• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Mundania Press LLC; Large type edition edition (December 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594261458
• ISBN-13: 978-1594261459
• Price: $11.95
• Kelly Lougheed’s Website

Buy Cads and Cadavers at:

• Amazon

When Velma’s dead boyfriend Leroy appears to her in the school biology lab one night, it’s awkward because (a) she happens to be dissecting his body for a science fair project, and (b) she never figured out how to break up with him after her roommate informed her that leaving a Post-It note on his dorm room door suggesting they never see each other again was cold and heartless.

Leroy tells her a sob story about the vampire who drained his blood, and annoyingly demands that Velma, despite the insane amount of math homework she has, avenge his murder.

But the only local vampire Velma knows is the chivalrous, dashing Dennis she ran into in the graveyard one night when she was digging up Leroy’s body. His mere presence makes her hyperventilate and compulsively smooth down her hair, the signs of true amour. In one of their intimate graveyard chats, Dennis assures her that he sucks only the blood of rodents…

But is he just lying to win her heart?

Or does another vampire walk hidden among Velma’s peers?

Cads and Cadavers was an interesting read for me. I started out loving Lougheed’s voice. She made Velma highly intelligent (the story is driven by her desire to get into Harvard) and irreverent (she doesn’t care about anyone who gets in the way of that Harvard plan), and kind of an idiot (digging up your ex-boyfriend to dissect is ALWAYS the best plan, right?). It’s a unique and interesting combination in a heroine. I also loved the jump-off point of the story where Velma digs up a hot vampire while trying to dig up her dead ex-boyfriend. It was fun and interesting. I popped some virtual popcorn and dove into the story.

Then things got a little dicier for me with the way the characters spoke and it felt… off. The plot started feeling oddly familiar (even though it wasn’t–I’m not sure how to explain how that worked) with the killer vampire and the roommate secrets and the prince (did I mention there was a prince?).

About halfway through the book (it was in the midst of having my in-laws over for the holidays and I was a little slow on the uptake) it finally hit me that Cads and Cadavers wasn’t a paranormal romance but a satire of paranormal romances. Suddenly all the over-the-top language and descriptions of glistening hair and whatnot made sense. At that point, I started enjoying it again.

I will say that I’ve realized I prefer reading short satire over longer pieces, but this one was fun, filled with teen angst and drama, and still smart. As usual in a satire, the characters were all caricatures, but in this one they struck so close in many ways to those in most young adult para-roms that the sting was more biting than usual. It poked fun at everything from character names with unusual name spellings to strange love triangles to stalking to all the people in the background who don’t know anything unusual is going on. So, from that perspective, it was great on pretty much every level (characters, plot, language use).

Like I mentioned though, most of the satire I read is of the short story variety, and at almost two hundred pages, this was almost too much for me. The humor started becoming less funny for me as I went on (at least until Princess Kristina–with a K–showed her true colors. She was easily my favorite character.)

In the spirit of total disclosure, if you are a die-hard para-rom fan and get angry when people mock the genre, you will probably hate this book. If, however, you know that every genre has its tropes and cliches and you don’t mind seeing them made fun of (aka if you are a fan of spoof movies), you could do far worse than Cads and Cadavers. I’m rather looking forward to checking out Lougheed’s other books as well.

Favorite passage (I’m a science geek, what can I say?):

The ghost eyed his removed rib with disgust. “Could you please not do that in front of me?”

Velma began to hum a tune as she continued prodding his internal organs, her red ponytail hanging over her shoulder as she bent over his corpse, slicing tissue away from the bones.

Leroy ground his teeth. “Fine. I’ll tell my story and then maybe a lump will emerge in your throat and your eyes will fill with tears and virtual rivers will gush down your face because you’ll feel so guilty, and then you’ll avenge me!”

“Sounds good,” agreed Velma. “Whoops, I think I just stabbed your left ventricle.”