"Here comes the bride! Book 3 in the Casa Dracula series will leave you immensely satisfied."
Reviewed by Rosie B
Posted December 17, 2008
Romance Paranormal | Paranormal
Most brides just have to worry about getting through one
wedding ceremony, but for Milagro De Los Santos, one is not
enough. Her soon to be husband, Dr. Grant Oswald, and her
in-laws, who hate her, all have a genetic anomaly that
causes them to crave blood. So in addition to the public
ceremony of I do's they'll be going through, the Vampire
Council insists Milagro and Grant also perform a vampire
ceremony where they'll be exchanging blood. In order to
prepare her for the private ceremony, the council has
assigned Cornelia Ducharme, a former rival for Oswald who
may or may not have Milagro's best interest at heart, to
help. With Cornelia taking over the vampire ceremony and
Milagro's best friend, Nancy, commandeering the public
ceremony, it gives Milagro time to get into trouble. With her wedding hijacked, Milagro has plenty of time to
adjust to living on the ranch, work on the novel she's ghost
writing for a self proclaimed shape-shifter, avoid having
any relations with her fiancé because the Vampire Council
decrees it and avoid Cornelia's brother Ian, who used to be
Milagro's lover and is still in love with her. As if all
that weren't enough to cause a soon to be bride to go
bonkers, someone is creating accidents around Milagro,
causing Oswald to worry that Milagro can't handle the
pressure. Unless Milagro can figure out who this enemy is,
there just may not be a wedding. Marta Acosta's original funny girl is back with THE BRIDE OF
CASA DRACULA and she's wittier than ever. This is the book
readers have been waiting for. Will she or won't she with
Oswald? Getting to that answer is an adventure in itself.
With enough twists and turns to make even a salsa dancer
dizzy, THE BRIDE OF CASA DRACULA will keep you in suspense
till the very end. Milagro is the kind of character you
can't get enough of and one who stays with you well after
reading. The ending was beyond satisfying for me and I
really hope this isn't the end of Milagro and her
entertaining antics. Ms. Acosta delivers another outstanding
novel full of laughs, loves and characters you'll want to
add to your own family. If she isn't there already, be sure
to add her to your auto-buy list. She'll never leave you
disappointed.
SUMMARY
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 ghostwriting 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?
ExcerptIt's a nice day for a blood wedding."I'm crushed, crushed, by your insinuation that I would
purposely antagonize the Rules Committee," I said to the
family attorney, Sam Grant. "I will treat those elitist
bloodsucking bureaucrats exactly as well as they have
treated me." We were in the study, all manly, dark brown leather
furniture and wood paneling and stultifying nonfiction
books. I'd tried bringing in pretty chintz pillows and
amusing novels, but Oswald, my fiancé and the owner of this
house, had recoiled like Dracula from a flask of holy water. Oswald now leaned back against the glossy mahogany desk and
said, "Milagro, we all know that you like to poke bears, so
stop trying to make Sam feel guilty." He and his cousin Sam Grant were lean men with thick brown
hair. They had nice broad brows, beautiful smiles, and even
features. Sam, at six feet, was an inch taller than Oswald,
who had a delightful asymmetry to his grin and a gleam in
his gray eyes. Oswald had changed out of his suit and was
wearing jeans and a T-shirt from Buddy's Body Shop that
said Pounding, Sanding & Painting to Perfection Since 1963. Sam's features were gentler than Oswald's, and he had
sincere, brown eyes. "Young Lady," Sam began, because that
was their nickname for me. "I value and appreciate your,
uhm, lively nature. But as your friend, I want you to have
the full benefit of the rights and privileges that the
Council can grant you when you become Oswald's wife, and
that includes substantial financial benefits." I held up my hand to stop him from once again extolling the
mind-numbing virtues of no-interest loans and vacation time
shares. "The only thing I care about is being allowed to
attend your family events. Therefore, I will endeavor not
to poke the bear." Oswald's family, the Grants, and others from their original
homeland had a genetic autosomal recessive disorder that
made them sensitive to sunlight but gave them an excellent
ability to heal from injuries. They never got sick and had
an extended life span. They also had a craving for red
food, including blood. The Grant family referred to themselves as "having a
condition," but others of their kind called themselves
vampires. Centuries of persecution had forced them to hide
their nature and form their own governmental organization,
the Council. I was one of them. Sort of, but not really. I'd been
infected twice. The first time, I'd been accidentally
infected with Oswald's blood, and I'd nearly died. The
second infection left me stronger than Oswald and most
other vampires. They could heal quickly from cuts, and I
could heal from serious injury. They had terrific eyesight,
and I could see in almost complete darkness. They were well
coordinated, and my reflexes were faster than a teenage
boy's. Best of all, I could bake in the sunlight until I
got as toasty brown as a buñuelo, to no ill effect. I was a
new, improved version of myself, Milagro 2.0. Yet I was loath to call myself a vampire. After all,
culturally, I was still a normal human chica, and it is
culture that informs identity, isn't it? Oswald wanted me
to accept that I was one of them, and he wanted the Council
to put their official stamp on my membership card. The Council resented my existence and acted as if I was
trying to use a loophole to join their club. Some were wary
of my status as the only known living survivor of a vampire
infection, and others had a disturbing tendency to view me
as a fleshy container of rare and intoxicating fluid. I was sitting on the love seat next to Oswald's other
cousin, Gabriel, who was in charge of the family's
security. He was a small, lovely, redheaded man. He used
the same expensive herb-scented multispectrum Swiss
sunblock that Oswald favored. Gabriel stopped twirling a strand of my black hair in his
slim, pale fingers and said, "It's no use, Oz. She has
that 'Where's the pokey stick?' expression on her face." Leaning close to Gabriel's ear, I whispered, "No, I have
that 'Poke me! Poke me!' expression," and we started
laughing. "I can see that we're interfering with your flirting,"
Oswald said wryly. "If there's anything you don't
understand about the agreements..." "I know how to read," I said. "I'll smile and sign the
papers, and then I'll be an official member of the Society
of the Living Undead and learn the secret handshake and get
my discount membership to the gym." Sam squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then
said, "Please, please, don't say 'living undead.' Please
don't -- " "Don't poke the bear. I get it. Are we finished now?
