Book Review: The Vampire, The Handler, and Me by Eileen Sheehan

The Vampire, the Handler, and Me

by Eileen Sheehan
eBook ISBN: 9781629293103
Print ISBN: 9781629293110

Eternal Press
Genre: Paranormal
Sub Genre: Vampire
Plus-Novel of 102410 words
Heat rating: 2
Edited by Kiera Smith
Cover Artwork by Dawné Dominique
In a romantic triangle of good and bad, it's hard to tell who is good and who is bad.

Lizzy Ewing is caught in a romantic triangle between a two enemies; the handsome vampire, Nevi, and the hunky handler, Geoffrey. A handler herself, Lizzy must choose between Nevi and Geoffrey. One wants her for all the right reasons and one doesn't. Will she discover who is who before the bad destroys the good?

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Diner employee Lizzy Ewing is a misfit of sorts. Surrounded by privilege most of her life, she opts for a humble, somewhat solitary existence in her lakefront cottage. But it’s a new year, and within 24 hours, Lizzy meets two magnetic men. A roadside stop leads her to the mysteriously dapper Nevi Sharpe and a family dinner introduces her to the ruggedly assertive Geoffrey Jenkins. And so unravels the love triangle that underlies this story. Both players in the paranormal world; one a vampire, one a ‘handler,’ it is unclear to the reader who is the better man until the end of the story. The romantic woes of Lizzy run parallel to something of a murder plot; however, this portion of the tale remains largely underdeveloped.

Sheehan is creative. I liked the idea of the contingent of ‘handlers’; slowly aging agents of righteousness who ‘handle’ the miscreants of the supernatural world. I enjoyed her tale of origins surrounding handlers and vampires, which was fresh and innovative with a slight sci-fi edge. The cover design for the book is attractive and compelling.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like Lizzy as a main character. I found her abundantly self-absorbed and not in a sassy, unapologetic way, which can be humorous and entertaining. When confronted with the death of a friend, her reaction is unauthentic and selfish. She makes odd head-scratching choices, especially in the midst of chaos and danger. Navy wool slacks and mohair sweater dress aside, Lizzy just doesn’t have enough depth or interest of character for me. Plus, she drives under the influence of alcohol, and while I appreciate her need to hit the bottle once in a while, drinking and driving is just unforgiveable.

And while the plot is interesting enough, at times the writing is difficult to navigate. While at a New Year’s party, Lizzy reflects on the party refreshments: “I would have inspected it more in depth if the jolt to my body hadn’t been all the opening my stomach needed to coerce purging of the horrendous hors d’oeuvres and swill I’d pummeled it with for the last few hours.” The writing thins out a bit as the story gets going, but sentences like this are common. Furthermore, the author has a habit of revealing big information in an anti-climactic way, while inconsequential information is given primary focus. Such is the case with the author’s nearly full-page anecdote bestowing the virtues of gas inserts in fireplaces.

I’m not sure if this is the end of the line for Lizzy Ewing. I would read another installment set in this world as I am intrigued by the handler concept. Overall, however, I found this book too cluttered and lacking in development to earn my true devotion.

2 ½ sheep

Bianca Greenwood

About the Author:

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Eileen Sheehan is from Scartaglin, County Kerry, now living in Killarney. Her first collection, Song of the Midnight Fox (Doghouse Books) was published in 2004. Winner of the inaugural Writers' Week Listowel, Poetry Slam, 2004 and the Brendan Kennelly Poetry Award 2006. She is on the Poetry Ireland Éigse Éireann Writers in Schools Scheme and has been employed by County Kerry VEC teaching Creative Writing at Killarney Technical College. She was a founder and co-ordinator of the Bricín Winter Arts Festival, Killarney.

Book Review: Call Me by Rick Auterson

Call Me
by Rick Auterson

Paperback: 228 pages
Eternal Press (July 1, 2015)
There are a few rare women who see one-hundred times as many colors as the rest of us: not just more shades of color, more colors-colors for which there are no names. At just eleven years old, Karen is hiding a dark secret. She cannot see colors like everybody else. Her father takes her to an art show and, while everybody else sees the paintings as wildly colorful abstracts, to Karen, it is the first time she has ever seen anything that looks real. Hidden in the sky of one particular painting are the words CALL ME but only Karen can see them. She breaks down in tears when she realizes that she is not the only one. There is another girl like her.

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Quite an interesting book and I wonder if some of it might be based in some medical fact. A gene that gives a person a four color spectrum instead of the normal three colors. Wouldn't that be a hoot. Like living in a painting seeing so much more to the hues of our universe! Not only seeing the colors but being able to "see" the colors of emotions on people. Impossible to hide true feelings!

I have to say the first page caught my attention because it was set in the area that I also grew up around. Paris, Champaign and Chicago, Illinois. It was fun being able to reminisce about the places mentioned which helped me relate to the story. A young girl with the genetic disorder feeling very disconnected from life because of her "disability" (or at least that was how she saw it) and her widowed father discovers another women with the same disorder. A painting brought them together and the author gave a heartwarming description of how it must feel to finally meet someone with whom they can share their vision of the world. I suspect it is the reason most support groups are helpful to anyone feeling "alone" with their individual conditions.

Anyway, the rest of the story was a pretty typical love story with a little danger thrown in for good measure. Widowed father meets woman with same condition as his daughter and immediately feels an attraction and that feeling is returned. Daughter orchestrates and encourages the relationship and "Well, you can probably fill in the rest". There were a few other revelations regarding the abilities of the "color spectrum" condition such as seeing disease colors but all in all I felt the story was a little "vanilla" with a few sprinkles on top. Easy read but I didn't have a problem putting it down between reading sessions.

If you are looking for something that has an interesting "topic" housed in a feel good family story, this would be for you.

I give this story 3 "colorful" sheep

Jeanie G

About the Author:

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Spotlight: Scent: Animal Trilogy book 2 by Jacqueline Paige

Scent: Animal Trilogy book 2
by Jacqueline Paige
Paranormal Romance
Pages: 245
Plot: 
Sometimes the answers you get aren’t what you asked.The world can tilt a bit and throw you off balance, just enough that you have to stop and make some adjustments. Kelsey comes home to find out her entire life and everything she thought she knew is a lie. When her world spins out of control and flips in more directions then she could ever count, she struggles to right it again.

I jumped into this trilogy right here at book 2, the author does a great job of making it easy to catch up. I didn't feel lost or left out at all, the first story characters even make a come back and give you a taste of what their story was about. Which made me want to get book one! 

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Sheep review of Scent

About the Author:

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Jacqueline Paige lives in Ontario in a small town that’s part of the popular Georgian Triangle area. No one has ever heard of Stayner, so she usually tells people she lives “near Collingwood” and no, she doesn’t ski at Blue Mountain or at all, in fact she’s not even fond of snow.

She began her writing career in 2006 and since her first published works in 2009 she hasn’t stopped. Jacqueline describes her writing as “all things paranormal”, which she has proven is her niche with stories of witches, ghosts, physics and shifters now on the shelves.

When Jacqueline isn’t working at her ‘reality job’ or lost in her writing she spends time with her five children, most of whom are finally able to look after her instead of the other way around. Together they do random road trips, that usually end up with them lost, shopping trips where they push every button in the toy aisle, hiking when there’s enough time to escape and bizarre things like creating new daring recipes in the kitchen. She’s a grandmother to four (so far) and looks forward to corrupting many more in the years to come.