Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready

Eh. Don't like it.

The main selling point for this novel is its new, interesting idea, and it IS new and interesting. Ciara, our reforming con artist protagonist, becomes the marketing rep for a vampire radio station. The vamps are OCD a la the old legends where you could keep them out of your house by scattering seeds or hanging a net, (they'd be distracted by counting the seeds and untying all the knots until sunrise,) and each one is mentally trapped in the time period when he or she died. That's why they have the radio station... Each one is a DJ with a show centered around the music that was popular when they were alive.

It's a really good idea! And it started off great, interesting and unexpected with a host of interesting characters, but then it just dwindled off into nothing. The good characters, (Monroe, Franklin, and Gideon) were the ones that got NO face time, the romance was well-paced but lacked a certain spark, and the plot was wibbly. Difficult to figure out what the plot was even supposed to be, and it was painfully predictable when it WAS there. It couldn't decide if it was a romance, a vampire fight or a "huge companies are evil" plot, so none of the plot elements worked, especially since the Designated Vampiric Villain seems nicer than the good guys and was only trying to defend himself. The magnificent idea Ciara has to save everybody really doesn't work, either.

I wound up hating all the characters that got any attention. I was rooting for the bad guy to just take 'em all out because they were all such jerks! Ciara started out strong and interesting, but the more we learned about her the more boring she got, and about halfway through the book she suddenly turned into an idiot and started letting everyone walk all over her.

I read a lot of good reviews for this one, but I didn't enjoy it.

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