Review: Cold in California – Deborah Riley-Magnus

Cold in California by Deborah Riley-Magnus
Series:  Twice Baked Vampires
Release Date:  June 9, 2011
Publisher: ireadwrite Publishing
Page Count:
Source:  Provided by Author

Twice-baked vampire, Gabriel Strickland, learns he has a chance at redemption when he’s whisked from his final demise into a purgatory secretly tucked in West Hollywood. Sixty creatures, including other dead vampires, pixies, a legendary Navaho stick man and bothersome leprechauns, struggle together to earn brownie points and wait out possible centuries of this purgatory. Gabriel receives dubious advice from the troll who runs the place, but there are always bugs in the pudding and he faces them all. Enter, the beautiful Dori Gallagher, who not only knocks Gabriel off his feet, but also an evil warlock who has designs on her. When menacing forces gather against Gabriel and everything he’s come to respect, it’s a fiery clash of the supernatural in one heroic effort to save his new reality.

How would you like to have your immortal existence wiped out by a broken baseball bat during a Chicago Cubs game?  That’s what happened to Gabriel Strickland.  He figured he was on his way to his eternal death, but he instead found himself lying on a sidewalk in sunny Southern California.


Gabriel soon learns that immortal creatures don’t necessarily die when the eternal death comes.  Instead they could be sent to the “tank” where they wait their eternal judgement.  Of course, it’s not a quick judgement so you have to do something while you’re waiting.  Which is why Gabriel finds himself at the City of Angels Employment Agency.


Dori Gallagher loves her work at City of Angels Employment Agency.  She may not have much of a life outside of the office, but at the office she’s fabulous at what she does.  When she meet Gabriel Strickland, there’s an instant attraction and she decides for one in her life she’s going to go for it.  What she doesn’t realize is how deeply entrenched Gabriel is in the world of the supernatural and how that world is about to knock on her door.


There were a lot of twist and turns to this story.  The story draws your invested in Gabriel and Dori and I truly care about them.  I loved the quirky residents of the tank: the Stick Man who had to walk in Griffith Park to cure his root rot, the pixies who have an insatiable appetite, the vampires who think there aren’t any other vampires around except them, and the leprechauns who negotiated to have regular sex with Shirley.  They all had their quirks and it made you wonder where each of them were going to go when they got “the call”.  
 
Gabriel was great as the vampire trying to deal with not only his new existence at the Tank, but also his developing relationship with Dori and his sudden promotion to being the man in charge at the Tank.  He was complex, dark and utterly lovable (even if he was in a daze most of the time).  It was refreshing to have a vampire question everything he knew when he was given a second chance at righting some wrongs.


If you like your paranormal romance with a little bit of everything in it and a tortured vampire just trying to find his place, this story is for you.