Because you know how cranky your grandmother gets if she
shows up and I don't pour a cocktail down her gullet stat." "I'm going to tell her you said that," Gabriel said. Sam still looked worried, so I stood and went to
him. "Allay your anxiety, Samuel. Everything is going to be
dandy." Gabriel followed me into the spacious kitchen, and he went
to a window and pulled back one of the blue-and-yellow
Provençal-print curtains to enjoy the view. The green
fields of Oswald's ranch rolled to the base of forested
mountains. The windows on the other side of the two-story
sandstone house, which I'd come to think of as Casa
Dracula, had views to my garden, more fields, and a small
vineyard. Before I'd met Oswald, I'd been living on quesadillas,
patching together part-time jobs, and struggling to pay the
rent while rats scrambled in the walls of my basement
apartment. I went to the drinks cabinet and pulled out bottles and the
blender. "Can I help?" Gabriel asked. "Nope, I already took care of everything. Crudités and a
dill dip with cocktails. Roast beef sandwiches with blue
cheese dressing, roasted tomatoes, a salad, and a plum
tart." "You're quite the hostess these days." He turned from the
view and said, "I'm glad Oswald bought this place. It's a
treat to come visit." "It's a treat for me, too, when everyone's here." I peeled
and sliced mangoes, the juices of the ripe fruit making the
knife slippery in my hand. "It seems so quiet most of the
time. Especially now that Oswald is working more." "I'm sorry about your dog." I threw ice in the blender, sloshed in rum, curaçao, lime
juice, and added the mango. I hit the froth button and the
ingredients whirred together. I stared at the orange slush,
trying to control my emotions, when I smelled a familiar
burning odor. I quickly shut off the blender, then poured
the icy concoction into tumblers and added grenadine to
each glass. When I trusted myself to speak, I said, "That's one of the
reasons I don't mind leaving to meet with the Council. I'll
have two days of sightseeing and shopping in a fabulous
city I've never been to before, and I get to meet this
mysterious cabal face- to-face." "Only the Rules Committee, not the entire Council. Ian is
out of the country." "Or, as Oswald told me, 'At least goddamn Ian Ducharme is
out of the country.'" I had had a brief liaison with Ian, aka the Dark Lord,
before I got together with Oswald. I had no idea what Ian
actually did on the Council, and I didn't believe his
explanation that he was called the Dark Lord merely because
he'd inherited a boggy estate. Ian had given me an infusion
of his blood when I'd been badly slashed by a rogue
vampire, and that second infusion had given me my
exceptional abilities. I still dreamed of the way his blood
had burned on my open wound and how I'd bitten into his
flesh to stop the pain. "Were you hoping to see him?" Gabriel asked. "He's very entertaining." "And by 'entertaining' you mean he's smoldering?" "That's what I said. And he did save my life." "He could just as easily have...," Gabriel began. "Someone
at my level doesn't know all the Council's secrets, and I
wouldn't let you go if I didn't believe you'd be safe at
this meeting. But I agree with Sam and Oz: Don't poke the
bear." "I wouldn't even be doing this if Oz didn't want the
Council's approval so badly. He still feels guilty about
infecting me. But if he hadn't, I wouldn't have all of
you," I said. "I wish he could come with me, but he's got surgeries scheduled." Oswald was a board certified plastic
surgeon. "Those breasts don't get augmented by themselves." "I do not understand voluntary surgery." "The world is full of mysteries. Like my grandmother and
Thomas Cook." Yes, he was talking about the Thomas Cook, the actor. We'd
met him when I had a job rewriting a screenplay that got
tossed aside. Thomas had a thing for older women, and men
of every age had a thing for Edna. Gabriel said, "I thought she'd be tired of him and pass him
along to me." "I'm telling your boyfriend you said that." "He already knows! Grandmama should be with someone
more...more worthwhile. Have you talked to her about him?" "I tried. I said, 'Edna, how can you put up with such a
nitwit, albeit a highly attractive one?' " "What did she say?" Gabriel asked. "She said, 'Because my grandson appears to be fond of you,'
and I said, 'Ha ha and ha.'" I handed Gabriel the tray of
hors d'oeuvres. I carried the drinks and we walked out as Oswald's
grandmother and her addled younger paramour came up the
gravel drive from the direction of the guest cottage, aka
the Love Shack. Edna was dressed in a lilac linen blouse and skirt, and
looked fabulous for her years, whatever they were. Edna
wasn't tall, but she managed to look down her straight,
narrow nose at me with her exotic, glittering green eyes.
