"The Undead Next Door" by Kerrelyn Sparks

In a word: fun. There's witty dialogue, good chemistry between characters, and enough wackiness to keep things lively. The book is about Heather, a single mother full of stifled dreams, and Jean, a vampire fashion designer who must hide his true nature from the world. Circumstances and an old enemy bring these two together, and they must contend with both extraordinary events and mundane life. Sparks creates a nicely superpowered breed of vampire, though her vamps are not too distinct from other authors' versions. Where Sparks stands out from her brethren is in how she successfully portrays supernatural beings' struggles with everyday living. However, the larger plot was dissatisfying and took a backseat to the smaller events leading up to the climax. As for the climax, itself, it was, well... anticlimactic. Towards the end of the book the pace picks up suddenly, even jarringly. There are a few pages of crisis, then -- poof! -- bad guy defeated. And I felt that, in switching between Heather and Jean's perspectives, there were some gaps in the narrative flow. Nevertheless, this was an entertaining book with a Lynsay Sands-esque flair.