Vamprie a Day: Vampyre: Legal Chronicles by C.C. McKenzie

This book caught my eye because I'm a sucker for urban fantasy stories that combine real-world type situations with paranormal creatures. I love Batton Lash's WOLFF & BYRD series and have always thought it would make a fantastic television show. (I love the tagline for the series--"Beware the Creatures of the NIght. They have laywers.") At first I didn't notice that the little red squiggle at the bottom of the cover was a name (MARCUS), I just thought it was part of the design. This book is part one of a three-part series, and all of the volumes are available, both as individual books and as a boxed set/collection. That's always good.

This is actually billed as a vampire romance, but while the writer did a good job with that element of the story, what interested me more was the way the corporate backdrop played out against the magical elements. And it's not just vampires on the loose here, there is magic--true, and DARK magic.

The vampires (the spelling with a Y just annoys me, so I'll use that and not  the spelling the author prefers) have a history and have personalities. Duncan Gillespie, a vampire elder and a vampire prince, is ancient but not entitled, and he immediately stands out in a sea of "alphahole" vampire princes preying on gorgeous young people.

Right from the start, the author gives us bits and pieces of a wider world. Gillespie, for instance, wonders if he's beginning the life transition known as "the Fade." (Even vampires don't live forever.) But we know that Duncan is not one of the people on the cover--the male vampire is presumably the "Marcus" of the title and the woman (despite her less-than-corporate attire) is most assuredly Anais, the ambitious lawyer we're told Marcus has been mentoring.