![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
2024 Nostalgia Re-readathon | SVU Thriller #3: Kiss of the Vampire
A creature of the night...
Elizabeth Wakefield is falling in love...with Nicholas des Perdu, her boyfriend Tom Watts's new boss. Nicholas is tall, dark, dangerously handsome...and keeper of a deadly secret. Will Elizabeth abandon her friends, her family - and even her life - to be with the man she longs for?
Jessica Wakefield is desperate to save her twin sister - but she's up against a force stronger than any she's ever known. Together Jessica and Tom must fight the evil that threatens to destroy them all.
"Randy Mason, boy nerd turned Greek god" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever read, but here we are. Apparently the computer nerd extraordinaire has indeed grown up, filled out, ditched his glasses and even lost his freckles! He's always been gaga for Jessica, and now she's actually happy to have him around. He appears to be her latest boytoy, at least for this book, and my classic SVH canon mind just cannot wrap around this LOL.
This is, of course, the least ridiculous thing about this book, which is basically SVU meets every Dracula derivative ever. It is better than SVH's take on the vampire myth; at least this ghostie has the guts to stick the landing, so to speak.
So, onto the plot. Tom and Liz are competing for an "internship" to go to New Orleans for a couple of random days in October to work for the world famous journalist Nicholas des Perdu. Tom wins and heads to the Crescent City, taking along a picture of his lady love. Tom and Elizabeth miss each other like crazy during their whole two days of separation, but never manage to connect on the phone. (This being 1995 and all.) Tom thinks New Orleans and Nicholas are extremely strange, and he's almost seduced by Nicholas's housekeeper, for which he feels deeply ashamed. He finds his picture of Liz missing one night, but when it magically appears the next morning, he figures he just mislaid it somehow, though he tore his room apart looking for it the night before and fell asleep incredibly upset at having lost it.
He didn't lose the photo; no, Nicholas stole it because he finds the face of his long-dead child bride and instantly falls in love again. Apparently Nicholas and Lisette were married right before the French Revolution; while he's off fighting the peasant uprising, word reaches his household that he was killed, and Lisette commits suicide, unable to bear the idea of living without him. Nicholas, of course, is not dead, but he certainly wants to be when he arrives home and finds his lovely bride a corpse. In his own musings, he believes that he sold his soul to the woman who 'turned' him into a vampire, and until glimpsing this picture of Tom's girlfriend, has nothing to live for.
Oh, yeah, and there are lots of unsolved murders of people around New Orleans who have mysteriously bled to death, which no one seems to be taking very seriously.
Anyway. Nicholas takes one look at Liz's picture and decides that he has to have his beloved Lisette back, so he follows Tom back to Sweet Valley and begins stalking her. He meets Elizabeth and tells her that Tom is up for some BS journalism award, and that he's looking for 'background info' on Tom to help sway the judges in her boyfriend's favor. Liz turns into a complete mutton-head around Nicholas, even sneaking off to Moon Beach with him to make out under the stars.
Meanwhile, Tom is frantic because Elizabeth is acting strangely and not returning his calls. He fears he's being dumped, perhaps because he feels so guilty for his own almost-betrayal in New Orleans. He tries to enlist Jessica to help figure out what's going on with her twin, but Jess is locked in her own battle over a new bedroom at Theta House. Jessica and her mortal enemy, Alison Quinn, are fighting over who will claim the new, single bedroom, and this consumes most of Jessica's time.
The twins have set up a haunted Halloween party in a nearby abandoned house, and the whole campus shows up. Jessica finally realizes that Liz is indeed acting strangely, and neither she nor Tom can find Liz at the party. Tom has done a little digging around and has figured out Nicholas has arrived in the Valley; there are suddenly a lot of unsolved murders around the campus which no one seems to be taking very seriously; Jessica puts two and two together about a mass of roses delivered to her and Liz's dorm room that evening with a cryptic note about "being together tonight." The two of them figure out that Nicholas is there to kidnap Elizabeth, which he successfully manages to do. He takes her back to New Orleans and tries to 'marry' her again, but Liz is with it enough to realize that something is wrong, and she misses her twin and her boyfriend. Tom and Jessica ride to her rescue and end up torching Nicholas's creepy New Orleans mansion in their quest to save Elizabeth.
There's a lot of ridiculousness in this story, but most of it is fun. Nicholas does indeed sleep in a coffin in the basement! There are no mirrors in his home! The telephone isn't connected, so no one can call out! Nicholas is stunned when Jessica confronts him, as he had no idea she even existed!
