Review: Great Prequel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 15, 2011
The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters is a novella and the prequel to Sierra Dean's first book in the Secret McQueen series, Something Secret This Way Comes.Secret McQueen is an assassin for the vampire council who is called upon to take out the occasional rogue. She is also a werewolf/vampire hybrid and as you can imagine her lifestyle is not conducive to dating and romance. While on a blind date, her liaison with the vampire council shows up and she is given an assignment: find and kill a Hollywood superstar vamp that has gone rogue. Why can't she have her date then kill the vamp later? Her council liaison, Holden is pretty insistant that she take care of this assignment sooner rather than later and he manages to disrupt her date frequently.The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters is a nice prequel to the Secret McQueen series. It gives the reader an introduction into the life of Secret McQueen and what she's all about. Secret is snarky but not in an obnoxious way and I loved her crisp humor. She's you're average UF heroine: single, struggles in the romance department, a killer, and of uncommon heritage. However, she is a fun and engaging heroine and I'm looking forward to seeing how her character progresses.Holden is a vampire who acts as a liason between Secret and the vampire council. He is all kinds of cute if one can call a dangerous vampire cute. However I'm left wondering if his character will be left in perpetual "interested" side-kick mode or if we'll see if things develop more fully in the future.I was surprised at the level of intensity of the action scene in this story. Sierra Dean does not hold back on the blood and gore and just when I thought our heroine would retreat, she impressed me with a very nice follow through. I know that sounds cryptic but you want to read it all for yourself right?Overall I enjoyed the author's voice and the brisk pace of this novella. The characters are memorable, the action scene is exciting and there is a kiss scene that is straight up hot! The author doesn't offer up an entirely new Urban Fantasy scenario but this story is enough to whet my appetite for more in this series.