Joe Vampire, by Steven Luna. Urban Fantasy. Epub (free on Kindle through BookBub).

This was surprisingly good for such a shallow story. I think the storytelling method - first person dictation through blog posts - added humor and tone to the narrative that a plain old in-his-head first person story wouldn't have been able to contain. It also allowed for a constant near-past timeline to scroll by (ha ha) without feeling like the narrator knew more than he shared.

I mean it when I say a shallow story. Guy has girl problems. Guy gets vamped. Guy tries to figure his new undead life out. People happen. With the amount of urban fantasy I've read, I can say that there is nothing original in this string of plot-lets. What's original is how well Luna combines the ingredients into this tossed salad. My particular favorite character is Bo, the split-personality redneck with a first-grade vocabulary, a truck and a toolbelt, and oh by the way some mad computer skilz. I would happily read an anthology of short stories about weird situations that Bo suffers just to read how he saves the day.

I got this book free on Kindle because of an advertisement from the daily BookBub email of free and cheap e-books. I recommend it to anyone who needs a funny, shallow vampire story.

Books for 2017