Author: Holly Ryan
Narrator: Melissa Schwairy
Length: 3 hours 23 minutes
Publisher: Holly Ryan⎮2018
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: The Slayer's Reverse Harem, Book 2
Release date: Oct. 23, 2018
Betraying him might save her life...but at risk of losing him forever. Belle Harrison, vampire slayer, would give anything for a simple night of patrolling on her own damn terms. But the graveyard is crawling with creeps with hidden agendas. Not to mention the dark unknown that wants to take her out. And we’re not talking dates here, people. Good thing Belle has three panty-melting vampires to help her. Except one of her guys has a past that’s catching up with him. Violently. Belle’s fairly certain she can save him. But if she betrays him, she’ll gain a wealth of knowledge that could help her survive the dark unknown. A lot is at stake, including everything that makes her the slayer she is, and it just plain sucks.
**I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Holly Ryan. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.**
A lot more time is spent on the sexual shenanigans in Book 2 of this series, occasionally at the expense of plot advancement. Threats abound and there’s a finite deadline for figuring shit out, and yet Belle is way more distracted by dick than seems reasonable—even if it is attached to impressive, go-all-night, supernatural hotties. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed the book and Ms. Ryan wrote those scenes very well, I just wish the sex hadn’t been in lieu of character development.
Belle and her vampire lovers faced some interesting (and kinda icky) challenges in Book 2. As if the threat of a Dark Unknown out to end Belle’s life wasn’t trouble enough, a new complication in the form of another vampire bent on revenge really upped the stakes. How the citizens of Podunk City remain completely ignorant to what’s happening is beyond me, especially when they briefly become the zombie-like, murderous, maniacal puppets of a madman. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, and magic explains everything? Anyway, there’s not much character development happening here; it all pretty much happened in Book 1 and now the characters are walking through the story, fully formed (or at least as fleshed out as the author seemed willing to spend time making them). Not a bad thing in books as short as these, but it did leave me wanting a little more flesh on the character bones.
I’m glad Melissa Schwairy read this second book. After listening to a longer series like The Dresden Files, I’ve come to really appreciate it when the same narrator reads all the books. It just adds an extra level of immersion to know you’re going to hear the characters the same way each time, and that narrator becomes the characters. As with Book 1, the audio quality was professional and uninterrupted by background noise, weird pauses, or bad splicing.
Bottom line: "Cuddling Sucks in Coffins" was a nice, if somewhat slow-moving, sequel to "Vampires Don't Give Hickeys" and recommended for lovers of paranormal romances, reverse harems, and good narrators.
Holly Ryan is a pen name for a USA Today bestselling author who one day said, “Screw it. I’m gonna write books with some serious sizzle.” She’s fueled by wine, which is where the idea probably came from.
Melissa Schwairy is a full-time narrator vocal age 20-30 living in Denver, Colorado. She has focused her acting career on narrating literature, completing titles in YA, Urban Fantasy, Murder Mysteries, and Romance. She has a BS in Counseling and Mental Health, and she is licensed in Healthcare Administration and Nursing. She loves to sing and dance in the car, and spend time with her family at home in beautiful Colorado.
BOOK ONE
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BOOK TWO
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