Review: Great as always! (but also too short, as always)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2012
I love this series.  I make no bones about it.  The Samantha Moon novels are some of the most fun and entertaining vampire books I've read to date.  Vampire Games is no exception.In this installment, Samantha is approached by a boxer of all people to look into something for him.  An opponent of his died in the ring.  Russell, as well as the rest of the world, doesn't think he his the other man hard enough to kill him but the ME's report stands: death by trauma to the head.  Problem is, the guilt is eating Russel up.  He has to know ,one way or the other, if it was really a lucky shot in the ring that killed the other unlucky boxer or if it was something else entirely.  As Samantha investigates, she'll (as always) get more than she bargained for. That, however, is only part of Vampire Games.As is always the case, JR Rain mixes in the detective element--whichever case Samantha has taken on at the time--with a large assortment of subplots.  He's excellent at mixing up Samantha's work life with her love life, her family problems, and her own struggles dealing with her growing powers and the fight to hold on to what's left of her dying humanity.  THOSE elements are what make Vampire Games, and the series as a whole, fun to read, not to mention compelling.  Rain throws more things at our favorite vamp heroine than she should be able to handle, but handle them she does.  Going forward, things are going to be very different for Samantha Moon as a result of Vampire Games.  Every relationship she has has changed.  Even the relationship with what she's becoming on the inside.  Some of those changes are good, some not so good (I ain't saying which..hehe).Despite it's length (it's only 190 pages.  Not the shortest of them but not the longest either) Rain makes it feel like it's actually longer with the amount of character development, subplots and situations.  This is a BUSY book but his style is so clean and easy to ready that it's never confusing.  In other words, JR Rain is a guy that just knows how to write a page turner.I really don't know what else to say.  JR Rain has been executing this very clever and different take on vamps for a while now and the level and quality has always been top notch.  Brevity of the novels aside, Rain's a top notch story teller who knows his characters inside and out and it shows.Can't wait for the next installment!