompting and scant building of trust. There was even a "trust at first sight" moment that seemed out-of-character for Jaz. Four entire chapters went by while Jaz and Vayl were in their hotel room. And Jaz and Vayl tend to agree to not discuss things while the reader is screaming for those very things to be discussed. Argh! (But I suppose that isn't a bad thing, because it's kept me reading.)

There is an interesting mix of religion and the supernatural here. God is acknowledged to exist, so items such as holy water and crosses have the traditional effect upon vampires, even if the delivery method has been modernized in clever ways. However, there are also beings that are Cthulhuoid in their scale and power.

Although valuable clues, powers and equipment items tend to drop in Jaz's lap, I can't really call that a critique yet--it depends on what she is up against. I admit to having a fondness for characters who take on awesome foes while armed with nothing more than quick thinking and a toothpick. However, if she's up against a Cthulhu-scale monster, even I must admit that a toothpick would be of little use. So we'll see how that plays out.

The pace cranks--even during the hotel room chapters--and my interest has yet to sag. I think Jaz is an interesting enough character to support the series of books that she has already spawned. I breezed right by the halfway point and am now closing in on the final third of the book. I should be finished tonight or tomorrow.

ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY - Opening Chapters

Whew! I figured I'd better get writing if I wanted to have a "part one" review of Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin.

This novel marks a milestone for Fantasy Debut. Not only is this the first Urban Fantasy that I've read (since Charles de Lint, and the genre has changed quite a bit since then), but it's the first vampire I've read since I attempted (and failed) to read Interview With the Vampire. (She lost me with the little girl vampire. I hate seeing children tortured.)

Anyway, so far, Once Bitten, Twice Shy has been great fun. I just got to the part where she gets bitten, if you've read the book. Jaz is a likable heroine with a mysterious past. She's a headcase half the time, and she kicks ass the other half. Vayl, the vampire, is like a virtuous knight. He is definitely the good cop in their good cop/bad cop pair. Oh, did I mention that they are CIA agents? Yup, ole Vayl has been fighting crime since the 1920s. (Now wouldn't that have been cool? An urban fantasy set in the twenties with vampires?)

It's going to be a bit of a hurried post, but I wanted to get going with this novel and let you know how much I'm enjoying it. I can't imagine it disappointing me.