MaryJanice Davidson: QUEEN BETSY (UNDEAD) SERIES

Author:  MaryJanice Davidson

Series:  QUEEN BETSY (UNDEAD) 
Plot Type: Paranormal Chick Lit (CH)

Ratings:  V4, S4, H4

Titles:  Here is a complete list of the short stories, novellas, and novels in MaryJanice Davidson's QUEEN BETSY (UNDEAD) series in reading order, straight from her Facebook page, where she says, "To keep the continuity of the story, you should read the books in this order":

  1. "Love’s Prisoner" (in Secrets 6 anthology)(2000)

  2. "Jared’s Wolf" (in Secrets 8 anthology) (2002)

  3. Undead & Unwed (novel 1, 2002)
  4. "Dead Girls Don’t Dance" (in Cravings anthology) (2004)

  5. Undead & Unemployed (novel 2, 2004)

  6. "Biting in Plain Sight" (in Bite anthology) (2004)

  7. Derik’s Bane (2005)

  8. Undead & Unappreciated novel 3, (2005)

  9. Undead & Unreturnable (novel 4, 2005)

 10. Dead & Loving It (2006)

 11. Undead & Unpopular (novel 5, 2006)

 12. "Driftwood" (in Over the Moon anthology) (2007)

 13. Undead & Uneasy (novel 6, 2007)

 14. Dead Over Heels (2008)

 15. Undead & Unworthy (novel 7, 2008)

 16. Undead & Unwelcome novel 8, (2009)
 17. Undead & Unfinished (novel 9, 2010)

 18. Undead & Undermined (novel 10, 2011) 

 19. Undead & Unstable (novel 11, 6/2012)

     This blog entry WAS revised and updated ON 7/19/12 to include a review of the 11th novel in this series, Undead & Unstable. That review comes at the VERY end of this entry, preceded by an overview of the world-building and reviews of books 9 and 10.

     Books 9, 10, and 11 form a trilogy within the series in which Betsy travels backward and forward in time, causes lots of trouble by changing events, and then returns to the present where she is forced to deal with the consequences of her well-meaning, but reckless, actions. For those who need a refresher course on Betsy's life, Davidson includes introductory sections in each book that summarize the major action in the series so far. 

        WORLD-BUILDING        
     Elizabeth "Betsy" Taylor is a former model turned vampire, whose special non-vampiric characteristics (e.g., not sun sensitive, not allergic to human food, not repulsed by religious objects) make her the prophesied queen of the vampires. Her love interest is her tall, dark, and handsome vampire king, Eric Sinclair.

     Supporting characters include Betsy's wealthy African American BFF, Jessica; her gay doctor friend, Marc; her half sister, Laura (the devil's daughter); police detective and former flame, Nick; and Eric's sire and assistant, Tina. Together, they solve various supernatural mysteries while causing many of their own problems through carelessness and lack of foresight. The series follows Betsy as she familiarizes herself with vampire life, comes to grips with her queenly role, and establishes a romantic relationship with Eric. All the while, Betsy continues to build her collection of designer clothes and, especially, shoes. The tone of the series is generally humorous, but the vampire battles are quite violent, with frequent beheadings and dismemberments.

     The first six books take Betsy from initial vampirehood to marriage. In "A Note to the Reader" at the beginning of Undead & Unworthy, Davidson says that this book and the next two should be considered "a trilogy within a series," with their own story arc that includes the evolving relationship between Betsy and Laura.

     Check out the answers to FAQs at MJ's Facebook page.

        BOOK 9:  Undead & Unfinished        
    This book takes a much darker turn than the preceding books. One amazon.com reader compares it to Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol because Betsy is forced by supernatural events to examine her own life and her relationships with her closest friends, particularly Eric Sinclair. The basic plot involves some time traveling as Betsy and Laura go back in time to alter events in both Eric's and Tina's lives. Then they take a trip to the future, where Betsy learns that she's not as nice a person as she'd always hoped to be. As Betsy and Laura visit past events, Betsy thoughtlessly makes some changes that will come back to haunt her.