Her silver hair was cut close to her excellently shaped
noggin, and the skin around her eyes was delicate, like
tissue paper that had been crumpled then carefully smoothed
out. Thomas looked as if he had dressed for a tennis match,
circa 1920: white slacks, a white shirt, a cable-knit
sweater flung over his shoulders, and dark sunglasses. His
hair was sleek and jet black, and his copper skin gleamed.
He looked as scrumptious as a caramel-and-vanilla ice cream
sundae. I'd had a crush on Thomas when he was Hollywood's newest
Latino heartthrob and I was just a teenager. In person, he
was a lot more irritating. He said, "Milagro, why are you
just standing there like a lump? Does Edna have to get her
own drink?" Edna didn't even bother trying to hide her smile. "Thank
you for being so considerate, Thomas," she said as she sat
on one of the wicker chairs. When I handed her a glass, she
looked at the drink and asked suspiciously, "What is this?" "A Rancho Sunset. I invented it myself." Thomas picked up a drink and took a chair next to Edna's.
After a sip, he said, "Milagro was a terrible assistant,
but at least she can make a decent drink." "Bossing me around did not make me your assistant. I'm a
writer." "Then where are your books?" he asked. Most of my income came from gardening jobs, but I'd put
those on hold until after the wedding. My literary career
had taken a downward trajectory after the failed
screenwriting gig. I'd signed with an agent, but the last
time I talked to him he told me, "There's no market for
political horror novels. There will never, ever be a market
for them. Call me if you ever decide to write something
marketable." I told Thomas, "For your information, I've got an interview
tomorrow for a writing job. But the writing business is
complicated." "Edna sells everything she writes," he said. In her youth, Edna had written novels, and recently she'd
had success with her books on entertaining. She gave me an
innocent look and said, "Not everyone is talented." "Speaking of talent," Gabriel said, "Thomas, I remember
when you used to model." This led Thomas to launch into his monologue, "Thomas Cook:
The Underwear Model Years." No matter how often I heard
this thrilling tale of white cotton chones and fame, I
found it enchanting. As he was concluding his story, Sam and Oswald joined us.
When Oswald stood behind me and rubbed my shoulders, I felt
a marvelous zizzing, a delightful effect of my second
infection. Nothing extraordinary was said and nothing extraordinary
happened, and yet I couldn't have been happier than I was
here and now with Oswald and my friends, watching the sun
slipping down behind the dark mountains. I was filled with
espíritu de los cocteles, a mood of utter contentment, and
I reached for Oswald's hand and kissed it. He returned the gesture and said, "Where's your ring?" My hand was bare. "On the kitchen counter. I was getting
dinner ready." I hoped I'd left my engagement ring there. I
had the habit of taking it off and leaving it around
whenever I did any housework or gardening. "It's a nice
evening. Let's eat on the patio." The slate patio was on the other side of the house,
surrounded by the garden I'd planted. I turned on the
little fairy lights that wound around the trunks of the
ancient oaks, and Gabriel lighted candles. The night
smelled of damp earth, grass, early-blooming roses,
nicotiana, and honeysuckle. We brought out the food and opened bottles of pinot noir.
