Night School by Mari Mancusi

Published January 4, 2011.

Vampires, Slayers and…FAIRIES? Sunny and Rayne McDonald are about to get SCHOOLED.

After their parents’ shocking revelation about their fae heritage and an attack on their lives, the McDonald twins find themselves on the run—forced to hide out at Riverdale Academy , a boarding school for vampire slayers, deep in the Swiss Alps. With no cells, no internet, and no way to contact their vampire boyfriends—the twins are on their own.

Being a vampire stuck in a school full of slayers isn’t easy. Especially with no blood substitute stocked on campus. Soon Rayne finds herself succumbing to her bloodlust and losing control—especially around the arrogant, but devastatingly handsome Corbin Billingsworth the Third—who isn’t sure whether he wants to kiss her…or kill her.

But when Sunny starts acting strange, Rayne realizes Riverdale Academy may be hiding some deadly secrets of its own—leading to a showdown in Fairyland that may cost the twins their lives. (goodreads.com)

I've read this series in what is probably the most schizophrenic way possible, and mostly not on purpose. The first three I read out of order simply because I didn't know their order and apparently my ability to Google failed me. I skipped the fourth one because it was a Sunny POV and she's not my favorite head to dwell in. BUT based on the excerpt at the end of NIGHT SCHOOL I may be willing to pick up the next one. She appears to have matured and her voice doesn't sound so insipid anymore. And because I adore Mari, and we do have that Lost Boys bond, I may just do it for her.

Anyway NIGHT SCHOOL was a great addition to the whole BLOOD COVEN series and even though I didn't read BAD BLOOD I didn't feel like I was missing out on much. There were some allusions to events in that book at the beginning that I was a little lost on but they didn't play too much of a role in the bigger plot so they were easy to get over. Rayne is still Rayne, Sunny is still Sunny and the shenanigans are still shenanigans. And I'm glad.

Overall the plot is pretty silly but it's silly in the way that Supernatural is silly. Yeah, there are some serious moments but they're surrounded by sometimes absolutely outrageous things that even the characters are going WTF? You know, like when Sam and Dean came in contact with the faeries in Season 6 and Dean was all like, nipples?

Yeah, it's like that. It's a silly story but it knows its silly and that's why its so great. Rayne and Sunny get their butts handed to them by faeries and the faeries are so freaking ridiculous that you can't help but laugh. And Rayne's inability to get Apple Pancake's (Apple Cider? Crisp?) name right just tickled me the right way every time. If NIGHT SCHOOL were trying to take itself seriously it'd completely lose its charm. It strikes a good balance between the insanity and the serious just enough to get its point across but keep it a totally entertaining read at the same time. Rayne's need to feed? Serious. Disney World? Not so much. Read it to get what I'm talking about.

Oh, did I mention it mocks TWILIGHT? Yeah, it does that too. You'll have to read it to pick up the references. I won't spoil that fun for you! A giggle-filled word search!

There are just so many things right with Mari's work that it's hard to pick up on anything that's wrong. If you haven't read any of the BLOOD COVEN books yet, I highly recommend you do. Don't judge them by their covers and think they blend in with your Blue Bloods or Coffin Kisses or whatever else is out there. BLOOD COVEN, and its latest release, NIGHT SCHOOL, stand so far out from the rest that their covers should light up and poof out pink sparkles. Because it would make Rayne go insane and I like it when she gets cranky about pink and glitter. It amuses me. I'll even tell you to read the Sunny POV stories too, just to get the whole story. I'm seriously considering going back to read BAD BLOOD just to fill myself in. Really, Sunny isn't THAT bad. Most of the time.

Author Bites - Mari Mancusi Talks Vampires

Consider this my first official guest blog post from an author. I'm not sure how often this is going to occur. I guess however often I really like a book and said author agrees to do a post! Makes sense, right? So this time around it's Mari Mancusi because her Blood Coven series is nine different levels of awesome. Here she talks about creating vampires and her upcoming fourth Blood Coven book. You know you want to know! And I swear, I didn't tell her to write about The Lost Boys! No, really! Ok, maybe I hinted but she didn't have to! She's a fan. Just ask her.

+++

The great thing about writing about vampires is you can make them into anything you want them to be. From tuxedo-clad Dracula to mega rock star Lestat. Brooding, neutered Spike to punk rock biker boy David in the Lost Boys. Goth vampires, fashionista vampires, vampires with a soul – the possibilities are endless.

