Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Monster Love
02/01/2007
Davidson, Mary Janice. Dead and Loving It. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2006. 305 p.
Horror fans who crave suspense, blood, and terror will have to go elsewhere to sate their needs. Likewise, genre enthusiasts who seek novels and short stories of considerable literary merit should just play it safe and check out Dracula or Frankenstein. However, those who desire comedic erotica featuring vampires and werewolves should look no further than Mary Janice Davidson’s collection of novellas.
Dead and Loving It presents four tales of Wyndham werewolves finding love and, of course, sexual satisfaction—in unexpected places. In “Santa Claws,” lonely and unattached Alec Kilcurt, laird of Kilcurt Holding, follows his nose to a street-corner Santa who smells of ripe peaches. She is the perfect pleasantly-plump woman for him and he is thus inclined to whisk her away to his humble castle in Scotland. In the following story, ill-tempered werewolf Janet Lupo sulks over Alec’s decision to mate with a human—or, “monkey” as she calls it—but ultimately finds her match in Richard the vampire, a man who can take pleasure in her vulgar language and rough sexual style. Even the blind werewolf doctor in “There’s No Such Thing as a Werewolf” finds amour with a homeless young fairy. In the concluding tale, “A Fiend in Need,” George the Fiend and the dislocated psychic werewolf Antonia happily fall head-over-heels in the home of Betsy, Queen of the Vampires. It is indeed a lovely time for monsters to be in love.
Each of these stories follows the same basic plotline: the male and female meet, the male is exceptionally well-endowed, they have sweaty, lusty, mind-blowing sex, and then decide to mate for life. As Alec notes, “what [is] a man, after all, without a mate, without cubs.” Regrettably, none of the twists are particularly surprising or stirring. Whether the werewolf in question pairs off with a human, vampire, or fairy, the results are roughly (no pun intended) the same.
The language is comical, and the text is peppered with corny phrases such as “hunk man,” “hunka hunka burnin’ love,” and, the ever-popular, “do you have a license to do that?” Moreover, many of the characters’ names are worthy of daytime soap operas. There are, for example, individuals called Giselle, Crescent, Drake, and Sinclair. In short, it is difficult to take these stories seriously. They are obviously meant to be lighthearted and humorous. When Crescent the sexy young fairy calls out, “Nobody’s getting spanked but me,” during a fight between her werewolf lover and the cantankerous Janet Lupo, there is no doubt that the author is hoping for laughs, rather than literary acclaim.
Alas, there is a more significant drawback to this collection. Most of the primary characters are not especially lovable, while others are downright unlikable. They are frequently crude or overly sarcastic in their language and brutal in their actions. In “Monster Love,” for example, the first sexual encounter between the male vampire and female werewolf is technically rape. In two of the four novellas, the aforementioned “Janet” spends so much time hurling obscenities and insults that it is a relief to reach a story in which she is not present.
All in all, Dead and Loving It invokes the occasional chuckle and is a relatively quick and easy read. Potential readers should keep in mind that the genre label on the book jacket is “paranormal romance,” rather than horror. That is indeed a more fitting classification. Although it is unlikely to become a horror classic, it is not a bad way (for someone who enjoys monster love) to spend an afternoon.