Review: Welcome to Vampire General:  Where your blood donations are always welcome.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 25, 2011
Aline Harman is an intern at a hospital when a car crash victim arrives. His Doctor, Dr. Rocque, also accompanies him, and begs Aline to allow him to save his life after he is already pronounced dead. Huh? So starts the interesting, unique and otherworldlyexperiences that Aline now faces. She ends up at Grace General (I was hoping for a more interesting hospital name), a hospital that caters to the `transhuman' population. You know, mermaids, zombies, black widows, immortals and dreamy vampire docs, whose smex pheromones will have you on your knees. I predict fun times ahead for Aline!This is a fast read, as Aline is thrown into supernatural medicine so quickly, her head is spinning. She meets another intern, vampire Cassie, who is uber entertaining. She is quite out there and I sometimes questioned her sanity. I refer to her as a `spaz' and I think it fits. She brings much comical relief to this fast paced story."You should go home, Cassie," she said. "You can't keep doing this.""I would," said Cassie, tears suddenly in her eyes. "But I'm back on in two hours! I don't have time to go home and sleep and shower and get dressed and come back. I'd have to skip steps, and the way I am right now, I'm pretty sure it's be getting dressed. And I can't do that twice in a month. That's the kind of thing that earns you a nickame."Aline also encounters a Black Widow. No, not the spider, but the mythological female that literally eats the hearts of her prey. She's actually a pretty interesting character and not one you are immediately drawn to. In fact, you want to run away. Fast. But she has some redeeming qualities that pop up later on in the story.This was my first medical-type story, and I definitely enjoyed it. Hubs is in med school so it was interesting to be able to apply my newly learned knowledge from him, and compare it to the happenings in the hospital. I also really enjoyed the mermaid culture that the author wove into he story. Mer-culture is quite harsh and a very, very superficial, beauty is everything type of society. Aline is faced with an ethical dilemma regarding her mermaid patient. As a social worker, I was very proud of her decision to stand up to authority and speak up for the welfare of her patients.All in all, this was a fun, entertaining, quick read full of comedy, paranormal, danger and a bit of heat thrown in, too! The ending was the PERFECT cliffhanger and I very much look forward to Slash and Burn, due out this month.