Good book. Apparently 2nd in a series. We meet Eric who has just been blown up in his strip club. After a while he gets a corporal body back and is out to get even with his former best friend who's behind it all. Book is shown from Eric and his girlfriends point of view. ( )

Ah, I waited too long to get around to this one. I should've head it sooner after the first book. At least the other two are already waiting for me.

I absolutely love Eric's style, especially in contrast to the more "traditional" vampires he goes up against. If a door's warded, go through the wall and gripe about how it's not as easy as it looks in the movies. Toss in references to Saturday morning cartoons. Realize that something really crappy's about to happen, and let it because you'll survive anyway.

This series is a real breath of fresh air for fans of old-fashioned vampire fiction who have grown well and truly sick of all of the Twilight-like crap that's been taking its place recently. I can't wait to see what happens in Paris, and thankfully I don't have to. ( )

This is NOT great literature. But, it is fun, action packed, well written literature. This book is nothing but action... a few sex scenes, than more action. What I do like about this book, and this series, is how women are treated. Eric, while he does use people, is loyal, treats people with a respect. Everything he does with those weaker than him is consensual, unless they hurt him or those he loves.

So, to some up, lots of action, lots of goriness, but a main character who is likeable. ( )

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy

Parts of J. F. Lewis’s follow-up to his urban fantasy debut, STAKED, are crazy good (the humor, the pacing, the world building), other parts are crazy frustrating, for example the bit of bait and switch when it comes to cover art. A woman is featured on the cover, and even though there are a number of chapters told from the perspective of Tabitha, the main protagonist in REVAMPED is Eric. I knew this going in, but I can imagine a lot of readers feeling duped.

I only had one real problem with REVAMPED, but it’s a biggie. It was the struggle to find redeemable qualities about the main characters in order to care about them. First off, everyone is a giant whore. Eric is a scumbag (with occasional moments of opportunistic compassion). He is truly in love with a woman who he’s had to watch grow old because she didn’t want to become a vampire with him, but he has a girlfriend (Tabitha) who he neglects, and he’s sleeping with her sister (Rachel) on the side. I found myself giving him a pass on his total lack of morality because he was funny and he told everyone upfront that he was an unrepentant bastard.

I found it much harder to give a pass to his on/off girlfriend Tabitha. She goes from sleeping with a fat, old vampire in exchange for a luxury apartment, to shacking up with Eric’s best friend in said luxury apartment, to essentially begging Eric (on her knees) to take her back even though she can literally smell her sister on him.

To make things worse, Tabitha and Rachel know that Eric is sleeping with both of them and instead of kicking him to the curb, they compete over him. Rachel even tells Eric when he and Tabitha are heading to bed that he has to screw her twice for every one time he screws Tabitha. Classy.

Parts of REVAMPED were really funny, the political posturing between all the vampires in Void City was endlessly entertaining, and I’m crazy curious to find out about Eric’s unique vampire origins, but I couldn’t stand how pathetic the female characters were, so much so that I’m not sure I’ll be buying the third book in the Void City series, CROSSED, when it releases on January 25, 2011

Sexual Content: Several non graphic sex scenes ( )

It has been a while since I read Staked, which was the first book in this series, but it really wasn't hard at all to pick up where the last book left off. First of all, Eric was blown to bits and pieces at the end of the last book at the hands of his so called friend, Roger, who wanted him dead. But unknowingly, Eric cannot be killed because he is a Vlad. So here he is stuck in the in-between as a ghost. Now he has to figure out how he is going to get back to himself.He has all of his thralls and even his mage trying to figure it out.

In the mean time, there is a lot going on because first of all Tabitha has left him, Rachel, Tab's sister is trying some new magic on him, and he has to save the soul of his old lover Marilyn. There is a lot going on in this book.

All of the characters in this book are quite fascinating, not only with the way that they are presented but also in how they are very much like us. They are snarky, full of themselves and well, just like everyone else even though they have a paranormal aspect. This book was more like a rollercoaster for me, because it was full of the ups and downs and if you've never been on it before, You never knew what was coming around the next bend!

I can't wait to read more of Tabitha and Eric in their adventures! ( )