And the WINNER is....

tina werner

Congrats to Tina, and thanks to everyone who entered.

A very big thanks to Marta Acosta for doing the interview, providing the books and just being generally fabulous.

Marta Acosta interview + international giveaway

I recently read (devoured/inhaled) Marta Acosta's 'Casa Dracula' series and completely feel in lust with this author's unique brand of humour, à la Moliere's comedy-of-manners.

Luckily for me, Ms. Acosta doesn't mind having rabid fan-girls beg her for interviews...

So, without further ado, I present to you the luminous laugh-out-loud brilliance of Marta Acosta!

Q: How did you get published, agent or slush pile?

I had an agent. Of course, I went through a lot of rejections when I first queried agents. This was before the Twilight-inspired craze when no one had even heard of the term “urban fantasy.” Now everyone and her cousin has written a book with vampires or werewolves.

Q: Favourite book of all time?

I’ll give you a few: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Persuasion by Jane Austen, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, and anything by P.G. Wodehouse.

Q: Favourite author?

Any of the above on any given day, but you’d have to toss Henry James and Mark Twain into the mix.

Q: Can I assume that you have a soft spot for my fair country, Australia? In ‘Midnight Brunch’ Milagro meets some boisterous Aussie blokes at a wine tasting. In ‘Bride of Casa Dracula’ the wacko Don Pedro (Mr. Nascimento) claims to have "taken a walkabout” in the Australian outback. Milagro likewise believes that “everyone loves a good platypus story.” Have you ever visited Australia, and if so what did you think of our sunburnt land? (and if not. . . can you please come and visit? Puh-lease?!?)

I haven’t visited Australia, but I have partied with Australians and Australians party hard. My ex-pat brother hangs out with a lot of Aussies and visits Australia, and he speaks a lot of Aussie slang. I think I wrote the Aussie scene after a conversation with him. Don Pedro’s story came because I was thinking of Nicholas Roeg’s classic film, Walkabout. Yes, I draw from art to make jokes. Also, who doesn’t love a good platypus story? I’d love to visit sometime if only to see the platypus in its natural habitat.

Q: You mention some really wonderful multicultural monsters throughout the ‘Casa Dracula’ series. From La Llorona to Chupas. What made you settle on vampirism for your protagonist?

With humor, you often throw two disparate ideas together. I’d just watched a sci-fi movie where everyone was running around in gray lycra jumpsuits, and I started ranting about clichés in film and books. This led me to thinking about clichés about vampires as wealthy, accomplished, and gorgeous. Wouldn’t they be dreadful snobs?

I thought that using a comedy-of-manners structure about social class would work if I spoofed those clichés. How would those vamps react if they had to deal with a quirky, outspoken, broke, and rather aimless young woman? Now don’t you regret asking?

Q: Let me borrow a quote from Moliere to frame the next question: “Reason is not what decides love.” In ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ Milagro has made her choice between bad-boy Ian and sweetheart Oswald. Did you know from book #1 who Milagro would end up with?

In my first version of book #1, Milagro walks out on Oswald and her college beau, by saying, “If either of you decide to grow up, give me a call.” My agent then said that she couldn’t sell the book without a happy ending. I rewrote the ending so that Milagro stays with Oswald, but we sense her ambiguity. She keeps and hides the gifts that Ian sends her.

I always wanted that first ending, though, where Milagro stands on her own two feet, because I felt that’s an important stage in a young woman’s life, when she can be independent. I was able to do that in The Bride of Casa Dracula. When Milagro finally makes her decision to marry in Haunted Honeymoon, it’s motivated by love, not a desperate need for companionship.

Yes, I always knew who I wanted her to choose. I think my affection for the character comes through in the scenes and dialogue that I gave him.

Q: You released a book under the name Grace Coopersmith entitled ‘Nancy’s Theory of Style’. The book is a spin-off of sorts, about one of the character’s who appears in the Casa Dracula world. Why the pseudonym? And did writing under a different guise affect your ‘voice’?