It was like those evenings we'd had often when Sam and his
family lived here, when Oswald and I stayed in the Love
Shack, before Edna began going away for weeks at a time
with Thomas. After dinner, Thomas went back to the Love Shack to study a
script. The actor had his own misunderstood genetic
disorder and wasn't interested in what he saw as our boring
perversion. The rest of us walked to the large brown barn. Since Oswald had been spending more time working, his dogs
usually stayed with Ernesto, the ranch hand, at his one
bedroom apartment at the front of the barn. The dogs heard
us approaching and ran out to greet us. I pushed back an ache of sadness and entered the dark,
shadowy barn. One of the cats glided behind bales of
alfalfa, hunting for mice. The barn had a rich, wonderful
smell, and I could hear the animals moving about in the
stalls. Light came from under the closed door of a stall on the
right. Oswald opened the door and said, "Evening, Ernie." We followed him into the stall, which had been converted to
a cozy den. Leather club chairs were set on a worn Persian
carpet, and copper-and-mica sconces cast a warm golden
light. "Hey, Oz," Ernesto said. The compact muscled man had set
everything up for our evening tasting. A bottle of dark
liquid was on the sideboard as well as bottles of mineral
water and wineglasses. "I got something different today.
Emu." "Emu?" Sam said. "Tastes like chicken," Ernie responded and laughed. He
poured a few tablespoons of purple-red blood into each
glass and topped them off with mineral water. "I just got
this sample. But if you like it, there's two birds for sale
cheap." I dropped into a chair and took a sip from the glass Ernie
passed to me. After a moment of swishing it around in my
mouth, I said, "It's not bad. A little too...uhm..." "Floral," Edna provided. "Yeah, well, the reason they're for sale is they got loose
and ate someone's flower garden," Ernie said. I was only half listening. The blood bloomed inside me,
warm and invigorating. I gazed at Oswald and wondered how
quickly I could get him into the bedroom. He caught my
glance and gave me a crooked smile that cheered my heart. Sam asked, "Young Lady, what are you going to do on the
free day of your trip?" "My friend from college, Toodles, is going to give me the
insider's tour," I said excitedly. "She's been asking me to
visit for ages." "Toodles," Edna sniffed. "Who is this person, and do I want
to know how she acquired such an unfortunate sobriquet?" "I'm so glad you asked," I said. "Toodles lived next door
to me sophomore year and we took 'Po-Mo Lit: Angst,
Anguish, and Alienation' together." My education at a Fancy
University (F.U.) had offered me many intellectually
stimulating courses. "I'm already captivated," Edna said. "Of course you are. Toodles's real name is Kathleen
Meriwether Hippensteele, but she smuggled her teacup
poodles into the dorm and this nasty R.A. ratted her out.
The headline in the campus paper was Toodles, Poodles. She
has a tendency to use words with 'oo' sounds, and that
cemented her nickname." Edna said, "I shall never get those thirty seconds back." "Just for that, I'm not bringing you back a snow globe
diorama." Edna rolled her eyes dramatically. She had a large and
impressive repertoire of expressions, but she always
returned to the classics. She said, "By the way, your
future mother-in-law sent me her suggestions for your
wedding registry." Surprised, Oswald said, "Why did Mom send it to you?" "She seemed to think I might exert some influence over the
Young Lady." Edna slid her eyes toward me conspiratorially. "Grandmama, you know Mom just wants to help." "I don't think we'll need her suggestions," I said to Edna. "Are you sure?" she answered. "No doubt her suggestions
reflect the very pinnacle of suburban country club chic --
mallard motifs and 'deluxe' bed-in-a-bag sets." "Grandmama!" Oswald said. Then he smiled. "Okay, she did
have a family tartan and crest designed for the den." Gabriel said, "Big deal. My mom made me dress to coordinate
with the wallpaper. And she wonders why I'm gay." "You're only gay so you don't have to deal with women,"
Oswald said. "Coward." "Speaking of women, I've got to get home to mine," Sam
said, referring to his wife and daughter. "It's a long
drive." We all walked to the house. The stars had come out and
shone in the blue-black sky. Sam said good-bye to us at the
car park and wished me luck with the Council. Edna went back to her addled paramour in the Love Shack and
Gabriel adjourned to the family room to watch television. Oswald and I walked through the large house, holding hands.
He'd had a designer decorate it, and other than the kitchen
and a small parlor, it was done in neutral colors and earth
tones. We went up the staircase with its black wrought iron
railing. The master bedroom hadn't changed much since I'd moved in.
It had hardwood floors, beamed ceilings, ivory walls, and
Mission-style furniture. However, my necessities (books,
makeup, baubles) cluttered surfaces. I spotted my yellow
diamond engagement ring sparkling on the dresser. It was
beautiful, but I felt odd wearing something so expensive in
my daily life. "Are you all packed?" Oswald asked. "Almost everything. I wish you were coming." He pulled me close to him. "Me, too. I'll take you
somewhere wonderful when I can spare a few days." I nuzzled his neck. "Good. At least we'll have tomorrow
together." He was unbuttoning my blouse when his cell phone rang.
Glancing at the incoming number, he said, "It's my service.
Sorry." They called only for urgent situations, so he had
to take the call. When he hung up, he said, "It doesn't
sound serious, but I'm going to check in with a patient.
I'll just be a minute." He was still on the phone by the
time I crawled in bed and fell asleep.
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