When I started writing my Blood Coven Vampire series I had a blast creating my own vampire world. Taking from myths, legends and a whole lot of pop culture, I mixed and matched and made it my own. My vampires don’t kill humans to drink their blood – they are assigned donors who are contracted and paid well for their services. They don’t just randomly turn other people into vampires –there’s a three month certification test, DNA analysis and blood screen. All very high tech and organized.

Once I had my vampire world, I added two humans to interact with it. Twins who are polar opposites – as different as Sunshine and Rayne (their names, thanks to their hippie parents.) While Rayne’s a goth girl who wants to be a vampire more than anything, Sunny is much more concerned about getting a date to the prom. What surprised me, once the books were released, was how strongly teen girls either related to one or the other twin. I, personally, relate more to Rayne. I was a goth girl in high school and though I was not as outspoken as she is, was probably just as irritable. But there are a surprising amount of Sunny fans out there as well. (So much so that I gave in and gave them a second Sunny book – Bad Blood – out in January.)

However, while the sisters may be different in personality, what I love about them both is their loyalty to one another. They bicker and fight constantly – as sisters do – but at the end of the day, they’re there for each other. They have such a strong bond at the end of the day. It’s the kind of thing I’d wish for myself if I had a sister. They also have a very strong, supportive mom whom they are very close to, mostly because I really wanted to create a strong sense of family in the books. (Their dad, on the other hand, is a different story and a cause of a lot of suppressed pain and anger.)

The girls are also both very strong. They are able to take charge and make decisions and choose their own destinies. They don’t passively sit back and let life happen to them. And they certainly don’t put up with any crap from their vampire boyfriends. (Just sayin’.) And while they may not always make the right decisions at first, they always eventually realize what’s important and what matters in the end.

And that is something I try to include in all my books, whether or not they have to do with vampires.

Marianne

PS I’d be remiss not to mention The Lost Boys! Yes, Stake That has quite the Lost Boys homage in it. After all, as a child of the eighties, I felt it was important for the next generation to realize that not all vampires are created Emo. You can even have a mulleted Jack Bauer!

Stake That! by Mari Mancusi

First published in 2006.

All I want to be is a vampire. But nooo - I have to be Rayne McDonald, vampire slayer . . .

Sisters. They'll swipe your clothes, your boyfriends, your destiny. But it wasn't exactly my twin Sunny's fault. Magnus, a vamp hottie and coven leader, mistook her for me last month and bit her instead. Now they're going the interspecies dating thing.

But back to me. Turns out for every generation (yes, just like on Buffy), there's a vampire slayer - and this time around, it just happens to be yours truly. My first mission: infiltrate a seedy vamp bar downtown and expose its vampire owner for purposely spreading a blood disease he created himself. A task almost harder than passing trig.

After going it alone once, I realized I needed help. So Magnus sent his sexy Goth buddy Jareth to go undercover with me. And let me just say I wouldn't mind going under the covers with him. Maybe boys don't bite after all . . . (book back blurb)

Aside from the fact that my dumb ass switched the order of the books (I should have read this one before Girls That Growl, dur), this book is total love. It leaves me wondering why Mancusi decided to get into Sunny's head at all (especially since she's "more of a Rayne girl"). Maybe because of the whole transformation thing but even then, I think telling it from Rayne's point of view would have made that first book a whole hell of a lot better.

Rayne's kind of like WTF? with the whole slayer thing, especially since she still really wants to be a vampire. You'd think that'd be a conflict of interest or something. Slayer Inc's got to have some loopholes for that. I mean, she's still out to get herself a blood mate but she's still expected to perform her slaying duties? Tough much?

Her budding relationship with Jareth starts off really similar to Sunny's reaction to Magnus, the whole "I don't really like him, he's an ass" route except Rayne gave into herself much, much quicker. Thank god. I don't know if I could have standed a whole 'nother book where the MC is constantly denying her true feelings. Rayne just kind of says fuck it at the end of the day which is an awesome relief.

I felt Jareth's character transition (or breakdown, not sure how you want to describe it) happened a little suddenly for me. He went from this very standoffish, get the hell away from me type person to calling Rayne Raynie what I thought was overnight. The shift itself felt kind of shaky and plot-serving but regardless of how I felt about that, the two of them are definitely a perfect fit. Very introverted people that don't get close to anyone, don't open up to anyone, just keep to themselves. They kind of wrapped each other into that solitude and each let one lean of the other since they both knew what the other was going through. It's not much of a balanced relationship, really it's very one-sided (which Girls That Growl proved), but they understand each other completely and it's hard to not be attracted to someone that knows you inside out without really knowing you because they are the same person.

The ending was very sweet and kind of heart-wrenching and I loved the change in demeanor Rayne had towards her father. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil it but I'll just say I had some tears going on there.

