The fourth entry in Katie MacAlister’s paranormal romance series featuring the Dark Ones is sure to satisfy her many fans and earn her some new ones. Full of her trademark sense of humour and kooky characters, Even Vampires Get the Blues is the story of Paen, a Moravian Dark One doomed to spend his life in search of the woman who can redeem his soul. There’s just one problem – Paen doesn’t believe in love.

Samantha Cosse, a half-elf recently kicked out of the Order of Diviners, has just opened her own private investigation agency with her cousin Clare, a lingerie model in denial about her status as a flower-eating faery. Sam and Paen’s paths cross when he hires her to track down the Jilin God, a lost statue that he needs in five days’ time or else his mother’s soul is forfeit to a demon.

Featuring many of the denizens of the Otherworld met in previous novels – Guardians, Diviners and Mages to name a few – MacAlister continues to flesh-out the fascinating world inhabited by her supernatural heros and heroines. In Even Vampires Get the Blues MacAlister provides more of the history and creation of Moravians through Paen’s hunt for the Simia Gestor Coda. The Coda is rumoured to contain the details about the origins of Dark Ones, including a way to unmake the curse binding them to their soulless state, without involving a Beloved.

The secondary romance of Clare and Finn, Paen’s brother, helps to offset the tension caused by the time-limited quest for the Jilin God. Their playful interaction helps lighten the tone to one in keeping with reader’s expectations of MacAlister’s works.

New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister writes historical, contemporary, paranormal, and young adult romances (as Katie Maxwell), paranormal thrillers, and historical mysteries. Fans unable to wait until May 2007 for the next Dark Ones romance will be able to get their fix in September 2006 in the paranormal anthology Just One Sip, featuring the short story “Bring Out Your Dead.”

See the review posted at Curled Up with a Good Book – Even Vampires Get the Blues.