Zeb was kindergarten teacher–a good one. I always thought it was because he was the same emotional age as his students.

I hated her out of principle; and that principle was bitterness.

Cooper! Help!’The coward turned and walked into the kitchen as if he hadn’t seen me getting frogmarched by the estrogen squad.

Get the point?” I asked, offering the boys a triumphant smile.Gabriel, Zeb, and Dick stared at me, aghast. “What? Sarcastic postkill comeback. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in situations like this?Too harsh?

Wal-mart started selling “Vampire Home Defense Kits”, including holy water, crosses, stakes, mallets, and a book of quick blessings to bar vampires from your door. The fact that these kits were generally useless didn’t bother...

I was just turned last week. I’m a librarian.”He stilled, as if I’d just told him I was the inventor of the tube top. “I watched a movie about a librarian once. Well, she was...

This is not how people behave in a Cracker Barrel!

Welcome to the fascinating world of the undead! Please use this guidebook as ahandy reference as you make your first steps toward eternity. Inside you will findinformation on vampire nutrition, relationships, and safety. But before...

I always hoped for this spark of chemistry and compatibility, a flash of clarity to let me know that this was the guy, this was the time, so I should leg go and enjoy myself....

Go on, you’ve claimed your thirty pieces of silver, go do something crazy like put gas in that penis replacement you call transportation.

The rest of the morning would consist of checking on a pothole in the parking lot of the village clinic and writing up a schedule for the community centre that might finally settle the ongoing...

Besides, my drinking blood’s not nearly as weird as that time I caught you shaving your legs.””I was curious!

Establishing dominance early in the relationship is key. Vampire children are like human children in that they can sense weakness. They will wait for you to be busy or too distracted to realize that you’ve...

Wait, Richard Cheney, as in Dick Cheney? You’re a vampire named Dick Cheney? Somehow, that makes you seem more evil.

She had a knack for relieving the tension in a room by pretending my rudeness away with cooking. Many, many chickens had given up their lives to cover my conversationalist shortcomings.

Aunt Jettie: “yes, i’m wandering the earth seeking revenge on ben & jerry for giving me the fat a$$ and coronary & I give out love advice to the tragically lonely.”jane: “Is that an ironic...

Leaving knots untied and scattering seeds to distract them will only work on vampires with OCD.

Ah, spite, the stuff of fairy tales.

I was shameless in my supermarket-shelf mass-market taste. I loved King, Evanovich, Grisham and Brown. I won’t lie; the oficial-looking filing cabinet in the corner is actually stuffed full of my paperbacks.

She’s your mother. I asked, Plus, you do look a bit like her. When you’re angry, you both get these tense lines around your mouth…Look, there they are.

Vampirism: (n) 1. The condition of being a vampire, marked by the need to ingestblood and extreme vulnerability to sunlight. 2. The act of preying upon others forfinancial or emotional gain. 3. A gigantic pain...

My grandma Ruthie, Jettie’s sister, had been married four times, so many times I started calling every old man I saw at the grocery store Grandpa.

You can’t worry about the future so much that you miss out on the present.

I look like Barbara Bush in drag.” Aunt Jettie

Dick called, but he just left dirty voice-mail messages. Let’s just say if I’m ever in the market for a massage involving canola oil and marabou feathers, I’m covered.

Stupid werewolf ninja sperm.

Well, if that’s true, I wasted a hell of a lot of money on panty hose and lipstick.” Jettie snorted.

I think the very word stalking implies that you’re not supposed to like it. Otherwise, it would be called ‘fluffy harmless observation time’.

Wait, is this a nice-ish way of telling me we had sex and I was lousy? That’s how you can tell I’m inexperienced? Because, if so, that’s just rude. And what were you doing at...

…I supplied in a tone so saccharine that it should have tipped him off that his testicular health was in serious peril.

Misery, thy name is Mudslide

I think it would be best if you came down from there before I explained that.””I think I’ll stay right where I am, thank you,” I said. “And you, you stay where you are, or...

Up until two years ago, I was one of the top-selling real estate agents in the tricounty area. I went to a convention in Boca Raton. I had one too many margaritas, met a tall,...

Why not? If you’re not going to let me see you naked, we might as well be girlfriends.””You’re a twisted little man.””Come on, Stretch, share with the class.””No!” I laughed.”Prude.””Perv.””Schoolmarm.””Some other word that essentially means...

To say I had some pent-up anger would be like saying Britney Spears had minor impulse-control issues.

It seems kind of light for a dozen books. I think it’s probably that unnatural number of Jason Statham DVDs you ordered.”He has to have filmed a nude scene at some point in his career....

Fortunately, among werewolf women, the word “bitch” is not offensive. I was having a lot of fun with that.”Hey there, bitches!” I called as I came through the door. “What are my favorite bitches up...

I grabbed my purse, which was conveniently place by the front door. Gabriel was such a considerate abductor/host. He even left the front door unpadlocked.

Ophelia was beating some poor underling for not knowing her arse from the sparse collection of cells between her ears.

You are the night.””I am the night,” I repeated.”You are the night.”I cocked my head, sending him a questioning look. “I am the night?””Jane!””Why is it that when you say my name, it sounds like...

I don’t care what tomorrow brings, as long as I have you.

You laugh because you haven’t heard my mother’s thirty-minute verbal dissertation on appropriate seasonal flower choices. We’re better off letting her yell at us for being dirty, premarital fornicators.

Don’t worry about being nervous. A lot of vampires have trouble with this from time to time. It happens to everyone.””If I was a forty-year-old man suffering from erectile dysfunction, that would be a great...

Love? Love is for children and poor people…

Sophie was a walking truth serum. If she was touching bare skin, she could yank the truth out of you like a loose tooth. I’d spent several unpleasant hours in her company during the Council’s...

Did you just quote Green Eggs and Ham?

I offered you a choice, and you took it.”I shot him what I hoped was a truly scathing glare. “Some choice. I was dying. Some drunk shot me from a pickup. Why wouldn’t I have...

Don’t tell them he’s upstairs , I commanded my brain. Tell them he moved to Pacoima to start a commune for vegetarian vampires. Tell them he’s looking into getting a sex-change operation and renaming himself...

Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out?

Wait until you meet my family. At Thanksgiving, we kill everything we can find, put it into a pot, and call it ‘holiday gumbo’.