Brother Blood Sister Death

Ransom (the Pandora Sequence series) offers a brisk but unremarkable take on vampire lore in this middling dark fantasy. Vampire twins Diana and Daniel are forced to leave their Portland, Ore., home when Diana’s increasingly reckless hunting habits threaten to expose them as monsters. Daniel, who wants to live a human life, relocates them to a suitably tropey old Victorian house in small-town Washington State where they attempt to fit in under the guise of being allergic to sunlight. Daniel, a biocosmetologist, has developed an exfusion cream that draws blood from unwitting victims into a goo that can be eaten later and markets it as an antiaging cream to the local hair salon. But Diana is not content to just blend in. When a contractor goes missing, cop Tom Aldrich’s investigation puts him on the trail of the town’s strange new residents. Daniel’s romantic dalliance with Jean, a local woman, adds emotion to the fast-paced story, but not enough to connect readers with the thinly sketched characters. Die-hard vampire fans will enjoy this, but most readers will be unsatisfied. (Feb.)