funny, smart, unexpected, werewolves and vampires ( )

A great little paranormal mystery. Fun light and very intriguing. The characters are well written and smart. The book reminded me of Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly series.mystery books.
Brother and sister open a restaurant that serves the undead. One of them is a vampire and one a great chef. There is an incident that ends with a dead body on the floor of their restaurant and everything goes wrong from there. In steps one sexy Warlock and one very old equally sexy vampire to help solve this clustering mess that just keeps getting worse.
I can't wait to read book 2. ( )

Strong start to what could be a very good series. Great mystery, great plot. The three main characters were very clearly established, but a lot of the secondary characters need more time to develop, I think. They didn't feel very strong to me. I'm looking forward to the next book and seeing where the author takes the main three - this is one of those things that's either done really well (Stephanie Plum series) or really annoyingly (Johanna Fluke series). ( )

"Fresh Meat" by Katrina Niidas Holm for Criminal Element

Buffy Summers. Sydney Bristow. Quentin Tarantino’s The Bride. Three tough-as-nails heroines who don’t take crap from anybody. They’re strong, they’re crafty, and they’re self-reliant. They have good heads on their shoulders, and they’re cool in a crisis. But it’s not their weapons skills or their all-around ass-kickery that has earned these women a special place in my pop-culture-loving heart. Any old muscle-bound thug or cyborg assassin can exact bloody revenge with a Hatori Hanzo sword, a Glock 19, or a broken broom handle, but these women? They’re not mindless, soulless killing machines; they’re human beings. They lead (semi-) normal lives, and they experience tragedy and heartbreak just like everybody else. They cry, they grieve – sometimes they even break down. And then they pick themselves up off the ground, and they keep fighting.

Sarah Zettel has created such a heroine in Charlotte Caine, star of A Taste of the Nightlife, her new Vampire Chef Mystery series. (Not one of them, Charlotte cooks for them—it’s haute noir.)

Read the rest at http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2011/07/fresh-meat-a-taste-of-the-nightlife...

My friend called me and told me I just had to read this book. She said it was similar to the Sookie Stackhouse series. Well I wouldn't quite describe it like that, but I'm really glad she made the recommendation.

Chef Charlotte Caine and her vampire brother, Chet, co-own the restaurant, Nightlife, which caters to vampires and their friends and family. While vampires can't eat, they can drink and the concoctions the restaurant serves are becoming popular, as is the food served to those who can eat.

On the very night vampire food critic Anatole Sevarin comes into the restaurant--this could be their big break--a man approaches a patron and causes a scene, resulting in a fire. They must shut down to clean up and the next day the man that caused the fire is found dead in the restaurant, drained of blood. Charlotte feels the need to protect her brother and find out who did it while worrying over everything associated with reopening the restaurant and how to pay her bills.

Besides Charlotte and the police, two others want answers. Surprising to Charlotte is Sevarin, the food critic. The other is Brendan Maddox, the cousin of the man found drained in the restaurant. He's a warlock, head of his own security firm and is keeping secrets to protect his family who were known for hunting vampires and pushing for changes to the laws that now accept vampires as citizens. Of course both are gorgeous and protective of her.

We get a lot of insight as to how a restaurant and kitchen are run, along with a many-layered mystery. Charlotte is very likeable character and there is enough mild humor to keep the story feeling light, even during the action scenes. ( )