Dying For You

Wyndham Werewolf #5.75

by MaryJanice Davidson

Together for the first time, four devilishly entertaining novellas by the New York Times bestselling author prove that there’s not only life after death, but desire too… The Fixer-UpperCathy’s new home is handsomely furnished—by an amorous male ghost. If only she had something she could…touch. Her neighbor may have a lousy personality, but he does have a perfect body. Now, spirit is about to meet flesh, to Cathy’s delight. Paradise BossedWhile traveling in the Cayman Islands, Nikki loses her life in a tragic accident, but has no intention of cutting her vacation short. When a handsome male psychic is engaged to get a grip on Nikki’s spirit, he does more. He finds himself falling in love with her. DriftwoodA Cape Cod werewolf agonizes over the death of a woman by his own paw. Well, to be fair, he never really killed her. She’s a vampire. Now she needs his help to kill the bloodsucker who turned her. Witch WayFor centuries their families have been embroiled in a violent, irreversible feud. Today, can a witch and a witch-hunter find common ground...without killing each other first? Sometimes opposites do attract.

Genres: Paranormal, Romance, Short Stories, Vampires, Witches, Werewolves, Fantasy

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

MaryJanice Davidson is an American author and motivational speaker who writes mostly paranormal romance, but also young adult and non-fiction. She is the creator of the popular UNDEAD series and the time-traveling historical fiction A CONTEMPORARY ASSHAT AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII. MaryJanice is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author who writes a bi-weekly column for USA Today and lives in St. Paul with her family. You can reach her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

www.maryjanicedavidson.org
@MaryJaniceD

MaryJanice's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/maryjanicedav...

http://us.macmillan.com/author/maryja...

Reviews

[starryeyedjen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed this audio anthology from the library because a friend lent me her bind up of the first four Betsy the Vampire Queen books and I wanted to get a feel for the author's work before starting that massive thing. It's funny. Kinda quirky. I may like the longer series. But I didn't care over much for this series of short stories based in worlds she's previously written in. I liked the amorous ghost. The psychic story kinda left me scratching my head. The witch/witch-hunter story was my least favorite and just bleh. And the werewolf/vampire story I listened to while distracted but I know it wasn't a favorite either. Ugh. I hate when someone foists a book on me like this because then I feel obligated to read it. And that thing is a flippin' doorstop. And unfortunately, my library doesn't have the audio. Waaaahhh.

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

So the "The Fixer-Upper" is fine, whatevs, thought the best friend is irritating beyond fucking belief, at least the way the narrator read her. Which is hilarious, considering that said best friend is the main character in "Paradise Bossed" and has an ending that I, frankly, consider absolutely horrendous - nearly as horrifying as the idiots at the end of the first season of American Horror Story.

"Paradise Bossed" is fucking creepy, though. Main character does actually die and doesn't come back to life. I was nearly convinced until the end that she was actually in a coma and astral projecting or something and would snap out of it. Her friends (the happy couple from "The Fixer-Upper", complete with upcoming baby) leave her to continue their lives, and the psychic they call in to help her move on falls in love with her and tries to die in order to keep spirit-bangin' her. Instead, she convinces him not to be quite such a raging idiot and instead manifests into his apartment in Boston, where she will presumably haunt him until he dies and joins her. So she can't touch or affect anything in the world except him when he's astral projecting, he's in love with a woman he can only touch when his body is camped out in a trance, and this is supposed to be a romantic, sexy, happy ending. What the actual screaming fuck-squirrels, MJD?!

Oh, also, the narrator reading those first two stories has a heavy Midwestern-as-all-fuck accent, which means she reads the entire thing, sex scenes and all, in the voice of Martha Generic, Bobby's mom from "Bobby's World". Which was...hilarious.

"Witch Way" is also mostly whatevs - moments of amusement with a little creepy at the "we met 72 hours ago, tried to kill each other because TRADITIIIIIIION and a curse that makes absolutely no sense and binds absolutely no one unless they accept it which apparently everyone does but put a baby in me now and all will be well". Bleck, but meh, mostly.

