Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford Series: Jane Fairfax #1
Published by Ballantine Books on December 29, 2009
Genres: Paranormal
Goodreads
Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is still surrounded by the literature she loves—but now it's because she's the owner of Flyleaf Books in a sleepy college town in Upstate New York. Every day she watches her novels fly off the shelves—along with dozens of unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Jane may be undead, but her books have taken on a life of their own.
To make matters worse, the manuscript she finished just before being turned into a vampire has been rejected by publishers—116 times. Jane longs to let the world know who she is, but when a sudden twist of fate thrusts her back into the spotlight, she must hide her real identity—and fend off a dark man from her past while juggling two modern suitors. Will the inimitable Jane Austen be able to keep her cool in this comedy of manners, or will she show everyone what a woman with a sharp wit and an even sharper set of fangs can do?
Julie’s Review
This book was the monthly pick for the Creatures book club. It was a quick and easy read since it is a fairly short book. At first I thought it was a pretty cool idea since Jane Austen is a centuries old vamp and is trying to blend in, yet trying to publish a new novel. I liked Lucy, Jane’s best friend and employee in the bookstore that Jane runs. I really liked her personality, and also how helpful and supportive she was of Jane, especially after Jane told her the truth.
I also liked the love interest, sort of. He kept trying to get Jane to date him and seemed like a really good guy. Then when Jane told him a secret, not *the* secret, but something else that just came out since she was too scared to tell him she’s a vampire, he did the expected and annoying thing, which made me think he wasn’t good enough for our main character.
The villain’s identity was predictable (but I’m not going to spoil it and give the details, so I’ll just call her “the villain” in this review). The villain was so creepy though. The obsession with trying to ruin Jane was kind of weird, and not to mention the siblings! OMG! (seriously, one of the weirdest and creepiest things I’ve read).
I also thought it was weird how the vamps couldn’t sense each other. The rules didn’t seem very clear, but shouldn’t other vamps be able to know a vamp from a human? [This might be a bit spoilery.] That whole scene at the villain’s house was so over the top. As always with vamps, if you think they’re dead you better make sure you check the body.
Her former lover/stalker Lord Byron was just weird how he always showed up and seemed to be around whenever he needed to help Jane or to screw around with her head. I started to like him toward the end of the book because he genuinely seemed to care for her and want to help her, even though he hasn’t been around for all this time and just bam shows up and won’t leave her alone.
I did enjoy the snippets of the book Jane was trying to publish that was at the beginning of each chapter. That sounded like a really good manuscript.
So overall this was an alright kind of book. I liked some stuff, but really rolled my eyes at other stuff, so it ended up getting a 2 star rating, which basically means it was a decent read but I’m probably not going to read the rest of the series.