The whole story is long and complicated and we’d have to drink a six of Fosters while I explained it. A short version is that we thought the sales would be better with a pseudonym since my sales hadn’t been great for The Bride of Casa Dracula (book 3), since no one knew about Midnight Brunch (book 2) because it looked more like a cookbook than anything else. There were a lot of missteps with the placement and covers of my books. People still can’t find them in bookstores. (They’re in General Fiction.)

Q: Don Pedro ironically hates “phoniness and pretense”. What are some of your pet-peeves?

Where to start? Don Pedro has hired Milagro to write his memoir, which she calls a fauxoir, since she made up the whole thing. One of my pet peeves is how the literary world will praise an obviously bullshit memoir. When the hoax is discovered, they’ll condemn the author. James Fray, JT Leroy, Carlos Castaneda anyone? You Aussies have Marlo Morgan’s Mutant Message from Down Under. I love the hoaxers, and I hate it when an author’s former admirers act like affronted virgins.

Q: Milagro gets burned repeatedly by the literati and publishing world throughout the ‘Casa Dracula’ series. Don Pedro refuses to acknowledge that she ghost-wrote his ‘fauxoir’, and her ex boyfriend, Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon, gains unjust notoriety for a pretentious novel. Is the world of publishing/writing really so awful? And were any of Milagro’s experiences a case of art imitating life?

What I say about publishing is that it’s a business run by people who wanted to read books in college. Make of that what you will.

Milagro’s writing is fiction imitating fiction. More specifically, I was a little inspired by Kilgore Trout, a character who appears in Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Trout is a dreadful writer, but he has brilliant ideas. I never say if Milagro’s stories are good or not. I think she’s at her best when she lets go of her notions about what good writing should be and she pens the flamboyant fauxoir.

Q: Who would you like to write a fauxoir for?

I would choose someone unknown because then I’d have the freedom to make up anything and everything. I always admire those people who think of money-making religions like L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer who expressed a desire to invent a religion. He later founded Scientology. I even have the main theme of my moneymaking religion: “It’s not my fault – they fucked up.” I haven’t decided if it would have an intricate alien-extraterrestrial tier structure. Sadly, I lack Hubbard’s ambition and drive.

Q: Milagro carries a certain Llama (Llorona) story around “like a dead albatross”. Have you had any such seabird-addled stories in your career?

I often make mistakes with my spell-check programs, but nothing like Milagro’s continual humiliation with the llama story. (She intended to write a story about La Llorona, the famous wailing woman of Latin American folklore.) One technique with humor is to commit to a joke, which is why I often drive my friends crazy and why I keep bringing up the llama story.

Q: You make a lot of wry social observations throughout the 'Casa Dracula' series, particularly concerning Latin Americans and US racism. How important is it to you, as a Latina, to use your mighty pen and write about such issues?

It was really important to me to present a protagonist who broke the media stereotypes about Latinas as maids, welfare mothers, and illegal immigrants. I wasn’t interested in the well-intentioned, but equally clueless literary stereotypes either: all noble savages and magical realism. No thanks.

Milagro’s a type of girl who’s not uncommon to real Latinas and to real young women everywhere: she’s bright, funny, sexy, lively, and informed.

What I’m trying to say in my books is: here is our common humanity. We all feel like outsiders sometimes. We all seek love, family, and a home. We all make mistakes, and most of us try to do better. When readers who come from different backgrounds empathize with Milagro, I feel that I have succeeded. When Latinas identify with her, I feel that I have succeeded.

Q: Were publishers wary of a book series with a Latina heroine?

At the time that the book was first sent out, publishers were looking for a “Latina Terry McMillan.” They wanted someone who could write a chick lit book that would sell across color/ethnic markets. The trade paper edition was given a cover that practically had dancing jalepeños on it. Red ruffled dress? Check. Gold hoop earrings? Check. Crazy fiesta party font? Check. I got them to pull back a little, but I never thought the cover reflected the style and content of the story. They’ve never really known what to do with me.