"Driftwood" was the best of the bunch. I'd read it before as part of my Wyndham the Cheerfully Rapist Werewolves/Betsy the Ditsy Vampire Queen/Fred the Cranky Mermaid universe reread and it was still cute this time around.

Overall, I just want MJD to indulge her history obsession more, 'cause "A Contemporary Asshat[...]" was her best stuff in years.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun collection of stories from an author who writes books with interesting characters that have delightfully snarky attitudes. The first is a nice love story told in an off-the-wall way. The second is an expansion of the first.
The third story is especially fun & set in the Wyndham Werewolves series as a novella that does briefly have Michael and Jeannie in it before being about two new characters that I would enjoy reading about in a future book or novella.
Lastly is a tale about two characters who wind up looking at destiny as potentially being malleable if not completely optional. I haven’t seen either character in other books or stories but they too would be interesting to read further about.

All in all this book is both a quick read as well as a fun time!

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've never read any of Mary Janice Davidson's paranormal romances before and after reading this short story collection I think I'll be passing. They were cliche, cheesy, and practically written for kids (minus the sex scenes). Each of the four short stories was horribly predictable and flat. The romances were over the top, unimaginative, and lacking. There are two short stories about falling in love with ghosts, one about a witch hunter, and another about a vampire and werewolf falling in love. Honestly the short stories could have all even been shorter. I wouldn't have minded one bit.

[Syntha Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written earlier in MJ Davidson's career so not as polished as her newest stuff, but still quirky and funny. I listened to the audio (though I had read a couple of the stories previously in an anthology) and the first 2 stories were narrated with a darling Minnesota accent where warranted. The 4th story, however, the narrator seemed to slip into a southern accent occasionally.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this better than some other paranormal complications, heck better than other ones I’ve read by this author. I like the Cathy/Jack story quite a lot, so it was worth the time for me just for them.

[Cathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love MJD but this was not one of her best.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intertwined lovely fun stories! Some old characters from previous books and some brand new ones.
Enjoyed it immensely!

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not MJD’s best. I listened to the audio book and the “Minnesota” accents drove me nuts.

[Kristine Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

cute book. It is a series of four stories. Two are connected and the other two are not. Quick reads. The book was ok not as exciting as I am used to but not horrible either.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it just me or does all her dialogue seem to be yelling and fast paced??

[Beth Ann Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undead fun

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 funny, thoughtful, loving short stories of supernatural

[Starr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked 2 out of the 4 stories. I did the audiobook also and was ready to call it off on the first one because of the accent. Glad I hung in there. 3 and 4 were fun.

[Carolynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should have known better. I don't pick up one of Ms Davidson's books unless I am ready to read for several hours (to finish the book). I was just going to check to see if it was "worth reading." Ha! Next thing I knew I was turning the last page on the fourth story, and the end of the book (several hours later). I hadn't washed dishes, sorted papers, or anything. I just read and smiled, and laughed.

Ms. Davidson has at least five series I can think of and each is leavened with plenty of humor--almost a required ingredient in the series I read. In fact, to cut to the chase, I would recommend just about anything Ms. Davidson has written (it does help to read series books in order) simply because she wrote them and that's almost an iron-clad guarantee you're going to like them, maybe even get some chuckles out of some of them. The werewolf series are just about the best in the laughs department, although the rest are pretty funny, too.

This book has four of her short stories in it, each a wonderful example of her skills in storytelling: whether about "normals," vampires, werewolves, witches, or whatever. Try it, you'll love it!

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really, I think this should be a 3.5. I will go ahead and rate each story separately. The Fixer-Upper: I would give this story a solid three. It was a good concept, but I still had issues with the ending. Paradise Bossed: Unfortunately, I would give this story a two. This was by far the weakest of the stories, and I did not really enjoy it. Driftwood: I usually enjoy when MaryJanice does the werewolf stories, but this one was lacking the usual charm, so I would give it three stars. Witch Way: I loved this story, and I wish it could have been longer. It was a great concept and great execution. My only issue is that MaryJanice has a way of making most of her characters (even guys) sound like Betsy (and Chris is very Betsy-like). I still enjoyed it enough to give it four stars.

