Fanged & Fabulous – Michelle Rowen (Immortality Bites #2)
Orion Gollancz, 2010 (reprint)
334 pages
RRP: AU$22.99
ISBN: 9780575094024

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Michelle Rowen’s writing is filled with humour, pace and romance. Fanged & Fabulous is no different. Following on from Bitten & Smitten, we follow Sarah Dearly in her romps around Toronto as she gets used to being a vampire and tries to figure out what is happening in her relationship with her boyfriend Thierry. Of course, many people are trying to kill Sarah, as she managed to get quite a name for herself (albeit inadvertently) in the last novel. Hilarity ensues!

Sarah is a fun and frivolous heroine. In the first few pages, her flat is blown up, and rather than mourning for her memories and photos, the two things she is most angry about is her Jimmy Choos and the vampire-enabled mirror. Oh woe! However, she is less shallow than she first appears, caring deeply for her friends and trying to help out Amy when she thinks her husband is cheating on her. Of course things don’t always happen according to plan, but hey, that’s half the fun!

Thierry continues to be moody, angsty and thinks he knows what’s best for Sarah. Infuriating, but Sarah and Thierry’s relationship seems destined to be rocky, mainly based on lack of communication and everyone telling them it won’t work. Will they stay together? Or will Sarah decide that the sexy ex-hunter Quinn is more her style?

Similar to Bitten & Smitten, Fanged & Fabulous is a fun, quick read, perfect for airplane reading or similar. It’s light and action-packed, with a little sauciness to spice it up. The only annoyance for me is the continued “will they or won’t they” of Thierry and Sarah’s relationship, but as a primarily romance series, I suppose this is necessary. Best read in order, of course, but there is enough world-building at the beginning of this instalment to orient an unfamiliar reader, and there is some interesting unfinished business to take the reader into the next novel, The Lady & the Vamp.