Q: Is ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ really the end of Milagro de Los Santos?

I’m pretty sure it is. This series still doesn’t sell in the numbers that most popular paranormal romance does. A lot of people have never heard of my books or if they have, they just won’t pick them up. I don’t know why because people who actually read them say they love them.

I am having a harder time saying goodbye to Milagro than I thought I would. I wouldn’t mind bringing her back in a different series with her sexy husband, very Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man, all clever banter, flirting, parties, and danger.

Q: Word on the blogosphere is that you have a YA book coming out in 2012 called ‘The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove’. Can you tell us a little bit about this new project?

I began this gothic story as homage to Jane Eyre. My own Jane is a foster girl who decides to escape her grim, miserable existence by studying hard. She’s invited to attend the exclusive Birch Grove Academy for Girls on a full scholarship and she can live in the groundskeeper’s cottage.

The school is amazing and the students are smart, interesting young women. The headmistress and her attractive sons take an interest in Jane’s welfare and happiness. It seems too good to be true. It is. Jane discovers that a former scholarship girl left under very mysterious circumstances. She’s got to decide what she’ll risk to stay at Birch Grove.

I went to an all-girls school and my fictional girls were inspired by those real girls who were passionate about physics, or literature, or sports.

Q: I can’t wait to read your YA book! What are some of the obstacles you’ve had to face in writing for a younger audience?

I didn’t know what would be accepted in terms of sexuality and language. I did what I do with my other books, which is to imply rather than specify.
One big challenge for a YA and for any book these days is mentioning gadgets, songs, and movies. There’s about a two-year time lag between turning in a manuscript and having it published, so you can’t bring up anything so trendy that it will date a story. It was easier for plotting when people only had one phone in their houses and it was a landline.

Q: And finally, to end on a Moliere quote. “Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.” – which one are you up to?

My husband said I had to stop telling people that the best thing about writing is getting paid because they always look at me as if I’m a barbarian. To me, the money proves that what I’m doing has value to other people. Gigi Barton, one of my characters, scoffs when Milagro turns down payment for a garden design and tells her, “It’s like prostitution: unless you get paid, you’re just an enthusiastic amateur.”

Danielle, thanks so much for having me here at Alpha Reader. I was thrilled to discover your reviews of my books, especially since you really seemed to understand what I’m trying to do as a writer. It makes me feel quite appreciated…like receiving a check from my publisher!

★

International GIVEAWAY!
I have the first and fourth book in the 'Casa Dracula' series to give away to one lucky follower...

To enter:

♥ Become a follower of my blog (if you aren't already)

♥ Leave a comment on this blog post

♥ Include a way to contact you (e-mail addy is fine)

♥ One post per entrant

♥ This is an INTERNATIONAL giveaway!

♥ Contest closes November 20th.

'Haunted Honeymoon' Casa Dracula #4 by Marta ACOSTA

From the BLURB:

THERE'S MORE THAN HER HEART AT STAKE. . . .As the only human to survive vampire infection, Milagro de Los Santos has become quite a celebrity among the blood-drinking elite. Too bad the perks of her condition - increased strength, super-fast healing - don't pay her condo fees. There are other complications too. She's feeling guilty about her fling with enigmatic Vampire Council member Ian Ducharme, and pining for her ex-fiancé, Dr. Oswald Grant . . . the fabulous man whose kiss changed her life. It's when Milagro - irked by Ian's attentions to his neighbor - travels to London and enjoys a sexy flirtation of her own, that the blood really hits the fan. Suddenly, those around her are dying gruesome deaths and Milagro's being interrogated. Who would kill to set her up as a murder suspect? Milagro just wants to turn back the clock and have another chance to make things right, but no sooner has she escaped to Oswald's ranch than an accident obliterates her memory. Will the murderer come after her now? And will amnesia spark a romantic do-over with Oswald - or will she make all the same mistakes before she ever gets to say "I do"?


Tabula rasa means ‘blank slate’, and is both a kick-ass season six episode of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and the overarching theme of Marta Acosta’s fourth and final ‘Casa Dracula’ novel. . .