[Beckie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook - listened on my Shuffle. 4 short stories that were a decent listen, but I know I would have not finished the book. I used to really like MJD, but the past few years worth of work have just been subpar, in my opinion. Crazy and convoluted. So much potential, but not enough follow through. Too many repetitive phrases, and the sex scenes make me cringe. Maybe she just has a lot of ideas, which is great, and doesn't know how to get a handle on them. Anyway...I would still recommend her to someone looking for a fun paranormal writer, but I wouldn't have them start with this book.

I guess I should add, now that I read a few other reviews, that the narrators really did not add anything to the stories, either, which may be why I didn't love these stories.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought "Wow, this is some of the best stuff MJD has done in YEARS!" Then I looked at the copyright page and saw that most of these short stories came out in 2004 or 2005, and were just collated in 2012. But, no matter, I'd never read any of these stories before, so I really enjoyed them.

I feel that the Wyndham Werewolves are some of MJD's better characters, so it's always nice when she goes back to that family. I wish she'd explore them more and stop beating us to death with Betsy the Queen of the Dead (seriously, Betsy is dead, leave her that way).

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely to i love all the stories in an anthology- but i really enjoyed all of these. They were great short paranormal romances. I would read these again. My favorite by far was the first one with Jack, though the second one about nikki was pretty good as well.

i don't think there were any blatant- described- sex scenes, but sex was mentioned and referred to many times. Yes the characters in all the stories had sex- but it wasn't descriptive.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, cute, but as with any short story compilation, varying degrees of interesting or good. With Davidson, you just have to let go of all sensibilities and the result is quite entertaining with her rather slapstick humour. The narrator was a lot of fun in the first story (also my favourite), employing a Minnesota accent to full effect that was great.

The remaining stories were less interesting to me, but still enjoyable, so I averaged everything at 3 stars.

[Lori J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first story in this, and was pleased to find that the best friend from the first story had her own story, but it just fell flat for me. I related more to her than the main character, and her story just didn't hit the same notes. I think if she had been the lead in the first story it would've been a lot better.

[Braincandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was a 4/5 but the narrator of the audio book has grating female voices, and gave them horrid accents. It made me do something only the narrator of the Jeaniene Frost Night Huntress series has driven me to before. I returned the audio book and read the ebook. The book was much better read than listening to the annoying voices the narrator used.

[Darcy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books is a compilation of stories that the author has previously printed. So many of them seemed familiar that I think I may have read them before. None of these are memorable, mostly a book filled with light funny stories, ones that would be a good beach read.

[Barb Foerst · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 novellas. Not as wacky as some of her books but very enjoyable short reads. Great for when you don't have long lengths of time to read. Often when I read anthologies only one is enjoyable. I liked all four. Two ghost novellas, one werewolf and vampire, and one witch and witch hunter.

[Manuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that was better. I loved the first two ghost stories and I am a sucker for the wolves (were or not). The last story about the witch and the witch hunter had so much potential though it felt a bit rushed at the end. Love MJs characters and as long as the story is good I forgive quirkiness.

[Lesli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set of 4 Davidson short stories that have been published in other collections. I'm pretty sure I've read all of these. Then again, they all seemed new to me. Typical Davidson -- snarky, fast paced, likable characters, unrealistic events. Then again, it's fantasy.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook and I think I would have been better off just reading it. The voices - or actually, accents - were so distracting, they took me out of the story every time the characters spoke. Not my favorite of MJD's books.

[Roxann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Is a collection of stories that are in other anthologies, so was a re-read on all of them.

[Jennifer Farr · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were some great and fun short stories.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per normale!