Clare Willis, Once Bitten

Once Bitten

Clare Willis

Zebra, Dec 2009, $4.99

ISBN: 9781420108712

In San Francisco advertising executive Angie McCaffrey works the Macabre Factor account when her boss Lucy Weston vanishes. Macabre Factor is a start up cosmetics firm offering fangs to press onto teeth that allegedly make mortals look like vampires. When Lucy is found dead, the cops believe someone from one of the vampire clubs that frequent the city killed her.

At one of the vampire clubs that Angie has begun to visit to get a better handle on the customers' needs for the client, she meets Eric Taylor. They are attracted to one another, but she heard he was seeing Lucy just before she disappeared. As Angie falls in love she begins to believe her soul mate has no soul and is a for real blood sucker who if true may make her his next victim.

Once Bitten is a fine urban romantic fantasy in which the strong mysteries of Lucy's disappearance and what species Eric is propel the fun plot more so than the anemic romance. Angie is a strong lead protagonist who holds the subplots together as she walks the streets of San Francisco she must choose whether she can trust her life and soul to Eric or is he the one who will destroy both?

Harriet Klausner