Book Description
Late-night radio you can sink your teeth into....
Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, 60s psychedelia, 80s Goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned.
Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WMMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station--and the link it provides to their original Life Times--the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover becomes a matter of life and un-death.
To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara re-brands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around--next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher--and the perils graver--than any con game Ciara's ever played....
Review
Book 1 in The WVMP Series
I let WICKED GAME sit on my shelf for ages because I thought the whole paranormal radio station market had been thoroughly corned by Carrie Vaughn's werewolf DJ Kitty Norville series. I couldn't see vampire DJs as opposed to werewolf DJs making that much of a difference, but after reading (and loving) Jeri’s YA debut Shade, I was willing to see what her adult series could do. The reality is that these two paranormal radio series couldn't be more dissimilar...except for the whole being good thing.
Smith-Ready's conception of vampires is bloody fantastic. And it suits her plot premise perfectly. Vampires, at the time of their turning, get stuck in that time period forever. Anything that happens after their turning (new slang, technology, and of course music) confuses and disorients them. They also develop obsessive compulsive disorders as coping mechanisms. Most vampires begin to go insane and fade the older they get as the world advances around them, but working at WVMP provides the vampires in WICKED GAME a vital connection to their time.
As you can imagine, romance with vampires like this has its challenges. When Ciara meets Shane for the first time, it’s not instant magic. Shane, like all of the vamps in this book, is slightly off. Made in the 90’s, he’s stuck in the grunge era. He has a soulful boyish quality to him that I found extremely endearing, but he is bound by his nature and can’t always control himself.
The character Ciara, though human, isn’t exactly a picnic herself. She is an interesting mix of regret and recklessness. She had a troubled childhood that left her seriously flighty and provided her with a unique skill set that she both fears and revels in. I liked her ingenuity and at times poor judgment. I also appreciated her gleeful revenge mentality.
WICKED GAME promises right on its cover to deliver sex, blood, and rock ‘n' roll. And it pretty much delivers on all three points. I’m not completely blown away by this book, but I see a lot of promise in the series overall. If your looking for a less glamorous, but still provocative portrayal of vampires, WICKED GAME is the book for you. The sequel, Bad to the Bone, is supposed to be a significant step up, and I can only hope the third book, Bring on the Night, is even better. Stay tuned for my reviews.
Sexual Content: References to sex. A few scenes of semi graphic sensuality. A semi graphic sex scene. An oral sex scene.
My Rating (out of 5):
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.
Click HERE to read an excerpt from WICKED GAME
Product Details
Paperback: 361 pages - Publisher: Pocket Books (May 13, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 141655176X
- ISBN-13: 978-1416551768
- Cover Art: N/A
Disagree with my review? Contact me with your review for this or any other book I’ve reviewed and I might use it for 2nd Opinion Review.
This is a series I really enjoy. I'm embarassed to admit I haven't read her other series yet. I just finished BotN this week and loved it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I think I'll be adding this to my library list.
ReplyDeletePatti - I highly recommend Shade. It is amazing. And I'm glad to hear the WVMP series is still going strong.
ReplyDeleteTrillian - I've picked the rest of the series too. Should be fun :)