And as if I could review this book without mentioning the massive Lost Boys references? Holy crap weasels, that alone is the ultimate love! And it's Sunny that makes the references. So not expecting that one so slight redemption there. And how they mimic one of the great scenes from that movie to try and test their mom's new boyfriend to see if he's some evil vampire. OMG I was in heaven. Mari said she had to drop that movie in there just in case her younger readers hadn't been exposed to its gloriousness yet. Good call!

So yeah, you can pretty much skip Boys That Bite and read Stake That! and Girls That Growl because those two books kick ass. And keep your eyes open because Mari Mancusi will be making a guest post here soon. Hopefully she'll be talking about the rumored fourth book in this series. But I know she'll be talking about these books!

Boys That Bite by Mari Mancusi

First published in 2006.

My mom is so going to kill me if she finds out I'm turning into a vampire.

Okay, so technically she can't because I'm immortal. Well, not yet. See, due to the worst case of mistaken identity with my dark-side-loving twin sister at a Goth hangout called Club Fang, Magnus, a vampire hottie, went for my innocent neck instead of hers. Now, if I don't reverse it in time, Magnus will be my blood mate forever and I'm doomed to be a blood-gulping, pasty, daylight-hating vampire. Believe me, it seriously bites.

After the unfortunate slaying of the vampire leader, it's up to me, my sister, and Magnus to find the one thing that can solve my problem - the Holy Grail. No joke. I seriously hope I can get out of this in time because, somehow, I scored the hottest prom date in my school, the mouth-watering Jake Wilder. And I do not want to be a vampire for the prom - let alone the rest of eternity . . . (book back blurb)

My trustworthy Canadian friend who heads up the YA section at her local Chapters recommended this series to me for one reason - the Lost Boys reference in, I believe, it's the second book (Ok, I told you people I had a problem, didn't I? A loooooooong time ago.). And because we have really similar tastes in reading material so I pretty much take her recommendations to heart since we're pretty much the same person in that regard. I figured I'd read the entire series since I didn't want to start in the middle and she warned me about this one.

And she was right.

It's Clueless with fangs. I was waiting for 'gag me with a spoon' to make an appearance. Sunny was such a vapid, unrelatable character for most of the book that I couldn't care one way or another what happened to her. The whole valley girl thing really grated on me, as did the constant brand whoring. One of the constant pieces of advice I've heard from agents is not to name drop or label drop in your story too much because it'll end up dating your book, which is not necessarily a good thing. I have a feeling that this was supposed to be Sunny's personality but holy crap. Enough is enough already. There was nothing but Prada and Gucci and Diesel in that air head of hers. And that moron Jake that she kept going on about.

The whole teen voice, to me anyway, sounded just this side of contrived. I don't want to say it was forced because that's going a little too far but it wasn't natural-sounding either. It felt like the author was trying just a little too hard to make her sound like a "typical" teenager and it kept splashing over the brim. I know girls can really talk like that but I hope that they're deeper than what Sunny was. And I was in her head the entire time and only went ankle deep.

I have to say, though, I liked the end. Sunny redeemed herself a bit when she broke out of her whole dumbass shell and started acting like a normal human being instead of a superficial peabrain that she was throughout most of the book. She showed depth and caring and sacrifice and I only wish more of that side of her was present in the book because I probably would have liked it more. I mean, I can watch Heathers and they all talk like that but there's depth. Talk like a valley girl all you want so long as you're deeper than a puddle. Because of that I was all around disinterested with Sunny up until the last few chapters.

I actually liked Magnus. Out of all of them, he was probably my favorite character if for nothing more than his adamance to put the welfare of other people ahead of his own despite the fact that other person was completely selfish for most of the time. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and I liked the fact that he's not really into the whole Goth scene but just plays the part. Puts a twist on the character and doesn't make him a stereotype within Mancusi's world. I still don't understand why he fell for Sunny outside of the whole DNA thing (blood mates are made based on DNA, identical twins have identical DNA, thus switching Sunny and Rayne wouldn't mean much in the mates department). Her personality just sucked most of the time and being behind Sunny's eyes and knowing her every thought and action, I really didn't see what was so appealing about her. Thus is the enigma of guys.

The whole Vampire Scent thing got to be a bit much, though. The secretary? Come on. I think that was supposed to be funny but I just saw that as really forced. And the whole thing with Jake? Um, yeah. So apparently the Vampire Scent can make a guy want to hump your leg. Awesome. Again, a bit much.

Overall, I mean, it's not bad but it's definitely not something to write home about. I'd recommend it just for the ending, maybe the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the book or so. The rest of it I could have done without.