Review: Pleasant short story buried under descriptions
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 18, 2013
The first story I’ve read from this series—I didn’t read Beauty—that didn’t include police work, zombies, vampire or lycanthrope politics, magic or the ardeur.  What we get, in a very short story, is a BBQ at Zebrowski’s house.I can’t imagine that this story would be read by anyone but someone who follows the series, so the real estate taken up by character descriptions of those we already know, along with back story, just adds unnecessary padding to the length of the “novelette.”  Also adding about 11% to the length of the eBook is an excerpt from Affliction.I did enjoy the glimpse into the Zebrowski’s life, and meeting his amazing family.  Anita and her guys are babysitting Matthew for the week and bring him along so he can spend time with other kids; something he doesn’t get much chance to do.  This is apparently important as we see Anita being a lot more interested and accepting of a child in her life than what we’d seen before, and Nathaniel is pushing for a baby.  We also get how difficult it can be for others to see a stripper as a real person.The story itself is decent once you get past all the padding.  I knew it would be too short for what I’m comfortable paying, but hey, it’s a chance to learn about Zebrowski, even though we still never learn his first name.