Review: The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires

The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires by Molly Harper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I dove into this book right after the wild and crazy ride that was the Jane series. That being said, while I enjoyed being in the familiar world, this was not the same type of happy, quirky feeling book that I was expecting. I’m definitely going to keep going in this spinoff series, hoping to get more hooked than I am right now.

Iris is a familiar character, if you’ve been through the Jane series. She planned her wedding and was somehow able to wrangle the crazy characters into a more manageable bunch. With that on her resume, I think I had something in my head that ended up completely different in this book. Iris is essentially a single mother to her younger sister. As the sole bread winner in the house, she’s forced to collect as many clients as possible so she can make ends meet. The council, luckily, keeps throwing vampire clients her way. One such client, though, ends up more trouble than she wants. Instead of following her rules and avoiding vampires in their homes, she literally falls for this new guy – Cal.

Cal is… pretty much a jerk when they first meet. He’s analytical, and a puzzle solver, so he quickly puts her in the harmless and useless bucket. Iris couldn’t be further from that. Sure, she manages to get herself in a ridiculous amount of trouble (not even counting Cal), but she does survive. The larger story here is about someone trying to poison vampires (Cal included). There’s secrets, backstabbing, betrayal, and teenagers all rolled into this intro novel. Cal and Iris are your typical opposites attract couple. Yes, he’s a vampire and she avoids being near alive/awake vampires, but they make it work. The only thing that got me more firmly on Team Cal was how he treated Iris’s sister. As a dysfunctional family, I’m on board.


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