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking
- William Shakespeare

In this novel Milagro is dealing with the fallout of ‘happily ever after’. Following the heartbreakingly complicated events of ‘Bride of Casa Dracula’, Milagro de Los Santos made her bed and chose her man. Now she is discovering what happens after you ride off into the sunset with your prince charming. . .

In ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ Milagro discovers that the man she chose can promise her lust, but not love; adoration but not fidelity. She feels seller’s remorse for the man she gave up, and to nurse her broken heart (and make some mula off a fauxoir freak) she jet-sets to London and shacks up with a politically-minded surfer with a lush name.

When Milagro returns her problems are just as she left them – caught between the man she chose and the man she wants, and the vampire society who revere and vilify her. . . matters get even more complicated when the English surfer follows her home and gets himself killed. Suddenly Milagro is hunted by military contractors, and pissed off with Cockroaches and Pickles until her memory finally snaps and amnesia gives her a case of tabula rasa.

Women are made to be loved, not understood.
- Oscar Wilde

Marta Acosta’s ‘Casa Dracula’ series is not paranormal romance. Rather it is a comedy-of-manners; revelling in absurd non sequiturs, stinging social observations and hilarious juxtapositions. Any paranormal and romantic elements are fringe benefits. . . and I sort of love the way that in ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ Marta Acosta tramples a lot of paranormal romance conventions. She writes messy love, fucked-up characters, awkward situations and scathing diatribes. And I loved every word. . .

Ah! how annoying that the law doesn't allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.
- Moliere

If you were ever under the impression that the ‘Casa Dracula’ series is paranormal romance, then Milagro’s bed-hopping should quickly dispel such misconceptions. It is very un-feminist and puritanical that in a lot of paranormal/urban-fantasy books the female characters are quite chaste. Screw that! Marta Acosta writes messy love – her heroine enjoys sex and flirting and she falls into bed for fun and forgetting. I loved reading about Milagro’s oozing sexuality – both the references to her chichis and male character’s reactions to her bazoombas. Sure, it’s funny, but on a more emotional level I enjoyed reading Milagro’s sexual armour. Acosta gets very Freudian in ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ and explores Milagro’s childhood as it impacts her current adult relationships, and it is fascinating. We all have 20/20 vision in hindsight, and I felt as though Acosta delving into Milagro’s past made the previous three books more profound and enriching.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
- Oscar Wilde

The ‘Casa Dracula’ series is a comedy-of-manners, but some of the most powerful scenes in ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ came when manners were disposed of and characters didn’t pull punches;

Ian stared at me with his languid, hooded eyes and said, “You’re very conflicted about who you are, what we are, as you’ve always been. But what is amusing in a girl becomes tiresome in a woman. Grow up.”
“So says a man who spends every waking hour in pursuit of pleasure.”
“Remind me again, Milagro, what it is that you do to contribute to society, besides your decorative value, which is considerable.”

‘Haunted Honeymoon’ is very much centred on Milagro – deconstructing her personality, her past and her predicaments. She is an infuriating character sometimes – both hyper-aware and utterly ignorant of herself. In other words, Milagro is just like everyone else in the world. But I loved that in ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ a lot of dirty laundry was aired, and characters spoke their minds and had their say – often voicing criticisms and witticisms that had been on the tips of their tongue for three books. The amnesia plot is essentially a stripping down of Milagro’s defences; a way for her to take a cold, hard look at her life decisions and gain perspective. It may be a cliché soap-opera storyline, but with Ms. Acosta’s writing juju the amnesia plot becomes a deeply profound and funny character exposè, more in keeping with an Oscar Wilde comedy-of-errors than the Goldie Hawn movie 'Overboard'.

