Review: Biting Nixie by Mary Hughes

Nitro? Meet glycerin…

A Biting Love Novel

Punk musician Nixie Schmeling is a hundred pounds of Attitude who spells authority a-n-c-h-o-r and thinks buying insurance is just one more step toward death. So she really feels played when she’s “volunteered” to run the town’s first annual fundraising festival. Especially when she finds out it’s to pay for a heavy-hitting, suit-wearing lawyer—who’s six-feet-plus of black-haired, blue-eyed sex on a stick.

Attorney Julian Emerson learned centuries ago that the only way to contain his dangerous nature is to stay buttoned up. He’s come from Boston to defend the town from a shady group of suits…and an even shadier gang of vampires. But his biggest problem is Nixie, who shreds his self-control.

Nixie doesn’t get why the faphead shyster doesn’t understand her. Julian wishes Nixie would speak a known language…like Sanskrit. Even if they manage to foil the bloodthirsty gang, what future is there for a tiny punk rocker and a blue-blooded skyscraper?

And that’s before Nixie finds out Julian’s a vampire…

Product warning:
Contains more eye-popping sex, ear-popping language and gut-popping laughs than can possibly be good for you. And vampires. Not sippy-neck wimps, but burning beacons of raw sexuality—this means passionate blood-heating, violent bloodletting, and fangy bloodsucking. Oh, and cheese balls. Those things are just scary.

I found this book at My Bookstore And More while buying books by JL Langley. It was an impulse buy and I have to say that the description of the book, as well as the product warning was what got me to purchase (good ole Samhain product warnings just sucking you in!)

Nixie is a 25 year old pixie. At least that’s what she looks like. She’s 5 foot nothin and weighs about 100 pounds. She’s in a punk band called Guns and Polkas. She lives in Meiers Corners, Illinois and has been put in charge of the First Annual Meiers Corners International Fun Fair, Sheepshead Tournament, and Polka Festival. She truly doesn’t want the responsibility…she hates responsibility…but she’s doing it because it will make her mother proud – blech. Unfortunately she soon finds out that the festival is to pay at $500.00 an hour fee for some big city lawyer to help the town from annexation into Chicago. She does not care for big city lawyers at all.

While at City Hall getting Festival information she meets Suitguy. Suitguy is hot. He’s incredibly tall, dark hair and bronzed. Suitguy ends up being Julian Emerson…big city lawyer. Only this guy is hot – how can he be with the “establishment”?

Julian instructs Nixie to not be out at night by herself because gangs are moving into Meiers Corners. Julian walks her home, but not before he battles 3 men. Unfortunately when Nixie goes back to look for evidence of the fight, there is none. Nixie starts thinking to herself that things aren’t right here.

She’s absolutely right, not only is Meiers Corners going to be annexed into Chicago, but the “gang” is a gang of Vampires – and Julian’s one of them – as well as her best friends’ husband. How could they have kept the info that Vampire exist to themselves? Dealing with Julian, the festival and her mother are almost more than Nixie can take.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I expected it to be more laugh out loud funny than it was. Don’t get me wrong, it was very amusing, just not as funny as I expected.

Things I liked:

Nixie was very sure about who she was. I really liked that about her. She dressed the way she wanted to and to heck with everyone else. All the citizens of Meiers Corners seemed to like her and didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I liked that even though she hated being in charge of the festival she did it and did it well. When she finally learned what the money was really for – not to pay Julian’s salary – she worked even harder to make things work. She could be kind and understanding when she needed to be and it made her more likable.

Julian. Oh, Julian. Tall, dark and handsome. He was wonderful. He was a vamp that never expected to meet someone like Nixie and not be able to get her out of his head. He was drawn to her and didn’t fight it – which I loved. He was always there to help her in her time of need (in so many different ways) and he truly understood her. It took him a while to translate what she was saying – but he tried and that was so endearing.

I absolutely loved that Julian and Nixie were such complete opposites yet found a common ground. They were actually more alike than they had originally thought and it was pretty cool to see them come together.

I loved that the secondary characters played a large role in the story. There are times when I just love reading about the h/h and to hell with the secondary’s, but then there are stories where they need to be involved. This was one of them and it was done very well.

Things I didn’t like:

Nixie. I know that sounds weird, because I liked that she enjoyed who she was and had that confidence in herself…but I didn’t necessarily love her all that much. She was kind of self-centered and it got a tad old after a while.

Inconsistencies or unexplained occurrences in the book:
1. The way Nixie spoke was inconsistent. Sometimes she would have lines that included daggy, feening, fapping. Maybe I’m old – but I had to look these up in the urban dictionary. Then for most of the book she spoke perfectly normal. I mean I’m kind of glad it didn’t go on and on but it was strange to have it and then not, and back and forth.
2. Nixie got drunk a couple of times in the book. Right after she got drunk she was weaving and slurring her speech, but after reading a couple of paragraphs down there was no sign of drunkenness whatsoever. That was a little strange.
3. At one point, when Nixie introduces herself to Julian she introduces herself as Nixie Schmeling (it’s a very German based book). Julian looks at her strangely and says “Dietlinde N. Schmeling”? as if he already had heard of her, but it was never explain why he said that or how he knew her first name.

The other thing that bugged me was the fact that Nixie never tells Julian that she loves him. Julian tells her 3 or 4 times and she doesn’t once tell him. She started to tell him at one point but is interrupted, but never goes back and does it. I’m sure Julian knows how she feels, and I realize that it’s not important to some people to hear the words, but it’s very important for me to see/read it in a book.

Overall I really liked the book. The descriptions of everything going on at the festival, the problems with the festival, the different townspeople and of course the romance all made this book what it was…a fun, exciting, romantic read. Oh and there’s some darn hot vampire sex in here too – which is always a bonus. The book, after all, is called Biting Nixie.

Rating 3.75 out of 5

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