There’s a giveaway for the blitz for Book 5: books, audiobooks, and swag.

Book 5 blurb: Miriam Murphy loves being a librarian. It’s all she’s ever wanted—to eat, breathe, and sleep books. But when she hired Michael, a handsome college student, she had no idea he was a four-hundred-year-old vampire.

I haven’t read more than the summary of Book 5, being promoted right now, nor 2-4. I just completed the first of the series, so my rating is based on Book 1 as a representative.

The voice of Michael Vanderhorst, the vampire in question, is strong—he’s the narrator of the series, so it strikes me as odd that the blurb is from Miriam’s point of view. At any rate, Mimi Jean Pamfiloff has done a great job of making it easy to believe he is older than his apparent years. He’s a little repetitive at times (yeah, yeah, not into any emotions, all about the loyalty), but generally well done.

There are also some lovely supporting characters—I, for one, am mostly interested in seeing more of Mr. Nice, the idiosyncratic eldest of vampires.

But I have a couple of issues, which may be addressed in later volumes. First, there’s virtually no character development of Miriam—all that exists in the first volume is her klutziness and the projections of Michael. We really don’t get to know her at all. I hope that has changed by the fifth volume.

Next, the climax of the novel seemed to be over far too fast. It felt like a lot of build up to a rushed conclusion.

However, all in all I was pleasantly surprised. The cover and blurbs reeked of Romance with the capital R, but it deftly avoided most of the tropes it could have fallen prey to.

So if your thirst for vampire love hasn’t been quenched yet, check the series out. You may find Pamfiloff’s version of vamps a nice change of pace: socially responsible with a taste for spicy wrongdoers.

Thank you, Xpresso Tours, for providing me with an advance review copy.