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UNDEAD AND WORTHY has everything I've come to expect from the Undead series… unfortunately. Oh, it delivers the occasional giggle as Betsy, the fashion-obsessed and unwilling Vampire Queen, worries about her wardrobe, her new marriage, and her old friends in equal amounts. It delivers the usual sex scene – in this case, on the first pages as Betsy pounces on her husband, the smoldering Sinclair. It delivers the usual tensions between Betsy and her family as she starts being haunted by her hated stepmother, The Ant. And it delivers the usual set of people determined to depose Betsy as bloodily as possible – in this case, the "fiends," a set of formerly-insane vampires who have decided to avenge their abuses upon Betsy, even though she's been the one saving them all along. I loved this series when it first began. As slim little paperbacks, the books were the perfect beach reading. But then the prices started rising and the plots started falling. A large typeface and a small page count mean that a novella is being sold as a hardback novel, and to add insult to injury, most of the minuscule space is dedicated to padding instead of plot. Betsy introduces and then reintroduces the huge cast several times over – sometimes using the exact same words – and spends more time discussing the events of the previous six books than moving the current plot along. Worst of all, Davidson isn't putting any work into having a plot in the first place. Action is almost instantly resolved by Betsy suddenly and inexplicably having just the perfect magical power to undo anything unpleasant… and that's if the action is resolved at all. Davidson announces in an author's note that this is the beginning of an in-series trilogy, which apparently absolves her from any attempt to even try to wrap up some of the plotlines she introduces, no matter how much attention she draws to them. "Unworthy" was a good choice for a title word; only the most forgiving Betsy fan is going to want to pay $23.95 for what is nothing more than a recap and a single to-be-continued story installment. For an actual fun read, go with the early books, when Davidson had nothing to recap and the publisher wasn't asking for more than paperback prices.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, July 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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