        BOOK 10:  Undead & Undermined        

     As book two in the trilogy opens, Betsy is back from her time travels. In fact, she wakes up on a morgue table in Chicago just moments before a buzz saw hits her brain. When she eventually gets home safely (brain secure, if not totally in gear), Betsy learns the consequences of her irresponsible behavior while she and Laura were tripping through the ether on their time-traveling journey in the previous book. Betsy discovers to her horror that her own memories of past events don't match what everyone else remembers—all because Betsy couldn't help herself from making a few alterations while she was visiting the past. Betsy spends much of this book trying to get her memories to sync up with the new reality.

     Davidson reveals her reason for Betsy's reality shift on a page of quotations at the beginning of this book. She includes the definition for retroactive continuity (aka retcon), a literary device in which the author alters previously established facts in a fictional work. Authors use retcons when they want to move a story (or series) in a direction that would not be possible if earlier history remained unchanged. Here's an example of a change that shows up early in the story: Nick does not hate Betsy for biting him, because on this new time line, she never bit him. Now, he is a friend, which he never could have been in the earlier time line. The whole book is like that, with some events and characters undergoing big changes and other events and characters essentially remaining the same. In addition to working on her memory problems, Betsy is obsessed with the fear that she will become the horrible person that she saw in the future, so she needs to figure out how to prevent that. The book includes one more trip to hell for Betsy and Laura, where Betsy learns that Satan doesn't want her dead and that Laura doesn't always tell the truth.

     For me, this book was not as successful as the previous one. The sarcastic one-liners and the frenetic stream-of-consciousness quips overpowered what was already a thin plot line. All of the action takes place in the few hours after Betsy returns from her undead Chicago experience. We do have some characters who return from the dead and one who, tragically, leaves this mortal life, but in the end, Betsy is still just muddling on—as usual.

        BOOK 11:  Undead & Unstable        

     This is the final book in the time travel trilogy. As the story opens, Betsy is still reeling with grief over Marc's suicide and worrying about the fact that evil future Betsy will use Sinclair's skin to make the Book of the Dead. Once again, the story plays out over an extremely short time span that is filled mostly with Betsy's inane, repetitive, and endless stream-of-consciousness patter that emphasizes her narcissistic approach to life. For example, she never once sees or thinks about her friend Jessica without letting loose a barrage of disparaging remarks about Jessica's fat, pregnant belly. That gets old in the early chapters and excruciating by the end of the book.

     The plot follows Betsy as she dithers through a few days of her life (as usual). People keep telling her that she has to accept her responsibilities as vampire queen and do something to stop the world from ending in the manner that she and Laura witnessed during their time travel to the future. Satan and Ancient (future) Betsy keep dropping in and hinting that it's way past time for present-day Betsy to do something about all of this, and Betsy keeps dragging her feet, babbling about shoes and dogs and smoothies—anything to keep from facing reality. Honestly, if I had a 30-something friend who behaved like this, I'd drag her to therapy and/or slip her some lithium. 

     The dialogues between Betsy and her friends (Jessica, Nick/Dick, Marc [oh, yes, he's back—but in an undead form], Antonia, and Garrett) go on for pages and pages, frequently without identification markers, so I frequently had to stop and reread in order to figure out who said what (although it didn't really matter much in the long run). Sinclair's character has regressed to a cardboard pretty boy wandering in and out of scenes murmuring sweet nothings to Betsy ("my own") or to a disembodied voice in Betsy's head giving her wise counsel that she totally ignores. After a climactic scene in Hell, Betsy solves her most difficult future-related problems, but she alienates Laura in the process. 

     I used to laugh out loud as I read the earlier books in this series, but I didn't laugh once during this book. I'm disappointed in the book as a whole, and the best I can say is that at least it does resolve all of the conflict that originated back in book 9.