cover image Haunted Honeymoon

Haunted Honeymoon

Marta Acosta, Gallery, $15 paper (368p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9887-9

Acosta brings Milagro de Los Santos's roller-coaster of romantic misadventures to a close in this chipper final installment of the Casa Dracula series (after 2008's The Bride of Casa Dracula). Milagro, a human with vampiric abilities, mistrusts her feelings for Ian, her vampire "boyfriend-lover-whatever." To distract herself, Milagro has a lighthearted affair with sexy Wil, a surfer and vampire activist. Set up to take the fall when Wil is murdered, Milagro begs protection from her ex-fiancé, Oswald, further complicating her tangled love life. Too silly to be taken seriously but too serious to be comic, this series conclusion never quite gels as its own novel, and much of what Acosta attempts has been done before (and often better) by other paranormal romance authors, but Milagro's fans will be glad to see how her story is resolved. (Oct.)