There is no praise to bear the sort that you put in your pocket.
- Moliere

‘Haunted Honeymoon’ does pack quite a punch. I cried, I laughed, I yelled at certain characters when they didn’t chase after the girl or made inappropriate marriage proposals. But overall I got a sense of hope from this final ‘Casa Dracula’ novel;

“I don’t believe in magic.”
“You are magic.” He put his fine-boned hand on my wrist. “You are Milagro de Los Santos, the Miracle of the Saints. You must trust in yourself, in the role that destiny has written for you. Even though others would put you in a cage, the one who watches you recognizes your true self and loves you still.”
I was surprised at the shiver that went through me. “I know you’re full of it, but damn if I don’t want to believe you.”
“Then do,” he said, and winked one of his big bug eyes.

This is the grand finale for Milagro de Los Santos – and her send-off is absurdly wonderful and befitting the unique ‘Casa Dracula’ series. Milagro’s love life is sorted out, once and for all. She accepts hard truths and her own limitations, and the book finishes on a beautiful note of Scarlett-esque proportions; ‘tomorrow is another day’. I would be over-the-moon thrilled if Marta Acosta wrote more books in the ‘Casa Dracula’ series. But if ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ really is the last then it’s a beautiful send-off for one fabulous señorita.

5/5

'The Bride of Casa Dracula' Casa Dracula #3 by Marta ACOSTA

From the BLURB:

Milagro De Los Santos is having serious problems planning her wedding to fabulous Oswald Grant, M.D. Her future in-laws loathe her, her dog just died, and Oswald's family has a genetic anomaly that makes them crave blood. Then her extravagant best friend hijacks the role of wedding coordinator, and the secretive Vampire Council assigns conniving Cornelia Ducharme to guide the couple through the ancient vampire marriage rituals.

To top it all off, Milagro's career is on the skids. She's reduced to ghost-writing the memoirs of a loony little man who claims to be a shapeshifter. And why does Cornelia's decadent, way too attractive brother, Ian, always show up whenever Milagro is away from Oswald? When a series of accidents interferes with wedding plans, Oswald worries that Milagro is cracking under the pressure. Is she just paranoid, or is a hidden enemy trying to make sure Milagro doesn't wed the undead?

Milagro De Los Santos is flying high. She is engaged to the love of her life, Oswald Grant. She has a ghost-writing project to keep her busy and a firm grasp on her red-coloured cravings.
Never mind that she and Oswald are fighting constantly, minus any make-up sex since the vampire council has banned copulation until the wedding. She is writing a memoir for Don Pedro, a self-proclaimed shapeshifter who also happens to be a complete nutbar. And Milagro’s blood cravings are only under control when she’s not around her ex-beau Ian Ducharme. . . the man who makes her blood fizz and her chichis ache.
But apart from that everything is fine. . .

The first two books in the series were all about our protagonist, Milagro De Los Santos, wanting to fit in. Milagro wanted to fit into her fiancées family and to be a part of the vampire society she had been infected into. But this third book is about what happens when the square peg has been rammed into the round hole. . .

“So you ate your pomegranate seed, but now you are not content to be queen of the underworld?” Ian asked.

Marta Acosta has some powerful writing juju going on in this third instalment of the ‘Casa Dracula’ series. Ms. Acosta draws on some fabulous references throughout ‘Bride’; rapid-fire allusions that swirl within the text and enrich the paranormal. Oswald and Milagro’s pre-marital struggles feel like a head-nod to Pygmalion, with Oswald as Henry Higgins trying to change his flower-girl into a lady she’s not. On a baser level it felt as though Milagro was a wolf trying to be tamed.

Milagro’s ex-lover and still-crush, Ian Ducharme, plays a vital role in this third book. . . even more so when his wacko sister, Cornelia Ducharme, comes to help plan Milagro and Oswald’s wedding. Ms. Acosta has said that she drew on Henry and Mary Crawford of Jane Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ for the characters of Ian and Cornelia. The Austen hat-tip is wonderful and befitting these twisted siblings, even more so when the Ducharme’s layers are peeled back. Cornelia Ducharme reminded me of Daisy Buchanan, and in fact the Grant mansion prompted me to think of Gatsby’s sprawling estate. . . even more so for the nostalgia Milagro feels for her first few months living with the Grant’s. I also couldn’t help but think that Milagro was Ian’s green light at the end of the dock.

