Never Bite a Boy on the First Date – review

Author: Tamara Summers

First Published: 2009

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: When we found the guy and saw the holes in his neck, the cause of death was obvious.

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

“I make one mistake and suddenly every little vampire attack is my fault? That’s so unfair?”

But it doesn’t matter how much I protest, unless I can prove my innocence I’ll be spending the next decade in a padded coffin. So now I’m on a mission to track down the real murderer. I’ve narrowed it down to three suspects.

All acting suspiciously.

All boys.

And all very cute…

The review: This is a young adult book and, in its favour, the prose is written competently. It provides both a murder mystery and vampires, but ultimately it does nothing new for the vampire genre. The main character, Kira, is sixteen years old and only recently turned into a vampire so still has to go to high school. This is by order of her new ‘vampire parents’, the book suggesting that covens of vampires masquerade as family units.

Sunlight is only a minor issue and so sunblock is the order of the day and resultant migraines are an unfortunate inevitability. Summers decided that the vampires wouldn’t cast a reflection but did add in the idea that clothes, makeup, hair dye etc would reflect. Now, I happen to like this as a concept and the idea was added that it would offer an illusion of full reflection, albeit only with a casual glance so care around mirrors would have to be taken. Vampires also have to be invited into a dwelling. Once more we get good, well behaved vampires, vampires without bite (well one has bite but he or she has gone bad).

There is a vampire hunter and unfortunately you can spot him from a mile off, worse still is the fact that nothing too interesting is done with him. The vampire parents are described as imposing but are very lightly sketched without depth. Kira herself came across as a younger version of Betsy Taylor from the Mary Janice Davidson series, but not as edgy or funny.

Fine for those the book is aimed at but ultimately average in a more general sense.

5 out of 10