A REVIEW BY SYLVIA COCHRAN

Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil
Barbara Monajem
Dorchester Publishing Company
ISBN: 978-0-505-52825-4
317 pages
March 30, 2010
Vampires/Paranormal Romance

The Backdrop

Ophelia Beliveau – the central character of Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil — is fully human and lives in Louisiana’s Bayou Gavotte. Well, she is fully human except for the vampire fangs. An odd turn of the DNA has created in her – and a small group of others – the ability to sprout vampire fangs, enjoy the occasional feast of blood and project an out-of-this world sexual allure to others.

There are no allergies to sunlight, garlic or crosses; there is also no immortality. In short, there are all the makings of a romance novel with a slight paranormal twist thrown in. Not surprisingly, author Barbara Monajem is looking to Ophelia Beliveau and the cast of characters from Bayou Gavotte to populate a new vampire series.

Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil weaves the tale of confirmed bachelor detective Gideon O’Toole who is called to scare a vandal away from the lovely vamp’s property. Before long, their budding romance develops against a setting of missing persons, a growing body count, destroyed flora and even blackmail. As is the trademark of romance novels, the occasionally racy scenes are thrown in as well.

Does it Pan Out?

Kind reader, have you ever encountered a book that you firmly believed wanted to be something other than the genre that defined it? There are children’s books that really wanted to become mysteries; there are romance novels that were straining to become psychological thrillers. In this case, I believe that Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil was meant to be either an erotic novel or Chick-Lit.

Allow me to explain. The romantic interactions carry enough ‘earthiness’ that they would be more appropriate for the erotic market. On the flipside, they are so few and far between and the dialogs are so well written – and the characters so believably developed – that it is easy to get swallowed up by even the mundane female to female interactions; when the ‘vamping’ or ‘romancing’ occurs, it is almost a bit jarring. This leads me to believe that Barbara Monajem is either an undiscovered erotic writer or a Chick-Lit genius in waiting.

Out of personal prejudice, I wish Ms. Monajem to be a Chick-Lit genius.

Charlaine Harris??

I must confess that I am a Charlaine Harris junkie; that being so, I found the marketing info compelling. It favorably compares Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil to Ms. Harris’ work. Unfortunately, I must disagree with the marketing department. While there may be some similarities, Ms. Harris’ paranormal writings have a dark undertone that is missing in this book. Any similarities between the two are … uhmm … “purely coincidental.”

In Closing

Having voiced my opinion earlier, I find Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil to be enjoyable from the Chick-Lit point of view. It holds slightly less enjoyment for the romance aficionado. The vampire fan will miss out on the supernatural aspects and lore. That being said, I would most certainly read the next installments in the series; yes, the characters do grow on you.

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For the sake of full disclosure: let the kind reader please take notice that I received an advanced reading copy of Sunrise in the Garden of Love & Evil – free of charge – from marketing contacts at Dorchester Publishing.

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