The exploration of duality is explored when shapeshifters are introduced to the Casa Dracula universe. Then there’s the Greek mythology and the story of Persephone. Pomegranate seeds permeate the text – both literally and metaphorically. Milagro as Persephone caught between two worlds, always trying to live in both but belonging to neither. This theme is encapsulated in Milagro’s choice between two men – sweetheart Oswald and bad-boy Ian. And furthermore by Milagro's wish for all the normal things; love, family, white picket fence... while she's also desperate to fit into the hush-hush vampire society.

The duality conflict has been a staple of all the Casa Dracula books. The series is first and foremost a comedy-of-manners, and Ms. Acosta has always explored social niceties and hierarchies via Milagro’s Latina heritage. This has been one of my favourite aspects of the Casa Dracula series - that for all its paranormal tagging, the books have also been an exploration of modern bigotry. It’s not just vampires who are society outcasts. . .
Milagro has been referred to as a common Mexican girl; she has been relegated to the maid’s quarters and been the ‘odd one out’ in her group of blonde-haired blue-eyed university friends. Ms. Acosta has written some corker observations about Mexican Americans and their standing in society, like this comment made by Milagro’s friend, Nancy:

“Oh, darling, everyone’s using Spanglish. How else would you communicate with household staff?”

Acosta writes laugh-out-loud, so-wrong-it’s-right social observations that keep me thinking and chortling throughout the book.

One of my favourite things about this third book is the romance. Right from book one Milagro has been caught between two men – the safe and steady Oswald, and the dark and brooding Ian Ducharme. I have always been Team Ian, and my reasons felt justified by his appearance in this book;

I said. “I do hope we can continue to be friends.”
I didn’t expect him to burst into laughter, but he did, and I snapped. “What is so damn funny?”
When he finally stopped laughing, he looked more relaxed and said, “You and your attempts to be polite.”
“You think I’m incapable of fitting in with your swanky society pals?”
He stepped forward and took my hand. At his touch, a hot fizz went through my body. He looked into my eyes and asked softly, “Why are you so eager to be like everyone else when you’re Milagro De Los Santos?”

I don’t want to say how the book ends because it concerns Milagro’s final, romantic decision. I will say that the love triangle is solved, beautifully and messily. I cried. . . but I won’t say if it was tears of joy or frustration. But I will say it was an ending that left me panting for the fourth and final book ‘Haunted Honeymoon’.

5/5

'Midnight Brunch' Casa Dracula #2 by Marta ACOSTA

From the BLURB:

What's a girl to do when she discovers she's the main course on the menu?

Hip, funny Milagro de los Santos thinks she's finally found love and a home at the California ranch of fabulous Oswald Grant and his urbane relatives, who have a rare genetic disorder that some call vampirism. But Milagro is bewildered when she's excluded from an ancient and mysterious midnight ceremony whose participants include Oswald's unfriendly parents, a creepy family elder, and Milagro's ex-lover, the powerful and decadent Ian Ducharme. What skeletons are the vampires keeping in their designer closets?

When Milagro's life is threatened by a rogue family member, she flees to the desert to hide. Instead of solitude, she encounters an egomaniacal actor, a partying heiress, a sly tabloid reporter, and a lavish spa full of dark secrets -- all of which might help her find a way home.

‘Midnight Brunch’ is the second book in Marta Acosta’s ‘Casa Dracula’ series. I loved first book ‘Happy Hour at Casa Dracula’ and ‘Midnight Brunch’ is a riotous follow-up.

