Biting Nixie (Biting Love) [Paperback]

Nixie Schmeling is a pint-sized punk rocker full of attitude. Julian Emerson is a hot-shot suit-wearing lawyer from Boston. The two are as different as night and day, so when the mayor sticks Nixie with the job of running her small town's fundraising festival to pay for Julian's legal fees, Nixie's less than thrilled, to say the least. But something strange is happening in the little town of Meiers Corners. Paranormal strange. Blood disappears into thin air, mysterious gangs start appearing, and strong attraction starts brewing between a serious, three-piece-suit wearing lawyer and a free-spirited, sarcastic musician.

Julian has come to Meiers Corners to defend it from being taken over by a group of shady vampires. He can't afford any distractions, particularly not from a certain smart-mouthed rocker he can't get out of his head. Though he can't figure out why he desires her, protecting Nixie is of paramount importance to Julian. And when Nixie discovers Julian's a vampire, things really get interesting.

Brace yourselves because Biting Nixie is a rockin' thrill ride of action, lust, and romance. It's fun, it's quirky, and it has both a sexy vampire and a guitar named Oscar. What more could you ask for? The characters are all original and the town is delightfully off-beat, which gives the story a fresh feel. Nixie is strong-willed and packed with attitude, but there's a sweetness about her that softens the edges and makes her incredibly likeable. Julian is preternaturally sexy; a devastatingly gorgeous, intelligent, protective vampire who makes use of his fangs in ways too deliciously wicked to say. On the surface Nixie and Julian would seem like an odd pair, but they matched one another so well I was rooting for their romance. Without saying too much, the only thing I would wish for is some sort of resolution to the problem of how one becomes a vampire.

Biting Nixie is a fast-paced piece of fun that was engaging from start to finish. The love scenes are explosively hot, the romance incredibly sweet, and the action entertaining. I adored this book and hope Mary Hughes has stories planned for some of the vampires we meet in the book (I will shamelessly admit I hope to learn more about the intriguing Logan). A love story with bite, Biting Nixie is a joy to read.



Shayna
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

A quirky, offbeat musician who shuns authority, Nixie is a small town gal from a good family. Her mother is constantly trying to play matchmaker to find her a good husband. The Mayor ropes Nixie into coordinating a festival fundraiser to help save their town from 'annexation' by nearby Chicago. She's told the funds will be used to pay big time lawyer fees. When she meets Julian, the big time lawyer, she's surprised at her attraction to him--a suit! With many hijinks and plot twists, she plans the fundraiser only to learn there's a lot more going on than she knew about including the fact that the big time lawyer is also a very hot vampire.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this laugh out loud funny paranormal romance. Couldn't put the book down! I enjoyed the characters, the fast moving story, and the silly, quirky humor. Julian and Nixie are great together--a true case of opposites attracting.

This is the first book I read by Mary Hughes, and I had not realized it is part of a series. I plan to check out some of her other books. I looked it up on the author's website and here's the chronological sequence of the Biting Love series:

Bite My Fire: Biting Love Book 1
Biting Dracula* a free short story (on her website for download)
Biting Nixie: Biting Love Book 2
A Biting Christmas Special a free short story (on her website for download)
The Bite of Silence a novella
Biting Me Softly: Biting Love Book 3

If you are looking for more humorous paranormal romances, check out some of my favs....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R2F2KM85QPMRAE/ref=cm_pdp_sylt_title_1
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What can I say about Biting Nixie to properly convey the sense of fun and quirky freshness that's wrapped up so neatly into this delicious little package? Nixie Schmeling is a punk polka queen with her own band (Guns and Polka) and her own language (which I'd love to give an example of, but I'd fail miserably), and thanks in part to mother issues, the death of her sister, and the influence of a favored aunt, she eschews anything resembling normal. She's a bawdy, sassy, chirpy little thing. Julian Emerson is a high-priced, high-powered, buttoned-up attorney who represents just about everything Nixie's ever dissed and dismissed in life.

When Nixie is manuevered into overseeing the Meiers Corners festival to pay Julian's extremely expensive price tag to keep The Coterie from annexing Meiers Corners into Chicago, these two disparate individuals smack into each other with all the force of a napalm blast, and if Julian could just get the fiery Nixie to speak English (instead of, apparently, something more complex than sanskrit), they MAY realize that they're meant to be together. Regardless of the very fangy secret both the city...and Julian...have.

Biting Nixie isn't a takes-itself-seriously urban fantasy. This isn't even a takes-itself-seriously paranormal romance. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a page or two through the whole book that's in any way serious - despite some obviously dangerous themes and Nixie's own loss of her elder sister. But the book's just not supposed to be a serious endeavor. It's supposed to be funny, and fun, and raunchy, and fun, and fast-paced, and fun, and sexy, and fun. There's A LOT of graphically described sexual encounters here, even though some of it's couched in dialogue that at best vaguely resembles English. If you prefer your romances to be more mass-market flavored, then Biting Nixie isn't something I'd recommend. But if you don't mind sticking your tongue firmly in your cheek and laughing your way through several hours of enjoyment and sizzle, and you're not that hung up on some plot issues that other novels in the genre don't have...like the fact that even the VAMPIRES in this series don't have a very firm grasp on what a vampire can do (like getting plastered by taking blood from drunks) or even how one is made (and that is a weak point, as the mythos has been skirted around twice now, in both this book and its predecessor, Bite My Fire: A Biting Love story)...then I'd say go for it. Biting Nixie's just a fast, light, sexy read with a truly unique female lead and a male lead that's HAWT and sweet.

If I wanted to really pick the book apart, I could mention that Julian's size (he's huge everywhere) painted a nearly painful mental image when paired with the five nothing and size zero Nixie - but I didn't look too closely at that mental image so it didn't bother me. I could also be critical of the way that both books, while heavy on detail of the whacky characters filling the town of Meiers Corners, are downright anemic on the topic of vampire mythos. After two books, I don't have any sort of defined picture of the vampire species in general, and got almost no history of the two male leads in each book, Bo in Bite My Fire and Julian in Biting Nixie. But I don't feel like being critical, as I had too much fun with what the book DOES have to worry too much about what it doesn't. And as I'll continue the series (with the next Biting Love book due out in April 2010) not expecting anything beyond the same sort of light, fun, bawdy, sexual good times, I won't miss it. I'm not looking for serious or intense with this series. If you're not either, sit back and enjoy, because it's a fun ride.

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