Release date: 2011
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Transformed into a vampire at the awkward age of fifteen, Nigel Mullet will remain this age for ever, and must spend eternity struggling through adolescence.
In his latest hilarious diary, Nigel starts the new term as one of the most popular pupils in school, and he’s finally got a girlfriend after more than eighty years of being single. But his life soon unravels when a new pupil, Jason, joins his school…
When Jason steals his girlfriend, Nigel vows to get revenge. But the more he discovers about Jason the more confused he gets, Who exactly is this mysterious new classmate? And how can Nigel win his true love back?
The review: Another in the younger aimed series about Nigel Mullet and when I reviewed the first of this series I suggested that “If it has a failing it is in the fact that it fails to extend to a wider (age range of) audience in the way it might of.”
I don’t know exactly whether it is because we have got to know Nigel through the first book, or if it is because Collins has succeeded in achieving more of the demographic spread in this volume but it worked a lot better for me as an adult reader – whilst succeeding, I believe, in not leaving its target audience behind.
Nigel, in this, is still having problems; not least of all when his vampire powers desert him. This was actually neatly done as a piece of lore. Nigel gained his powers, in the previous volume, when he got with Chloe. When they split he loses them. However, it becomes apparent by the end of the book that the true reason he loses and gains his powers is down to faith in himself as a vampire. I found this to be almost a turn around on a vampire hunter and their faith in a cross motif.
Add into the plot mix a vampire who claims that Nigel’s father turned him, is integrated into the house as Nigel’s ‘grandfather’ and is a bit of a shirker and sponger (to say the least), as well as Jason (a big lad for his age, hirsute with a perchance for eating raw meat) and you have a well written romp.
Some of the observational aspects are excellent, Nigel’s realisation of how much a mortal girl might want transforming into a vampire (and the commitment that entails) was a thinly veiled commentary on the present vampire obsession.
All in all a great little sequel. 6.5 out of 10.
*The review first appeared on Amazon UK
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