‘Midnight Brunch’ picks up pretty much where ‘Happy Hour’ left off. Down-on-her-luck writer turned down-on-her-luck vampire, Milagro de los Santos, is living with her boyfriend, Oswald Grant on his sprawling family estate. For the most part Oswald and Milagro are blissfully happy. Their sex life is incredible; they have a hold on their red-coloured cravings and have an adopted child in dog Daisy. But there’s trouble in Casa Dracula... Milagro is feeling more and more like an outsider looking in at the Grant family’s many secrets and rituals. A certain dark lord vampire called Ian Ducharme is a thorn in Oswald’s jealousy and the Vampire Council are wary of Milagro’s miraculous recovery from vampire infection.

Ms. Acosta writes comedy of manners and errors. The storylines are sometimes non sequiturs that lead the character’s into random adventures of comedic brilliance. In ‘Midnight Brunch’ Milagro finds herself fixing a screenplay at a desert resort, playing maid to a B-grade heartthrob and chasing a chupa with a high school English teacher. The plot is a criss-crossing, beautiful mess of epic proportions – and as a reader you’ve just got to go with it and trust that Ms. Acosta will blow your mind and bust your gut.

Of course the stand-out of the ‘Casa Dracula’ series is Milagro de los Santos. What’s not to love about this feisty Latina vampire with a heart of gold? I loved her in ‘Happy Hour’, and the fictional girl-crush grows in ‘Midnight Brunch’. In this second book Milagro is recognizing the negatives of biting into an ancient family of secret-keeping vampires. As funny as Milagro is (and she really is hilarious) ‘Midnight Brunch’ is also an in-depth exploration into Milagro’s post-vampiric life... and it aint’ always pretty.

“I don’t know that I’m going back.”
“Sure you’ll go back. I've seen sad endings and I've seen happy endings, and you’re a happy ending type.”
“You’re talking about movies, not real life.”
“Same difference,” he said.

‘Midnight Brunch’ sees Milagro thrown into the deep-end and struggling with life after ‘happily ever after’. She’s dealing with Oswald’s jealousy, feeling like an outcast in the Grant family, hunger pains and job woes.

Second only to Mialgro, my other favourite character in the ‘Casa Dracula’ series is Ian Ducharme. First introduced in ‘Happy Hour’ where he became enamoured of Milagro (despite her rebuffs) the dark lord returns in ‘Midnight Brunch’. I can’t get a handle on Ian, and I think that’s why I love him so much. He’s like dark chocolate – a little too much, but just enough at the same time, a sweetly-bitter deadly conundrum. Dare I say, I even like Ian more than Oswald? *gasp!*. Ian is clearly in love with Milagro and I can’t help but root for a romance between them, even when I know it’s impossible (and he is a little psycho). I blame Marta Acosta for writing such a darn good bad-boy!

I looooooove this series so, so much. Milagro is a hot and feisty Latina heroine with a razor-sharp wit and big bazoombas. And I worship at the writer-altar of Marta Acosta. I’m going into third book ‘The Bride of Casa Dracula’ with a giddy heart and a craving for more spicy-Milagro.

5/5

'Happy Hour at Casa Dracula' by Marta ACOSTA

From the BLURB:

Latina Ivy League grad Milagro de Los Santos can't find her place in the world or a man to go with it. Then one night, at a book party for her pretentious ex-boyfriend, she meets an oddly attractive man. After she is bitten while kissing him, she falls ill and is squirreled away to his family's estate to recover. Vampires don't exist in this day and age -- or do they? As Milagro falls for a fabulously inappropriate man, she finds herself caught between a family who has accepted her as one of their own and a shady organization that refuses to let the undead live and love in peace.

‘Happy Hour at Casa Dracula’ is the first book in Marta Acosta’s ‘Casa Dracula’ series... and it is fabulous!

Milagro is a writer down on her luck. Nothing has really gone Milagro ‘Mil’s’ way since becoming a graduate literati from F.U. university. And to highlight Mil’s string of failed jobs and failed boyfriends is her ex, Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon. The man she loved and who abandoned her is launching his first novel and Mil has to endure his dazzling success and well-aged looks with head hung low.
While at the launch for Sebastian’s book Mil meets a suave gentleman with dove-grey eyes called Oswald. She is oddly and hotly drawn to Oswald, and that’s why the events that follow their encounter are so deplorably despicable. Oswald happened to cut his lip, and Milago accidentally fell on his mouth and ingested some of his blood... completely unhappy coincidence. Now Mialgro is being tailed by her ex, an insane vampire vigilante group is after her and Oswald’s odd-ball family insist she stay with them.

