**This blog contains adult language and description of...ahem...adult activities.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to have the story completely and utterly spoiled.
Book Description: They're magical monster-hunting vampires living in a van, she's a fed-up middle-aged divorcee attempting to geocache her Valentine's Day into oblivion. Perfect. Now the question is: can Quintain, Fletcher and Marcus convince Ruby that the best way to resurrect her love life is with a few guys that are also back from the dead?
This book was published in 2022 and this is my first time reading it. I'm pretty sure it's my first time reading Logosz as well but Vera Valentine is one of my favorite authors for this particular blog.
The trigger warnings for this book include impalement and Home Owner's Associations so read at your own risk.
I know, I know. I'm supposed to be reading Sweet Valley right now but I haven't been able to force myself to do it, so you're getting this. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Hopefully.
We begin with Ruby who is out geocaching in a effort to “try new hobbies” at the recommendation of her therapist. She's hoping it will make her forget that she's spending Valentine's day single but so far it's doing a lousy job. Her first 'find' was a dime and a roach clip. Her second 'find' was a used condom. She digs through a pile of leaves hoping to find the real cache but ends up uncovering a corpse instead. Nice of the person to die right on top of a geocache location so he could be found easily.
Ruby freaks out and ends up landing on her ass. For some reason this seems to calm her down and she gives the corpse a long, evaluating look, noting it's skin looks a little blue-green colored. She's watched a lot of Law and Order on TV and none of the corpses have ever been this color so she decides something weird is going on. Oh, and his eyelids are vertical. I mean, I would have led with that but what do I know?
Ruby reaches for her phone to call 911 and the corpse blinks at her. Ruby screams and then gets shot in the shoulder with an arrow. She falls over backwards and the tip of the arrow, which has gone through her shoulder, embeds itself in the ground, trapping her. The corpse reaches for her but suddenly explodes into a “cloud of humming black flies that scattered into the night”. She sees that there's another arrow in the ground where the corpse used to be.
Ruby looks up and sees a man standing among the trees holding a bow and a quiver of arrows. She figures he's there to finish her off and immediately passes out.
Survival skills: Zero.
Ruby comes to in the back of a van. She tries to sit up but her body feels heavy and useless so she just manages to roll onto her side. The arrow is gone but her entire shoulder and some of her chest is burning. She moans and a very cold hand touches her forehead gently. She doesn't really see anyone but that doesn't seem to concern her much. She's more worried that she's burning alive and that's why the hand seems so cold against her skin.
The van eventually stops. Ruby notes that her entire body is flushed and tingling and she's....ahem....well lubricated if you know what I mean. Suddenly she realizes there's three men in the back of the van with her and they seem to be glowing. They're annoyed and arguing with each other about their current predicament.
From their conversation, Ruby learns that the man who shot her with the arrow is Fletcher. He's gorgeous, naturally with Cumberbatch cheekbones and long, flowing silver hair. The leader of the group is a black-haired grump named Marcus and the third man is Quintain, a baby-faced blonde. I really hate Quintain's name. It makes me think of plantains.
Marcus and Bananaman are upset with Fletcher for missing the corpse and shooting Ruby. They accuse him of being distracted by her beauty. Fletcher is pretty upset with himself as well for “dooming” Ruby while trying to save her from the miseria.
I guess the corpse was something called a miseria. They never actually explain what a miseria is, by the way.
They realize Ruby is awake and flock to her. Fletcher asks her permission to heal her which confuses me. I thought she was doomed. Ruby tells him it's the least he can do and then he licks her wound. As he continues to lick, the injury heals itself leaving only the strange tingling sensation in her body behind.
Feeling better, Ruby asks where they've taken her and Marcus says they're by the river. They couldn't leave her where she was to recover because the other miseria would have found her and attacked. They refer to the van as their home and reassure her that she's safe. She's not sure she's buying it. She asks them why she's.....ahem.....hot to trot if you know what I mean and they tell her that Fletcher accidentally poisoned her with the arrow. I guess whatever it was dipped in is fatal to the miseria but only makes humans horny.
Because of course it does.
Ruby asks if the poison will kill her and Bananaman tells her it will unless they.....ahem....impale her with their man-stakes if you know what I mean. Ruby tells them to get to it which surprises them. Bananaman seems down to clown but Fletcher thinks she should know more about them first. Ruby does NOT think she should know more about them first because she's horny as hell but she listens anyway. Fletcher tells her that they're vampires sent by Cupid (god of love and blood) to fight the miseria because.....
Ruby doesn't let him finish. She starts taking her clothes off. When they all just stare at her she takes matters into her own hands and....ahem....impales herself with her own fingers if you know what I mean. Bananaman is in it to win it at this point and immediately starts....ahem....worshipping at the altar of her pussy palace with his face if you know what I mean. Ruby enjoys it immensely.
When she's done enjoying it, Bananaman asks her if he can feed and she gives him permission. The feeding only makes her horny again and she asks the other two to impale her post haste. Marcus looks like he wants to take her up on the offer since he had an “erection threatening the structural integrity of his pants” but he hesitates. He tells her that they don't want to “impregnate {her} with {their} powerful vampire seed”, but she tells them she's already gone through menopause so they're good to go.
Marcus takes his place at home plate while Fletcher kneels at third base so she can....ahem....obey Obama if you know what I mean. Bananaman uses one finger on her pitcher's mound and uses the other hand to massage Marcus' balls.
That was way too many baseball references for one paragraph. Forgive me. I haven't slept in a couple of days.
Afterwards, Fletcher's glamour accidentally slips, revealing his true form to Ruby. She only sees it for a second before he snaps the glamour back into place but it was enough to make her curious. She asks to see all their true forms and they reluctantly show her. Instead of finding them scary and grotesque, she's kind of into it. When Marcus asks her if she's okay with their real appearances, she “squeeze(s) her kegel muscles around him again in a little vaginal hug of reassurance.”
“Vaginal hug of reassurance” took me out, y'all.
She tells them that she prefers their true forms because they're real. A lot more sex happens and all three of them end up feeding from her. Somehow this makes them immune to the sun and now they can walk around during the day. It will allow them to hunt and kill the miseria while they are at their weakest. Ruby asks them what happens next and they shyly tell her that they were hoping maybe they could stay at her house and be a polycule.
Well, technically Fletcher says he's hoping “You would allow us to station our rolling fortress at your estate” but same/same.
Ruby is gleeful at the idea of their decrepit van being parked in her driveway to annoy her neighbors. She owned the house before the HOA formed and never signed into their agreements so they can't do anything about how she chooses to maintain her property.
We kind of fast-track for the rest of the book. Ruby tells us that she loves how much the van pisses off her neighbors and that she sometimes goes hunting for miseria with the guys. Fletcher joins a Society for Creative Anachronism group they all attend events with him. Marcus discovers a love for lawn care and trimming x-rated shapes into bushes. Bananaman takes up knitting and baking. Then the book just ends with them being all happily-ever-after.
There wasn't much to that, and what there was wasn't fleshed out very well. We never figured out what the miseria were or what kind of threat they posed to humans. We never learned why the vampires were cured by having a threesome with Ruby. Cupid's involvement was never fully explained either. Why Cupid? Just because the book started on Valentine's day? I can think of three other gods who would have been more likely to be interested in hunting monsters than Cupid. This wasn't as fun as some of Vera's other work but it was readable. Sometimes that's all I can ask for.
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