A Review of Marta Acosta’s The Bride of Casa Dracula
By LMReviews on Apr 6, 2009 in Multicultural Contributors, Multicultural Lit Reviews, Multicultural Writing, Writing/Freelancing
In Marta Acosta’s contemporary paranormal romance, The Bride of Casa Dracula, blood-lust, jealousy, first class wedding skepticism and thematic hints of chicklit stories past abound. Milagro De Los Santos is a hot Hispanic freelance writer on the fringes of the rich and famous vampire society with only a series of wedding rituals, a loyalty agreement and a vow of pre-marital celibacy standing in the way of her marriage to Oswald Grant—gorgeous son of a prominent, wealthy vampire dynasty and successful plastic surgeon.
When Milagro repeatedly finds herself crossing paths with an ex-lover, the man responsible for her extra-vampire abilities, and his sister—the woman put in charge of making sure Milagro follows the vampire council’s restrictions to the letter, Milagro feels her white plastic-mini wearing style is cramped. Milagro goes from feeling restricted to sensing her matrimonial fairytale has turned into choose-your-own-adventure novel with someone else making the decisions—but who?
While I liked the idea of Milagro’s superpowers, I didn’t find her to be a likeable character. The story in general had only a sprinkling of Hispanic cultural references. The rest of the book’s characters didn’t make any better of an impression.
While some of the twists were interesting, the attempted murder toward the end just seemed a little too extreme to be a natural believable progression in the novel and most of the attempts at humor did not spark.
Knowing that Milagro’s story and her growth spans three novels so far and The Bride of Casa Dracula is the third in the series, it earns three sable seals.