Why in the heck have I only just discovered this series? There are currently four books out; ‘Happy Hour’ was released in 2006. Honestly, I am kicking myself that it has taken me this long to discover these books!

‘Happy Hour’ reminded me of Molly Harper’s ‘Jane Jameson’... if Jane was Latina. Acosta and Harper have similar voices, in so far as they are both hysterically funny and incredibly distinctive. Also, both series hinder on the excessive likability of the heroine. The same way that Jane Jameson was self-deprecatingly witty and quick with pop-culture comebacks, Milagro is self-deprecatingly Latina and quick with fabulousness.

Milagro has just my kind of humour; her observations are precise hit-the-nail-on-the-head perfections that will leave you weeping for their absolute truth;

Instead I had my mother Regina, rats in the walls, and boyfriends who were like beach reads, momentary fun but nothing you’d ever bother to buy in hardcover. I worried that perhaps I, as a nonserious person, was only a beach read as well. I had just reread ‘Middlemarch’, and I had a deep and sincere desire to be a deep and sincere character.

I was also really impressed by Acosta’s writing of Milagro’s vampiric transformation. For all of Acosta’s belly-aching laugh lines, she is capable of going very dark and gothic when the vampirism mythology calls for it. When Milagro becomes infected with Oswald’s blood, she undergoes a physical transformation. Her heightened senses and delirium have her hearing morse code from the rats scurrying in her walls. Acosta can be utterly creepy and respectful of the vampire lore – and I loved her ability to balance the serious horror with heightened humour.

The story really starts when Milagro is invited to stay at Oswald’s family estate, while she recovers from her ‘infection’. From here the storyline veers into Oswald’s family history, the persecution of ‘vampires’ and where Milagro fits in this tight-knit community of bloodsuckers. It is also during this time that Milagro and Oswald’s romance heats up...

Even Acosta’s descriptions are melt-in-your-mouth lusciousness;

His polite smile was even and his light brown hair was brushed in an unsuccessful attempt to subdue the natural waves. His eyes were brown, too. Slim and neatly groomed, he looked like a really sexy mathematician unaware that he was a prime number.

As funny as Milagro is, Acosta has written her with real heart. A lot of Milagro’s observations are about being a brown girl in a predominately white (Swedish-looking) world. Milagro muses on being mistaken for wait staff at soirees and silently communicating via head-nod with fellow assimilated Latinas. Milagro’s observations on middle-class racism are never a main focus, but they are interesting side-observations made by Acosta that serve to make Milagro a fascinating woman.

As much as I absolutely and thoroughly loved ‘Happy Hour’, the ‘Casa’ series also seems to have similar pitfalls to ‘Jane Jameson’; in that the character’s strong voice doesn’t seem to leave much room for plot. By the end of ‘Happy Hour’ I did realize that not a whole lot technically happened. In the same way that ‘Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs’ was lite on story, ‘Happy Hour’ is similarly plot-lite. It’s not a deficiency while you’re reading, and to be honest Milagro is so funny and fabulous that I don’t really mind the lack of forward plot momentum. It is only when it comes to reviewing the book that I notice the overall storyline wasn’t terribly meaty. To be fair, ‘Happy Hour’ sets up plots for future books, and regardless of plottiness (what? It’s a word!...now) I will keep reading the series because Milagro is just so darn funny and I have fallen in lust with Acosta’s writing.

‘Happy Hour at Casa Dracula’ is a fine and fabulous first book in what promises to be a superb series. The heroine, Milagro, is positively divine and under Acosta’s talented pen her magnificence pops on the page. If you like ‘Jane Jameson’, if you appreciate heroines with strong voice and an author with a killer sense of humour then you need to read this book pronto!

4.5/5