The main plot and the subplot cross streams when Nicholas crawls into the window of the new bedroom at Theta house on Halloween and attacks Alison, who has set up camp there by locking Jessica out. He leaves a bloody mess behind and Alison is on the brink of death. Jessica firmly decides that no way does she want that bedroom now, so she'll stick with Liz in the dorms! L.O.L.
Jessica is pretty awesome here. She's the one with her head screwed on straight (most of the time) while Liz is lolling around like an idiot. I like this Jessica a lot, and I'm glad she's the heroine of this story.
Does this book many any sense? No. Is it fun? Yes. It was a great way to start this year's nostalgia re-readation, and I'm looking forward to the next!
no subject
Cackling over so many things, like Nicholas basically being Louis de Pointe du Lac copy and pasted (seriously, the harping on the green eyes nearly killed me because I'd giggle each time) in looks and home base, Lila's Elvira costume, the marveling at Randy Mason being hot and Bruce and Lila not trying to kill one another, the maids not wanting to wind up finding a body whenever they did gain access to Nicky's room, and the idea that SV vampires are totally a thing and totally drawn to the Wakefields like moths to a flame. I need Steven to have gotten in on this vamp action.
I also need the AU where Nicholas runs into Margo or Nora to see how that plays out.
Didn't love Allison being attacked because it was just so damn random. Can't win everything though.
no subject
Honestly, I couldn't figure out why he was suddenly so frantic about not being in contact with her after feeling so blase about it while in NOLA. But he kept bringing up how guilty he felt about being ~almost seduced~ so I just put two and two together and kinda forced it to make four. Per your review, perhaps its a good thing that I have relatively little knowledge of SVU canon if Tom turns out to be a jerkwad and these are just little little glimpses into the behavior that makes him a jerk.
Nicholas basically being Louis de Pointe du Lac copy and pasted (seriously, the harping on the green eyes nearly killed me because I'd giggle each time) in looks and home base
Having never read Interview, I did not clock that, but I did find the description of his "bright bottle green eyes" extremely strange.
Lila's Elvira costume
A very inspired choice!
the maids not wanting to wind up finding a body whenever they did gain access to Nicky's room
Yeah, that was a little too on-the-nose, especially considering how nonchalantly the SV police were treating the random dead bodies suddenly all around campus.
I need Steven to have gotten in on this vamp action.
Seriously, where the f was he, to have missed not only this lovely adventure, but also Jessica's run-in with Jonathan during SVH?
At least this ghostie stuck with the supernatural schtick, instead of half-assing it like the SVH writer(s).
Nicholas's reaction to Jessica was hysterical; I don't know if he would feel the same about Margo or somehow fall in with her. They could mind-meld at each other, haha!
Didn't love Allison being attacked because it was just so damn random
Yeah, that was a very strange way to wrap up the B-plot. I guess they couldn't figure out any other way??
no subject
I don't remember a TON about Tom's ultimate fate beyond what causes their breakup, but I do remember being split on it. It felt very much like it came out of left field and also like someone decided it was time for Liz to get a new love interest but I don't remember exactly where in the later SVU books this happens and the later Toddles stuff was just.... yikes on bikes and trikes, and the inferior Sam is inferior.
Having never read Interview, I did not clock that, but I did find the description of his "bright bottle green eyes" extremely strange.
Ha! That's actually what flagged it in my head as a Louis nod so I went to look it up. Not really sure why the felt the need to club us over the head with the creepy green eye description over and over though.
I need Steven to have gotten in on this vamp action.
Seriously, where the f was he, to have missed not only this lovely adventure, but also Jessica's run-in with Jonathan during SVH?
Seriously! I could overlook him not being there for the SVH one but Steve still shoulda been all up in the twins' business for this book. What gives, eldest Wakefield? Where's your sordid vampire story?
At least this ghostie stuck with the supernatural schtick, instead of half-assing it like the SVH writer(s).
I will always respect the ghosties who decide fuck it, the supernatural is REAL. Even if everything else around them goes to hell, they'll get that.
Nicholas's reaction to Jessica was hysterical; I don't know if he would feel the same about Margo or somehow fall in with her. They could mind-meld at each other, haha!
Margo the vampire is terrifying and I love the idea so, so much. I don't really see her keeping Nicholas around once she's figured out how to access his money, but I do love the idea of him being absolutely heartbroken at being betrayed by his true love. Cackling to myself here.
Now I'm wondering if the Theta room is mentioned in the series proper or if they just wanted to give Jess a comedic sideplot to keep her out of the way til they needed to bamboozle Nicholas.