Various: Dates From Hell

ISBN: 006085409X

From Publishers Weekly

Failing to capitalize on what should be a sure-fire concept, this quartet of paranormal romance novellas falls prey to the usual suspects: lack of cohesion, formulaic characters and flimsy plots. Harrison kicks off the book with a prelude to her Hollows series, an exposition-heavy tale of confusing office/vampire politics, in which a vampiric homicide detective looks for a way to get ahead at the office apart from letting the boss into her jugular. Harrison's over-the-top atmospherics make for a jarring transition to the light touch of the second novella, Sands's farcical story of young researcher-cum-shapeshifter Claire, who attends her high school reunion as two different people: herself, accompanying schoolyard dreamboat Kyle, and hunky Hollywood actor Brad Cruise, a favor to her dateless best friend Jill. Nestled in between Sands's slapstick and Handeland's passable closer—about a tough-as-nails demon hunter out to save a virginal literary agent—is the collection's one gem: Armstrong's tale of a bold and sassy half-demon peacekeeper who finds herself falling for a werewolf thief. Unlike her compatriots, Armstrong works well with the space constraint, giving her story an open-ended, promising conclusion.

I have to disagree with the above generalization of this book. It's an anthology of four short stories. It's not meant to all work together into one large story, or anything like that. Also, the stories approximately only 100 pages each - not too much space or time to develop a super-fantastic plot line.

Anyway, I'll address each story individually, as that's how I think they should be dealt with.

Kim Harrison - Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil

This is a story for anyone who's read Ms. Harrison's Hollow's series. If you haven't read the series, it will be an amusing short, but won't really mean anything to you. It's meant to give backstory on Ivy and Kisten from that series. I thought it was pretty well done and very intense. I really liked it.

Lynsay Sands - The Claire Switch Project

This is an excellent stand alone short story. Basically, Claire gets zapped by this laser that's supposed to cause animals to develop chameleon type tendencies, to be able to change colour, or what have you. Unfortunately, the laser doesn't do what it's supposed to, and enables her to change shape... into whomever (or whatever, I presume) she likes. Hilarity ensues as her best friend convinces her to go as her date to their high school reunion as a hot celebrity, while her high school crush asks her out for the same night! She ends up pulling double duty as both dates, and well... it just gets even more funny from there.

Kelley Armstrong - Chaotic

This is a story that introduces a new half-demon character, and brings us back to Karl Marsten, Jewel Thief and werewolf. I think that you could read this without knowing the other characters, but it makes a lot more sense if you're familiar with the rest of Ms. Armstrong's Otherworld series. Basically, Hope is a half-demon who feeds off of chaos, which enables her to get a job working with the Interracial Council tracking down rogue supernaturals, and handing them over for justice. On an otherwise boring date to a museum gala, her spidey senses start to tingle and she's led to where Karl is stealing some jewellery. They end up get a bit plot-twisted, and she ends up spending her evening with Karl, which turns out to be much, much better than her evening with her boring date. I definitely liked this story, but it wasn't my favourite... maybe I just wanted to laugh a little more and this story wasn't bringing on the chuckles.

Lori Handeland - Dead Man Dating

This was a solid story about demons possessing a human body and killing a woman... through sex, of course! While on her date with the demon, Kit and her partner are disturbed mid-makeout session in a back alley by a rough looking demon hunter. Chavez, the demon hunter, in the end is able to save Kit (of course!), and they ultimately fall in love. I thought this was the best story out of all of them, as the characters seemed pretty real (Kit has really low self-esteem), and I liked the story. I thought that something of this sort could possibly have held it's own novel, but this novella version seemed to work just fine too. I think I'll be checking out some of Ms. Handeland's other work.