Molly Harper – Nice girls don’t have fangs

The first book in the Jane Jameson series, published March 31, 2009.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: hmm



Unemployment sucks.
Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children’s librarian and self professed nice girl Jan Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that’s sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she’s mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.
Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Comittee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favourite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and enduring daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She’s forced to forgo her favourite down home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn’t enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?


After discovering Molly Harper’s writing style earlier this year when I read “And one last thing” I was very happy when Blodeuedd offered me this book for sale. I enjoyed this book, but I did not like Jane as much as I liked the other heroine.

It was fun to discover with Jane how to be a vampire, where to shop, how to fight, and how to survive. I liked that she has a male best friend, who still wants to be that friend even though she is now a vampire. And although vampires are known to the world, they are not really welcome in human society. Jane is afraid to tell her parents the truth. Especially her horrible mother. Or her sister. Or her grandmother. Her mother is still envious that Jane inherited her aunt’s mansion, instead of her, and she has been pestering Jane all this time that it is not suitable for her to live there, and that she should open it up for tours by the Historical Society in town. Whenever Jane leaves them unattended when they show up at her door, precious pieces of silverware or other things disappear. Her aunt left it all to Jane, and they are not happy with that.

Being turned into a vampire, Jane can now see and talk with her beloved aunt again, as she is still around as a ghost. Protecting Jane, and chasing away unwanted visitors (like her family).

And then there is her sire, the gorgeous Gabriel. He is fascinated with Jane and how her mind works. As a librarian she is filled with trivial knowledge, although Gabriel has lived it himself. Jane fights the attraction between them at first, but after some horrible events, she is glad for his help and support, and attention. Not to mention his skills in the bedroom. Her previous encounters left her cold and not all that eager to try again. Becoming a part of vampire society is not as easy though. Someone is spreading nasty rumours about her, and is framing her for murder. Luckily, the Council believes her so far, but she has to stay under the radar in the near future ... And then someone else, or the same person, is playing nasty pranks on her, even trying to kill her beloved dog by poisoning his water ...

Jane really misses her work at the library, and when she discovers an occult bookshop in the part of town her mother always warned her to stay away from, she is very happy. More books to read and to do research in how to be a vampire. So when the owner hires her to reorganize his shop, she is so happy. A girl needs a paycheck to pay for her mortgage and artificial blood after all.


I did like the book and the story, and Jane grew on my a lot. Still, I am not really in a hurry to read the rest of the series. I think because her relationship with Gabriel bothered me.

7 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian