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Vampires and birthdays! Who could resist that pairing? Not some of the most famous names in paranormal fiction anyway. Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner have come up with 14 short stories on the above theme from Jim Butcher, Kelly Armstrong, Rachel Caine, Tanya Huff, Bill Crider and others. What would be the most sacred holiday for vampires? Well, of course, it is the birthday of Vlad the Impaler, who was not the first vampire but the one who gave the legend life, so to speak. Sookie Stackhouse goes to a Dracula Day party at Fangtasia with unexpected results in Dracula Night by Charlaine Harris. There are a couple of coming of age stories in this anthology, quite different from each other (The Mournful Cry of Owls by Christopher Golden, and Rachel Caine's The First Day of the Rest of Your Life). Kelly Armstrong gives us an idea of a vampire's mortality in Twilight. It's her birthday and unless she drains a human of blood, she will die. In It's My Birthday, Too by Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden goes to an after hours Valentine's Day party at a mall to give his half-brother, of the White Vampire Court, his birthday present. The resulting chaos is far more than expected. And then Jeanne C Stein has a witch, who runs a catering business, throw a 150th birthday party for a vampire at the behest of his young wife in The Witch and the Wicked. What happens if you are married to a plastic surgeon who is ready to turn you in for a younger model and you meet a dark, handsome stranger late at night? Elaine Viets has the answer to that one and Henry FitzRoy tries to figure out what to give Vicki Nelson on her 40th birthday in Blood Wrapped. We mustn't forget Bill Crider's take on the theme in I Was a Teen-Aged Vampire or Toni L P Kelner's more traditional vampires in How Stella Got Her Grave Back. This is a very enjoyable anthology, especially since so many of the authors were familiar to me. Some, like Bill Crider and Toni Kelner, are not known as writers of the paranormal, which makes their stories even more surprising. The next anthology will focus on werewolves. I await that one eagerly.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, October 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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