When I found out Meg Cabot, the literary queen of cutesy teen princesses, wrote an adult book about vampires, I couldn’t hit the pre-order button fast enough. For all you ladies who would rather read the instruction manual to your DVD player than pour through another predictable vampire love story – don’t roll your eyes just yet. Unlike many cheap Twilight and True Blood knockoffs – this one doesn’t suck! Very punny, I know.

Fans of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy the Vampire Slayer looking for a lighter version of the vampire huntress should cotton to Meena Harper, a quirky New York City gal who really wants to be normal, but suffers from pesky precognitive powers that force her to see how everyone she meets is going to die. 

Plagued by images of her pregnant best friend’s untimely demise, Meena’s luck  goes from bad to worse when she gets bypassed for the position of  head dialogue writer for the daytime soap “Insiatiable,” and the producers decide to pump up ratings by incorporating steamy, spiky-haired vampires into the script.

 Things really get complicated when the endearingly dingy protagonist up and falls in love with – who else – the  Prince of Darkness.

 The prodigal son of Dracula Lucien Antonescu  abhors human bloodletting and will stop at nothing to put an end to the murderous vampire hijinx in Manhattan. But despite his noble ambition, Meena sends him packing when she discovers she’s been kanoodling with a walking dead guy.

 Enter the smoking-hot vampire adversary – Alaric Wulf (a very clever last name, I might add). A member of the Paletine Guard, a secret society of vampire annihilators, Alaric has a bit of an anger management problem and a major beef against vamps. Hot on the trail of the Prince of Darkness, Alaric swoops in on Meena and finds that it’s not just her link to Lucian and conveniently useful psychic powers that he’s after.

 With punchy jabs at the Stephanie Meyers vampire franchise and literary references to Bram Stoker’s Dracula,  this fast-paced read will definitely leave readers wanting more. The deft touch of Cabot’s trademark humor is evident in the snappy dialogue. Even the most loyal Twihard will giggle at lines like, “Guys have been asking me to do their hair like his for weeks. Like it’s an actual style and not something accomplished with a razor blade and some mousse. People are psycho for that guy.”