I wouldn't call this a comedy even though there were several times I laughed out loud. The main character, Valerie, is undeniably a hoot. Valerie began as an amnesia victim living with a roommate Molly. Valerie had been run over by a car and was barely alive (every bone broken) when taken to the hospital, but miracle of miracles, she had healed completely within four months. Molly had started off as her nurse and ended up her friend and roommate. Valerie had no memory of life prior to her hospital stay, and no friends or family had come forward to tell her of her past. Some kind benefactor, however, had given her a trust fund to live on and to cover her medical bills. Roommate Molly was a horror movie buff, and was particularly interested in a hot Italian actor Guytano Marsarius;. She was matchmaking a match between Valerie and one of the physicians who had saved her life, Dr. Payton Sullivan.

It had been five years since Valerie's accident, five years to develop a life, get a couple of years of college in, end up with an ex-boyfriend Dillon, and find out she had some pretty strange abilities that she kept to herself. But she wasn't able to hide from Molly the way she cried to herself at night. Molly believed it was loneliness or unhappiness; she had no idea that Valerie cried from the recurring nightmares she'd been having. Payton was perfectly willing to offer her solace, but he was justifiably freaked out by some of her weird abilities that had shown up in a confrontation in a dark alley-ending up with her being shot by a Hispanic gang-and by a witness, Tomas, calling her la bruja oscura, the dark witch. Which maybe she was, since all she did was wave her hand and the big gunshot wound healed up in a couple of seconds. It shouldn't have been too much of a surprise to Dr. Sullivan as he'd seen her levitating things and weirding out hospital machinery back when she'd been unconscious, but there's no accounting for people's reactions.

There's a lot more to Valerie than being a witch. There's a whole Valkyrie mythology to understand, as well as a vampyre mythology, or in this case "upyr." There's a complete cast of Vampyres, including hot Italian actor Guytano Marsarius who does not merely play one in the movies but is one in real life-which Valerie finds out the hard way. There's a story line that extends back to the Roman Empire, and at least a half-dozen other vampyres, all of which are going to take more than one book to explain. This is the first book in the Vampyre Productions, and it looks like it's going to be a good series.

Reviewed By: Maîtresse

(c) July 2004